Johannesburg - Grave concern has been expressed at the lack of progress in the investigation of the murders and assault of several senior police generals – and burglaries from their high-security offices and homes – over the past two years.
A string of break-ins at the offices of the Hawks, Interpol and other specialised police units since 2014 have raised fears a highly organised gang with contacts within the police could be linked to these crimes. Some believe the culprits were more than opportunistic burglars, but rather international criminals involved in contraband looking for information relating to their operations.
In at least one of the five break-ins in Pretoria, burglars gained entry – twice over a single weekend – to highly secured buildings with access-control cards and key codes. They stole laptops, cameras and electronic equipment from the offices of five senior policemen seconded to Interpol in 2014.
A crime intelligence source said it seemed the burglars returned for a second break-in on the same weekened because they had not found the information they were looking for the first time. No arrests have yet been made.
Andy Mashaile, former chairman of the Gauteng Community Police Board and Interpol’s global ambassador for its anti-crime initiative, Turn Back Crime, said it “is worrying that very little progress has been made in these investigations”.
Acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane insisted there was no evidence to prove claims of links between these crimes and international criminal syndicates or their alleged contacts within the police.
He said while the crimes were a priority, “they do not receive special treatment”.
“Police do not differentiate between the killing of a policeman or the burglary at his office or home and that of ordinary citizens. Murder is murder and burglary is burglary.
“Normal investigation procedures will be followed. These investigations are being taken seriously and are ongoing.”
However, a three-month investigation by Independent Media suggests there are links between the attacks on senior officers and break-ins at their offices and organised criminal gangs.
Several sources within the police confirm this, including the international policing organisation, Interpol.
Sources within the police, who asked not to be named, confirmed that investigations into some of the attacks revealed there were senior officials who were allegedly on the payroll of crime syndicates involved in cigarette smuggling, gun running and theft of motor vehicles which were illegally taken to neighbouring countries such as Mozambique via KwaZulu-Natal.
They say senior policemen who are not corrupt are regarded as obstacles to these syndicates and are, therefore, eliminated.
“But there are also those who are involved in these gangs who are forced to eliminate those who are working for opposing gangs, especially in the cigarette-smuggling rings.”
The source said while the majority of police attacks, especially on junior members, were by ordinary criminals, attacks on senior members were hits.
Several unsolved cases include:
* A break-in at the highly secured office of then Gauteng provincial police commissioner General Mzwandile Petros in June 2013. The perpetrators made a hole in the roof above a toilet to gain access to Petros’s office, but nothing was taken.
The break-in at Petros’s office was on the night before the murder of Major-General Tirhani Maswanganyi, who was the Joburg cluster commander. His body was found near Hammanskraal on June 17, 2013.
Maswanganyi had apparently indicated a fews days earlier that he was going to be killed. Three men are to be sentenced in the High Court in Pretoria for his murder next month.
Maswanganyi’s wife, Shareen, died along the same stretch of road on July 20 last year when she was on her way to attend the trial of her husband’s alleged killers. She apparently lost control of her car and crashed into a tree. It is believed the brakes of her vehicle had been tampered with.
* One of the country’s most senior policemen, Lieutenant-General Layton Mzondeki “Sean” Tshabalala, who at the time was divisional commissioner of the inspectorate of the police, was found dead in his office in Pretoria in December 2013. Police are still waiting for a toxicology report to confirm the cause of his death.
At Tshabalala’s funeral, former national police commissioner Bheki Cele said there was a list of targeted people in the police and Tshabalala’s name was first on the list of 18 other former Umkhonto weSizwe colleagues and police colleagues.
* In April 2014, Pretoria Central cluster commander Major-General Daniel Mthombeni was shot 10 times when he arrived home after work and was confronted by an intruder in his house. A task team was appointed to investigate, but their findings have not been made public.
* The Panorama home of then-Western Cape provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer was burgled in the early hours of March 17 last year. The robbers took a number of items including electronic equipment.
Mashaile said burglaries and the attacks on senior police officers were of great concern to the country. “I visited General Petros at his office and General Mthombeni immediately after the incidents at his home and one could see sophisticated gangs were involved.”
Sunday Independent