Renditions saga: Ipid axes Sesoko

Chief Director of Investigation and Information Management at Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) Matthews Sesoko has been fired. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Chief Director of Investigation and Information Management at Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) Matthews Sesoko has been fired. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Published Aug 17, 2016

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Cape Town – The head of investigations at the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), Matthews Sesoko, has been dismissed in the long-running saga about the alleged doctoring of a report on the illegal rendition of Zimbabwean citizens that cost the former head of the watchdog body, as well as that of the Hawks, their jobs.

Sesoko received notice of his dismissal on Tuesday, Ipid spokesman Robbie Raburabu said, and it was confirmed by the acting head of the body, Israel Kgamanyane, on Wednesday.

Raburabu said Sesoko appeared before the disciplinary panel on Tuesday. He was fighting charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice for allegedly altering a report to cover up the head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) Anwar Dramat’s alleged role in the rendition of five Zimbabweans to the Zimbabwean police in 2010 and 2011.

Sesoko was accused, along with the former executive director of Ipid, Robert McBride and the former Ipid provincial head in Limpopo Innocent Khuba. They claim that the three had doctored an Ipid report into the renditions to exonerate Dramat and former Hawks Gauteng head Shadrack Sibiya which saw control of the elite crime fighting unit go to General Berning Ntlemeza and drew counter claims of a political conspiracy.

In June, the disciplinary proceedings against Sesoko were briefly halted after he secured a Labour Court interdict pending the outcome of an application he brought to the Gauteng High court Pretoria Division to declare a section of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate Act unconstitutional.

He lost this bid later that month, allowing Ipid to resume the hearing.

Rabarubu said he was not aware of reports that Sesoko was seriously ill, and noted that he was at the hearing on Tuesday.

McBride has successfully challenged the police minister’s power to suspend him and is awaiting a Constitutional Court decision on that ruling. He successfully approached the Labour Court to put his disciplinary inquiry on hold.

African News Agency

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