Johannesburg - A SAPS brigadier, seemingly vindicated on charges of fraud against her, is now challenging an attempt by the State to have her testify against a colleague allegedly responsible for the same fraud.
Benoni cluster commander Brigadier Vuyokazi Ndebele was suspended from her position in August last year and criminally charged for alleged fraud relating to the recruitment of entry-level SAPS candidates in the Moroka policing cluster in Soweto.
She was accused of changing the recommended list of recruits to include candidates who had not met the SAPS’s minimum specifications.
However, in January, the criminal charges against her were dropped and instituted against another officer involved in the hiring, Captain Johannes Mokheseng.
The internal disciplinary action against her also vindicated the brigadier, according to her lawyer, James Ndebele (no relation).
Mokheseng’s fraud trial is set to start next week, and the State subpoenaed the brigadier to testify as a State witness. On Friday, Ndebele and her lawyer were to launch an urgent application in the high court in Joburg to prevent this.
In an affidavit submitted as part of the application, Ndebele said: “The purpose of this application is to set that subpoena aside as a violation of my constitutionally entrenched right to a fair trial, including my rights to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, to silence and to be protected from self-incrimination.”
The brigadier said the requirement for her to testify was an attempt by the SAPS to further harass and intimidate her while she remains on paid and indefinite suspension for the charges for which she was acquitted.
Her attorney asked the prosecution to send a list of questions set for the testimony by June 25, but this call was not heeded.
“The request was made to determine the relevance, if any, of the evidence sought from me and to establish why I had been summoned to appear at the criminal trial. I am advised that these charges, although withdrawn, can be reinstated. It is on this basis that I seek to have the subpoena set aside.”
When Ndebele’s lawyer spoke to The Star in January after the charges were dropped, he indicated that the “witch-hunt” against his client was a sign of factionalism within the SAPS.
National police spokesman Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said the SAPS would “vigorously” oppose Friday’s court application.
He said the reason the charges had initially been dropped against Ndebele was because of numerous representations she made to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who decided she should be made a State witness.
Makgale also said while the disciplinary process went in Ndebele’s favour, the matter was set for a Labour Court review as “the (disciplinary hearing) was not in line with (the SAPS’s) precepts”.