Durban - They all have blood on their hands. This is KwaZulu-Natal head of the Hawks, Johan Booysen’s charge against the National Prosecuting Authority’s top brass including Nomgcobo Jiba, the deputy director of public prosecutions.
The assertion is made in Booysen’s new book, Blood on their Hands, about the five year on-again-off-again attempts to prosecute him on allegations of corruption from when he was head of the now-disbanded Cato Manor Serious and Violent Crimes Unit.
In the book, just about all the big names in KZN’s political, social, business and criminal landscapes who have crossed the path of “Hardegat”, as his son affectionately calls him, at some point pop up.
President Jacob Zuma, his son Edward, Durban businessman Thoshan Panday, former police commissioner Bheki Cele, the suspended KZN police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni, and former premier of KZN Zweli Mkhize, are some of the prominent names that appear in Booysen’s book.
Harry Gwala, Siphiwe Mvuyane, Sipho and Sibusiso Mkhize, the Gcabas’ taxi industry empire, Big Ben Ntuli and Inkosi Mbongeleni Zondi as well as the “KZN 26”, the cash-in transit robbers, also get a mention.
Booysen’s book launch also coincides with the reinstatement of charges against Panday, who was alleged to be in a “possibly corrupt relationship” with Ngobeni.
The charges against Panday relate to an alleged attempt to bribe Booysen in 2011, who was investigating him and Colonel Navin Madhoe for a 2010 World Cup tender fraud.
The charges stemmed from the allegations that Panday and Madhoe allegedly offered Booysen R2 million to backdate a report on an investigation into World Cup accommodation tenders worth R60m.
In the book, penned by veteran TV journalist and author Jessica Pitchford, Booysen says: “I was born to be a policeman and I want to be remembered for being a good policeman.
“If the last thing I do is to expose those destroying the criminal justice system, I’ll be happy. I’m not the only one who thinks that Jiba and her cabal have blood on their hands.”
The prosecuting authorities are adamant that Booysen is a good policeman turned bad.
His detractors and prosecutors say Booysen and his elite unit’s members, pejoratively referred to as “Booysen’s Blue-eyed Boys”, had become a law unto themselves, killing suspects wantonly and accepting bribes from rival groups, including in the taxi industry.
“Understanding the dynamics behind why my colleagues and I were persecuted, why the National Prosecuting Authority targeted me, why some within the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) and the cabinet wanted me gone, is complex.
“There isn’t a simple answer, but there is a fairly simple recipe. It takes several protagonists, each with an agenda and a common enemy, a handful of useful idiots and a shoal of circling sharks,” said Booysen, who survived a near-fatal stabbing in a Mbumbulu rondavel in 1985.
Booysen tells of his affinity for Robert McBride, the under-fire Independent Police Investigative Directorate boss.
It’s a change of heart from when he used to hold only contempt and hatred for the Magoo’s Bar bomber.
The aftermath of the destruction Booysen witnessed a day after the fateful day of the bombing has not stopped the two from having mutual admiration. Both have faced prosecution by a system they should be part of - the judicial system.
Booysen, who was said to be an ally of Cele, dismissed this claim, saying, “I had no relationship with him to speak of. I’d never even picked up the phone to call him. He hadn’t been on the selection panel for the Hawks job.
“At that stage, we’d never met alone, ever. Yet sources said I was Cele’s right-hand man. And contrary to these reports, Organised Crime hadn’t investigated taxi violence since 2006,” he said.
Booysen says the first time he met Cele was in 2011 at a Pretoria office after he had met someone in the Crime Intelligence Unit who was in possession of what he thought, according to the book, was a top-secret intelligence report, alleging corruption and political intrigue in KZN.
Booysen could not be reached for comment as he did not take the Tribune’s calls or return SMSes.
His publicist, Eileen Bezemer, said he was not doing any interviews until after the launch. The book will be launched on Tuesday in eManzimtoti, a stone’s throw from Warner Beach where Booysen grew up.
Sunday Tribune