Cape Town -
The fate of 1 500 case dockets, which apparently would have incriminated countless corrupt police officers, became a focus this week of the increasingly heated top-cop-versus-politician smear campaign saga.
DA provincial legislature member Lennit Max was roped in when the ANC accused him of illegally suspending Major-General Jeremy Vearey 13 years ago, just as Vearey had been about to expose rampant police corruption.
This, they charged, sparked systematic attempts to discredit Vearey.
But Max, who was provincial police commissioner at the time, has denied the claim.
“The ANC should have first investigated the reasons I disciplined Jeremy Vearey before they made such unfounded allegations.”
On Thursday the ANC in the Western Cape hosted a press conference on the smear saga during which various sensational claims and allegations were levelled at DA members.
Provincial ANC secretary Faiez Jacobs accused community safety MEC Dan Plato of putting Vearey’s life in danger “by spreading vexatious lies”. He said there had already been two attempts on Vearey’s life.
The provincial ANC planned to take legal action against Plato, they said.
Plato rejected the ANC’s allegations, saying he would pass them on to Police Minister Nathi Nhleko and acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane for the Hawks to consider as part of a bigger investigation.
The Hawks are probing information contained in two affidavits. One, leaked to Weekend Argus about two weeks ago, alleged Vearey worked with a suspected gang boss who was said to have ordered an underworld murder in Strand in January. The second claimed Vearey had received R6 million from jailed Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir.
About two weeks ago Vearey, the deputy provincial police commissioner for detectives, accused Plato of orchestrating a smear campaign to discredit him. Plato has vehemently denied this.
Vearey warned Plato his investigations into Crime Intelligence officers and gangsters were leading police closer to politicians. Vearey believed the affidavit leaked to Weekend Argus formed part of a fresh smear campaign against him.
On Thursday, during the ANC press conference, Jacobs said there was a track record dating back more than a decade of attacks on Vearey, a former Umkhonto weSizwe member, and by implication the ANC.
“In about 2000, Vearey was illegally suspended by Lennit Max, then provincial (police) commissioner and now a DA member of the provincial legislature, as he exposed wholesale corruption in the old gang unit,” Jacobs said. “The fate of the 1 500 dockets Vearey intercepted in order to prove blatant corruption and gross negligence remains unknown.”
But this week Max said: “The ANC’s information is blatantly wrong.”
He was not aware of Vearey having been illegally suspended. “I disciplined Major General Jeremy Vearey during 2002/03 for insubordination for ignoring my instructions and not in connection with dockets or the gang unit.
If my memory serves me correctly, Vearey was found guilty and sanctioned to a dismissal suspended for 12 months.”
An article on Vearey’s suspension at the time said he had been sanctioned on three charges, including defying an order by Max. It said he was reprimanded for refusing to present dockets to superior officers for inspection. Vearey was a senior superintendent and head investigating officer with Operation Slasher, a unit probing 1 500 gang murders and attempted murders.
Sunday Argus