Durban - The new national Hawks head has denied harbouring any malice, ulterior motive or bad faith against his colleague, recently suspended KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss, Major-General Johan Booysen.
Lieutenant-General Berning Ntlemeza also denied a vendetta to get rid of Booysen, in his recently filed court papers opposing Booysen’s urgent high court application to set aside his suspension.
“I am simply performing my duties without fear, favour or prejudice,” his affidavit read.
Ntlemeza and national and provincial police commissioners, General Riah Phiyega and Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, denied the allegations against them.
In her replying court papers, Ngobeni said the initial racketeering charge against Booysen and his team from the since disbanded Cato Manor Organised Crime Unit was his “Achilles’ heel” – the reason for the suspensions, disciplinary and court proceedings against him – and “certainly not any investigations into me, as he alleges”.
In court papers Booysen claimed his latest suspension, on a charge of fraud, over a typographical error on a document he did not author or sign, was yet another attempt to stop him investigating corruption involving senior police officers and Ngobeni.
He said the facts contained in the document were all correct, but the author, Lieutenant-Colonel Willie Olivier, had mistakenly used an eight (representing the month August) instead of a nine (September) in the case number.
Booysen said because he was a potential recipient of the award – R10 000 – he did not sign the document, but instead sent it to his boss, assistant commissioner Pat Brown, who signed it.
The award was for the work of his since disbanded unit in 2008, for tracking down the killers of taxi violence investigator, Lieutenant-Colonel Zethembe Chonco.
Booysen had fought previous suspensions and had charges of murder and racketeering withdrawn against him.
Ngobeni had attached an annexure to her affidavit. It was Booysen’s affidavit used in previous court proceedings where, she said, on his own version, she made it quite clear she could not prevent an investigation.
She denied any investigations against her and also did not acknowledge there was an ongoing investigation against her, saying the Directorate of Public Prosecutions had declined to prosecute her in the past, from 2010 onwards, on any allegations or investigations presented to them.
Ntlemeza argued for Booysen’s application to be dismissed as it was “incompetent and bad in law, as this court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain it”.
“An employee who is on precautionary suspension with full pay and benefits for a limited period of 60 days pending the finalisation of an investigation cannot claim that his application is urgent,” his affidavit read.
He felt it should instead have been brought before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration or the relevant Bargaining Council.
Ntlemeza also argued that none of the grounds Booysen raised for the review suspension – irrationality, ulterior motive, bad faith and unreasonableness – had merit, nor did he have evidence to substantiate it.
He described Booysen’s “innuendoes” as “ far-fetched and at best wholly untenable”.
“(Booysen’s) inferential reasoning is that because of his perception that he had been previously persecuted by the previous (police) commissioners, both at national and provincial level, for his alleged investigation of provincial commissioner Ngobeni, then it follows that I, too, have the propensity to perpetuate the victimisation by suspending him on allegations completely unrelated to those he was confronted with in the past. I find this analogy by the applicant preposterous, to say the least,” he said.
He denied Booysen’s suspension was unlawful or made with the ulterior motive to remove him from duty or to prevent him from continuing with certain high-level investigations.
The suspension, he said, was made in accordance with their police regulations.
He felt Booysen did not take the court into his confidence by disclosing which “high-level investigation” he was referring to.
Ntlemeza also contended that Booysen, like any other employee, was subject to the applicable regulations concerning discipline, and was not immune to it, and “he is certainly not above the law”.