Durban -
Major-General Johan Booysen reported for duty on Monday morning, this was after he was cleared in a report into a police disciplinary hearing.
“All I’m prepared to say at this stage is that I’ve reported for duty this morning. I don’t want to appear as arrogant, so that’s all I can say for now,” Booysen told the Daily News.
The report labelled national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega, an “evasive and unsatisfactory witness” to the hearing.
According to the report, by independent advocate Nazeer Cassim, SC, provincial commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni had wanted Booysen, the KZN Hawks head, gone.
However, the battle to remove Booysen seems far from over, as the police said on Monday they would be taking the finding on review.
Booysen’s lawyer, Carl van der Merwe on Monday said his client had been exonerated and that Booysen now needed to get his life back on track and return to fighting crime.
Booysen and members of the disbanded Cato Manor Serious and Violent Crimes Unit, were suspended two years ago and investigated for allegedly killing more than 20 crime suspects and for planting firearms to legitimise the killings.
They were charged with racketeering and more than 100 other charges, including murder and robbery.
The inquiry, said Cassim, was “permeated by a political agenda”.
In March all charges were withdrawn against Booysen after a court ruled there was no evidence against him. .
Booysen was charged internally with “misconduct” and mismanagement relating to his handling of three separate incidents:
* The shooting of taxi boss Bongani Mkhize;
* The shooting of schoolboy Kwazi Ndlovu; and
* His alleged “inaction” against members of the unit following an article critical of their conduct in the Sunday Times.
Cassim clears him of any wrongdoing on all counts and calls into question the motives of one officer – a ballistics expert – who ignored crucial evidence in the Mkhize shooting that the “notorious gangster” had primer residue on his right hand, proving that he had shot at the police.
He lambastes a former commander of the Cato Manor unit, Colonel Rajen Ayer – who is one of the State’s key witnesses in the criminal trial against the Cato Manor men – labelling him “dismal” and “obsessed by his own importance, political acceptability”.
“I think those in charge of the SAPS ought to carefully consider his role in the police force,” Cassim said, saying if management actually believed it could establish a case against Booysen on his evidence “this was a serious error of judgement or, worse still, a strong indication that the employer sought to create a case where it did not exist”.
The report further states that there was evidence about how provincial police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni attempted to stop an investigation into alleged corruption involving Colonel Navin Madhoe and a “private individual”.
It tells how Booysen had been summonsed, on more than one occasion, to her office to meet the individual – a KZN businessman – and his legal representative.
This, Cassim said, “makes a mockery of policing in our country”, according to sister newspaper, the Mercury.
Democratic Alliance spokeswoman on police, Dianne Kohler Barnard on Monday said police top brass should let Booysen do his job as a crime fighter, adding that resources were wasted and instead pursue the businessman, who was still driving around in his Lamborghini.
Ngobeni on Monday said she did not wish not to comment.
“We have internal ways of dealing with police issues, not through the media,” she said.
The businessman said he did not entertain commenting on untested reports. He claimed he had proof that Booysen had sent his men to gain access into his bank accounts fraudulently.
“I have proof that my phones were bugged by Booysen and this has been reported to the authorities,” he said. “He was obsessed with me”.
Phiyega and her spokesman, General Solomon Makgakle, could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.