Johannesburg - The DA on Monday called for a parliamentary investigation into the police minister's conduct following a high court judgment which found that acting Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza had acted dishonestly.
“The Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, as the individual who started this series of unlawful suspensions must himself be suspended pending a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct,” Democratic Alliance MP Dianne Kohler Barnard said in a statement.
She would push the police portfolio committee to initiate the investigation.
Earlier, High Court in Pretoria Judge Elias Matojane found Ntlemeza was dishonest and lacked integrity.
“The third respondent (Ntlemeza) elected to withhold from the court the Ipid report and the docket that was in his possession, to enable the court to make a proper assessment of the strength or otherwise of the case against the applicant (Gauteng Hawks head Shadrack Sibiya),” Matojane said.
He dismissed an application by Ntlemeza seeking leave to appeal the court's ruling overturning Sibiya's suspension.
Matojane ruled in February that Sibiya's suspension was unconstitutional, invalid, and unlawful. Ntlemeza filed an appeal three days later.
He suspended Sibiya pending an investigation into his alleged role in the illegal rendition of Zimbabweans to that country's police in 2010.
Sibiya argued that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) had exonerated him from any involvement in the renditions, and he did not know why he was suspended.
The DA said Sibiya should get his job back.
“Sibiya must be reinstated and Ntlemeza must be removed because he was unlawfully appointed by the Police Minister from the very beginning.”
Nhleko and Ntlemeza could not pick which report to use to justify the suspension of national Hawks boss Anwa Dramat and Sibiya, Kohler Barnard said.
Sapa