SHAIN GERMANER
Recently suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli should be facing a murder inquest on September 3 after funding issues regarding his defence are said to have been resolved.
Last month an application for the taxpayers to pay for his legal team was rejected.
The murder charges against Mdluli – who was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s husband, Oupa Ramogibe – and his three co-accused were withdrawn, sparking the inquest to reopen the case.
At an appearance in April, Mdluli applied for financial assistance from the office of the national police commissioner to help pay for his high-profile – and notoriously expensive – lawyer, Ike Motloung.
However, it was announced at the Boksburg magistrate’s court that his application had been rejected, with Motlaung calling for a court review of the decision to have it overturned.
Yesterday there was no word on the application, but the defence claimed they were ready for the inquest in September.
Mdluli recently came under fire for alleged misuse and abuse of state-allocated funds He is alleged to have appointed numerous relatives as secret agents within crime intelligence, aand allegedly used police funds to equip his Dawn Park home with a R150 000 security system.
The misuse of state funds emerged in statements by Hawks investigators in a secret report submitted to acting police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi last month.
Now Mdluli, who appears to be in line to become the next police commissioner, may be facing theft, murder and fraud charges for Ramogibe’s murder.
Doctored case dockets, missing files and even the disappearance of evidence in a rape case have been attributed to Mdluli and three other suspects – court orderly Samuel Dlomo, 49, Colonel Nkosana Sebastian Ximba, 38, and Lieutenant-Colonel Mtunzi-Omhle Mthembeni Mtunzi, 52.
Last year the State argued that Mdluli, who commanded the Vosloorus Police Station’s detective branch between 1997 and 1999, had got his junior officers to help him hunt down, kidnap and kill his girlfriend’s new husband, Ramogibe, in the late 1990s.
Only last year did the decade-old love triangle came to light. Mdluli was suspended in connection with the 1999 kidnapping and murder.
He was also charged with defrauding the police and a Pretoria car dealership of more than R90 000, and for causing it to lose a further R1.28m.
However, all the charges were withdrawn and Mdluli was reinstated, until Sunday when he was once again suspended.