Pretoria - Lobby group AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit has written to national police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola to register a formal complaint regarding how the allegations of criminal conduct by Pierre de Vos are being handled by the police.
Spokesperson for the Private Prosecution Unit, Barry Bateman said more than six weeks after the complaint was filed, the case had not yet been assigned to an investigator.
“Instead, the SAPS were juggling the case docket between different police stations,” said Bateman.
De Vos is alleged to have distributed child pornography in contravention of the Film and Publications Act when content, purportedly depicting a young boy being sexually abused by an adult man, was retweeted on his Twitter account.
Subsequently, De Vos, a renowned University of Cape Town constitutional law expert and seasoned political commentator, has publicly stated that his account was hacked.
The complainant in the matter, René van der Vyver, spokesperson for AfriForum Youth, reported the case on September 21, 2022 to the Humewood police station in Gqeberha.
“That afternoon she received a text message from the police confirming the case had been registered. Minutes later, another text message from the police stated that the case had been transferred to Rondebosch police station in Cape Town.
“On October 13, Van der Vyver received a call from a person at Lyttelton police station in Centurion, saying the case would be referred to the correct police station for investigation,” said Bateman.
AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit on Friday said Van der Vyver has received another SMS from SAPS, indicating that the case was back at Humewood police station.
“Coincident with our complaint, Van der Vyver received another computer-generated SMS indicating that the case had gone full circle and was back at the Humewood police station and that an investigator had now been appointed.
“These sudden developments raise our concerns about what exactly the SAPS have done over the last six weeks regarding the reported criminal case and investigation thereof. The unit is hopeful the SAPS will take our complaint seriously and put into action the President’s commitments to eradicate gender-based violence and sexual offences,” said Bateman.
In the letter to Masemola, seen by IOL, head of the AfriForum Private Prosecution Unit, advocate Gerrie Nel said the police response to the criminal complaint has been “deplorable and lethargic”.
“This deplorable and lethargic response to a complaint is not unknown to the citizens the SAPS are entrusted to serve. Therefore, while not difficult to believe, we stand aghast at the keenness of the national police service and its management to focus on administrative ‘case registration’ while abandoning the core constitutional obligations of investigating crimes reported to the SAPS.
“This office was created to deal with selective prosecution to ensure that justice is done and that equality before the law is entrenched. We submit that we are now confronted with either selective investigation or downright incompetence by the SAPS in the bungling of our client’s complaint and refusal to investigate the identified suspect, Mr Pierre de Vos,” said Nel in the letter to Masemola.
IOL