Former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss General Johan Booysen on Tuesday welcomed National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Advocate Shamila Batohi’s decision to withdraw racketeering charges against him.
On Tuesday Batohi announced that the NPA had withdrawn racketeering charges against Booysen and his co-accused, former and current police officers from the Cato Manor unit, with a panel of advocates finding that advocates Nomgcobo Jiba and Shaun Abrahams’ authorisations had been invalid.
“I feel vindicated. It’s been a long haul but I never expected an adverse outcome to the trumped up charges against me. As I testified at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry I have no doubt that my prosecution was to neutralise me because of the cases I investigated and supervised,” Booysen said.
In an April 2019 affidavit, Booysen said that the destabilisation of the NPA had intensified under Abrahams.
He said that advocates such as Jiba, Sello Maema and Moipone Noko had essentially been designated through political manipulation to disrupt investigations into corrupt politicians and their associates
He said that Abrahams’ elevation of Jiba to the head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), his removal of NPA CEO Advocate Karen van Rensburg, his handling of the Gupta saga and “his resolve to protect former president Jacob Zuma” were indications of this destabilisation.
“I think the NPA is better off without Jiba and Abrahams. But there are remnants of their cabal still in the NPA that must be held to account for the mayhem they caused at the NPA such as Noko and Maema,” said Booysen.
Lawson Naidoo, of the executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, said that Batohi’s withdrawal of the racketeering charges against Booysen showed that advocates Jiba and Abrahams had abused their authority to pursue people for nefarious purposes.