Parliament – The Independent Police Investigative Directorate has opened criminal cases against suspended national police commissioner Riah Phiyega and the former police commissioner in North West over the Marikana shooting, the watchdog’s acting head on Tuesday told MPs.
Israel Kgamanyane told Parliament’s portfolio committee on police that on September 8 last year, cases were registered against Phiyega and Zukiswa Mbombo. They are being investigated for giving misleading testimony before the Farlam commission.
Read: No lifeline for Phiyega backers
Ipid also opened cases of defeating the ends of justice against Brigadier Ledile Malahlela and Major General Ganasen Naidoo, he said.
In Naidoo’s case the charges relate to a failure to “exercise command and control” at scene 2 — as investigators are referring to one of the two areas at Marikana where police shot dead 17 mine workers on August 16, 2012. The total death toll of 34 was the highest at the hands of police in the post-apartheid era.
Kgamanyane and Ipid’s regional head in North West told MPs the watchdog’s investigation into whether police should bear criminal responsibility for the shooting began in mid-2015 but was met with obstruction from the police.
Read: Phiyega hits out at police minister
Among the problems was the police’s refusal to allow independent ballistics experts access to their facilities to conduct testing.
“The South African Police Services laboratories are saying they will not allow any independent forensics experts to use them,” said Joel Mosimanegape, Ipid’s head in North West province.
He explained that this complicated the Ipid probe into the police’s conduct at Marikana as independent experts lacked the level of equipment that was at the police’s disposal.
Ipid’s investigation was further complicated by a disagreement with police on working procedures in August that has yet to be resolved as there was no consensus regarding “certain technicalities”.
Under questioning from MPs, Mosimanegape conceded frustration regarding the investigation against Malahlela who is being probed for the loss of information from a memory stick that contained a recording of an extraordinary meeting Phiyega held with top brass after a regular meeting of the National Management Forum on August 15, 2012.
Malahlela, the head of the executive secretariat risk and information management, took home the memory stick that held the only record of what was said between Phiyega and senior officers that night about the powder keg Marikana had become.
She stands accused of defeating the ends of justice and breaching the Protection of Information Act of 1982 for failing to protect state information captured on the memory stick, Mosimanegape said.
Malahlela was found to have held on to the memoray stick for six days, instead of handing it over for a transcript to be made, in which time the section in which Marikana was discussed, was apparently deleted from it.
Read: ‘Probe Phiyega’s overall performance’
MPS suggested that it was highly improbable that one official would take it upon herself, without instruction, to tamper with sensitive information and asked what Ipid was doing to find out who all were involved in destroying the recording.
“Honestly speaking, we have our suspicions but we can’t do anything other than go directly for her (Malahlela) and see what else the investigation reveals,” Mosimanegape said.
This prompted ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane to say the events reminded him of the apartheid regime.
“You are going back to a bad era, reminding us of the old days … people disappearing, information disappearing,” he said.
The chairman of the portfolio committee, Francois Beukman, warned acting national police commissioner Lieutenant General Johannes Khomotso Phahlane that it would monitor the extent of the police’s co-operation with the Ipid investigation.
It was imperative, he said, that ballistics experts be allowed to conduct their work.
“From the committee’s side there will be no compromise,” Beukman said.
He also cautioned Ipid that its progress in implementing the recommendations of the Farlam commission would be closely watched.
“It is a litmus test for oversight of the police services.”
The Farlam commission recommended that the state appoint a team comprising senior Ipid investigators and independent experts in ballistics and forensics and other fields to conduct a full investigation into the shooting under the direction of the National Director of Public Prosecutions to determine whether the police were criminally liable for the death of mine workers.
It also recommended that the staffing and resources of Ipid, which has in the past year been mired in political controversy, be reviewed to ensure that it is able to carry out this task.
According to Kgamanyane, Ipid has R5 million available for the probe, with all of the funds coming from its existing budget.
African News Agency
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.