Suspended Hawks boss Johan Booysen has hit back at prosecutions head Nomgcobo Jiba, calling her “mendacious” and “deliberately obtuse”.
|||Durban - Suspended Hawks boss Johan Booysen has hit back at prosecutions head Nomgcobo Jiba, calling her “mendacious” and “deliberately obtuse”, in his latest responding affidavit in a bid to have racketeering charges against him and the alleged Cato Manor “death squad” dropped.
Booysen had made the initial application challenging the racketeering charges against him and 27 members of the disbanded Cato Manor Serious and Violent Crime Unit in court, maintaining there is no evidence against him to warrant his prosecution.
Booysen had asked the court to declare the decision by the national director of public prosecutions to authorise the racketeering charges null and void.
He insisted that the decision was an “abuse’’ and was based on “lies’’ or “pressure’’ from those who want to “prevent me from doing my job”.
The application, brought by Booysen in the Durban High Court, will need to be heard before the trial of the unit members can move forward.
In response, Jiba said that in deciding to charge Booysen with racketeering, she relied particularly on four statements obtained during the investigation.
Of the four statements, one remains unsigned, one was made after she authorised the racketeering prosecution and another was made by a man who is now dead.
Jiba referred to statements by former Cato Manor unit commander Colonel Rajen Aiyer, Aris Danikas, a former police reservist and friend of Booysen now living in Greece, and one Ndlondlo, who said he was a police informer.
Booysen, in his affidavit, challenged her argument, saying that Aiyer’s statement “amounts to nothing more than complaints of office politics and does not provide a shred of evidence or information to support the authorisation to prosecute me on charges of racketeering”.
He said one of Aiyer’s statements was deposed two weeks after Jiba’s decision to pursue charges of racketeering, making her contention that she had considered his evidence as misleading.
As for the statement of Danikas, Booysen said it “cannot even be said to constitute information” because it is neither signed nor dated.
His statement also appeared to have been obtained long after the decision was made to prosecute Booysen.
The statement of Ndlondlo, Booysen maintained, is “replete with hearsay evidence” and should have been ignored.
“The first respondent is mendacious when she asserts she considered the statements together with other information in the docket before making the impugned decision. She could not have considered the statements referred to in her answering affidavit,” he said.
The Hawks boss said that Jiba, in charging him and his subordinates with racketeering, failed to comply with the NPA’s criteria governing the decision to prosecute.
“The first respondent (Jiba) would not have, and could not have, authorised my prosecution had she properly applied the NPA policy directives,” his affidavit read.
In her responding affidavit, Jiba said information given under oath was that Booysen knew, or should have known, that his subordinates were killing suspects instead of arresting them.
Further, there was information that the killings were, in certain circumstances, motivated by a desire by Booysen and members of the unit to “enrich themselves” through state monetary awards and certificates of excellence.
Booysen countered her claim, insisting he was never in direct command of the unit and there was no evidence that he had colluded in a cover-up of killings.
He added that monetary incentives were issued on the instruction of the national police commissioner.
“How I and others entertained a desire to enrich ourselves through a mechanism that is applied nationwide in the SAPS and subject to the scrutiny of the national commissioner escapes me,” he said.
“My innocence is not the issue, although I emphatically deny the allegations of any wrongdoing. The issue at hand is whether she had reliable, admissible and prima facie evidence before her when she took the impugned decisions.
“I reiterate that I am not entitled to, nor do I require, preferential treatment. I am, however, entitled to challenge the irrational and unconstitutional decisions of the first respondent without having to wait for a criminal trial to start and having to incur the expense involved in preparing for the same (such a trial),” the affidavit read.
jeff.wicks@inl.co.za
Sunday Tribune