Cape Town – Burglaries, intimidation and threats targeting a police colonel who was investigating corruption in the Crime Intelligence Unit were “consonant” with steps taken by police management to shut down his probe.
This is contained in a judgment which focuses on Johan Roos, a colonel who was an internal auditor in Crime Intelligence, responsible for auditing the Secret Service account, and who blew the lid on the suspected corruption.
A report, cited in the judgment handed down by Judge Robert Lagrange in the Johannesburg Labour Court earlier this week, found there was “rampant corruption taking place on a breathtaking scale” in the Crime Intelligence Unit.
According to the judgment, between 2005 and 2010, Roos’s home was burgled and notes relating to his investigations stolen, his office was broken into and he received a note, consisting of letters cut and pasted from other documents, in his post box saying: “U keep digging now its over nice house”.
The judgment said: “If he had been supported in his activities by his superiors, it might be easier to brush off these incidents as unrelated, but it is an undeniable cause for concern that these criminal actions were consonant with the official steps taken to shut down his investigations… to minimise the risk of him discovering more.”
According to court papers, Roos discovered fraud relating to the Secret Service account and after initially being authorised to investigate it, was instead transferred.
The judgment found that Roos should be redeployed, preferably to the Internal Audit section of Crime Intelligence or in a similar section in the police.
And the police were ordered to pay R156 250 compensation to him within two weeks.
Trade union Solidarity represented Roos, who took on the police service, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega.
On Thursrday, Solidarity spokesman Johan Kruger said it was in the process of writing to the police about Roos’s redeployment and planned to approach the public protector about the investigations with which Roos had been busy.
National police spokesman Solomon Makgale said: “We have reviewed the judgment and we will pronounce ourselves on it at a later stage.”
The judgment said Roos’s disclosures “concerned serious corruption and fraudulent activity implicating very senior officers in the Crime Intelligence division”.
But instead of being rewarded with praise, the judgment said, Roos was gradually deprived of authority.
Roos’s evidence showed that in 2004 he had “discovered discrepancies” relating to payments to a cleaning service used by Crime Intelligence in undercover operations.
“He was later advised there was prima facie evidence of fraud in the operation of the account.”
Roos’s evidence was that then-Crime Intelligence head Mulangi Mphego had ordered him to stop the investigations.
“Roos believed that Mphego was angry because the investigation implicated people he (Mphego) was friendly with,” the judgment said….
South Africa Today – South Africa News
