Police investigate plot to bring down Phiyega’s rivals
ACTING national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane has launched an investigation into an alleged plot to tarnish the reputations of those seen to be against General Riah Phiyega.
Phahlane’s spokesman, Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, told the Pretoria News yesterday the acting police commissioner had received the related correspondence and would investigate the allegations.
Phiyega was suspended by President Jacob Zuma last month pending an inquiry into her fitness to hold office.
Crime Line head Yusuf Abramjee, who is mentioned in the plot, set the ball rolling and wrote to Phahlane requesting that he take action against Phiyega’s former spokesman and right-hand man, Lieutenant General Solomon Makgale.
In a document titled “Top Secret. Operation Takedown”, which the Pretoria News has seen, Makgale was alleged to have convened a meeting in Durban and at his office in the Pretoria city centre to hatch the plot.
Makgale refused to comment on the matter, saying he had not yet seen the document in question. He allegedly met Brigadier Vish Naidoo, unnamed senior police officials and a journalist from a Sunday newspaper, and devised the smear campaign against those seen as Phiyega’s detractors.
The campaign was against some of Phiyega’s opponents and individuals seen to be a threat to her position as national police commissioner. The meeting, which was held in Durban on October 16, took place in the wake of Phiyega’s suspension. The document further said the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, former national police commissioner Bheki Cele, would be discredited as part of the plot.
Cele said: “They (the police) must concentrate on what is on the table rather than involve themselves in other stuff. Crime is a serious problem.”
Also, the plot would bring to light some of the actions of the divisional commissioner of the detective services, Lieutenant-General Vinesh Moonoo. He had apparently been accused by private investigator Paul O’Sullivan of interfering with police investigations.
Abramjee would then be held responsible for the negative publicity aimed at Moonoo as part of the smear campaign.
The document also listed Makgale’s properties, active directorship in companies, as well as his involvement in the taxi industry and public relations, some of which were allegedly in direct conflict with his position as the national police spokesman.
In the e-mail that Abramjee sent to the acting commissioner, he demanded that action be taken against those who were alleged to be present during the conception of the document.
Makgale allegedly also had issues with Abramjee’s Crime Line and was believed to have threatened to close it down, as the organisation had allegedly refused the SAPS access to its financial records.
Information also came to light that Abramjee’s son, who serves as a reservist at the SAPS national office and reports to Moonoo, was illegally in possession of a police radio.
It was suggested that Phiyega had ordered that the radio be confiscated.