Cop boss: Powers take cases from police
2012-04-20 08:28
Cape Town - External "powers" often take cases away from the police, MPs heard on Thursday.
"We have been told in many instances of late that we don't have rights to investigate certain case dockets," acting national police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said during a briefing on the SA Police Service's strategic plans for 2012/13.
"We must release some case dockets to [the] inspector general of intelligence because we don't have jurisdiction.
"We do that. We take those case dockets, we send them to court again, we sit and wait. That is all a police officer can do."
Mdluli saga
Mkhwanazi said "other powers beyond us" decided whether a case should be prosecuted or not.
"There are powers beyond us that are going to decide whether there is a conviction or not. It's all good that we say we want to achieve this target of conviction, [but] we are not prosecutors. We are not judges."
His remarks come after the dropping of criminal charges against crime intelligence chief Richard Mdluli.
He was tipped to become the country's next police commissioner after fraud and murder charges against him were dropped two months apart.
The dropping of the charges comes amid reports of top-level political pressure on the NPA, and the Inspector General of Intelligence, Faith Radebe, to let him off the hook.
Mdluli was reinstated as head of the Crime Intelligence Division (CID) after the NPA dropped fraud charges against him relating to the alleged abuse of the police's service account.
Along with Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and CID finance chief Solly Lazarus, he was accused of sanctioning the abuse of millions of rands from the account for private ends.
Mdluli has been dogged by murder charges relating to the killing of a love rival in 1999.
But in February, the NPA withdrew charges against him and three others stemming from the death of Oupa Ramogibe, and established an inquest to determine whether the state had enough evidence for a trial.
- SAPA
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Cop-boss-Powers-take-cases-from-police-20120419
