A bullet, a coffin and a R100m lawsuit
Jacques Pauw@City_Press20 April 2014 6:00
Police
Minister NathiMthethwa.
A petrol station owner is
suing Police Minister NathiMthethwa for R100 million because, he claims, he’s
the victim of “frightening” police incompetence and criminal cops.
Johann Roodt hasn’t visited
his Khepe Motors petrol station in the Eastern Cape town of Flagstaff for the
past three years because he’s too scared.
Even though he lives in
Durban, he wears a bulletproof vest at all times.
Roodt says in papers filed
before the South Gauteng High Court that he has, since 2009, been the victim of
armed robbery, arson, theft, fraud, intimidation and death threats.
He claims a bullet was left
for him at the petrol station and a coffin was recently delivered to the
premises.
Both his regular customers
and his staff have been threatened, he claims.
Roodt gives details of 17
emails to President Jacob Zuma, the office of the national police commissioner
and various police generals – and his station manager says he even spoke to
Zuma personally when calling the presidential hotline.
Station manager James
Talbot says in an affidavit filed with Roodt’s lawyers that he called the hotline
in desperation and ended up speaking to Zuma himself.
Zuma is known to
occasionally speak to people who have lodged complaints with the hotline.
Talbot claims that Zuma
referred him to Mthethwa and undertook to come back to him.
He says neither Mthethwa
nor Zuma ever responded, nor did current police commissioner General
RiahPhiyega’s office, despite promises to do so.
“I am finished. I cannot go
on like this. The whole family is on stress muti,” says Roodt. “I have no other
option but to go to court and fight them.”
Ironically, he’s being
represented in court by senior advocate Kemp J Kemp – who has appeared for Zuma
several times and successfully defended him during his rape trial in 2006.
“I have no doubt that the
criminals want me dead,” says Roodt. “I have tried everything and it is clear
that nobody cares.”
Roodt claims that he has in
the past five years sold just 200 000 litres of fuel a month instead of the 800
000 litres a month he was selling before.
He says he has suffered
direct losses of R67 million through “intimidation” and “sabotage”. Losses at
the garage’s convenience shop make up the balance of his mammoth claim.
He has laid nine charges,
ranging from fraud to armed robbery, at the Flagstaff police station since
2009.
He has also laid nine
charges with the Port Shepstone police in KwaZulu-Natal and two in Matatiele in
the Eastern Cape.
He says none of these
charges were investigated and if they were, he did not receive any feedback.
He also claims that some
dossiers have disappeared.
In their replying papers
filed before court, the police have denied Roodt’s allegations.
Roodt is embroiled in a
bitter battle with his landlord, businessman and lay preacher Stanley Godlwana.
He alleges in his papers
that Godlwana and the police worked in cahoots to drive him from town.
Godlwana has denied any
collusion with the police and rejected Roodt’s allegations against him.
He said he was in the
process of terminating Roodt’s long-term lease of the filling station.
Police spokesperson
Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said that Roodt had reported five cases –
against Godlwana, among others – to the Flagstaff police station.
Makgale said that in one of
the cases, Roodt withdrew the charge and in another, a witness did not appear
in court. The accused was acquitted in another.
Makgale said there was a
case the state declined to prosecute, and that a 2012 armed robbery at Roodt’s
filling station was still being investigated by the Hawks.
