Police spy boss faces criminal charges
Charl du Plessis@CharlduPlessc22
October 2013 14:37
Acting police crime
intelligence head Chris Ngcobo is facing criminal charges over what appear to
be false declarations of his qualifications.
In a press release issued
today, national police commissioner General RiahPhiyega said that Ngcobo “had
so far failed to explain discrepancies” between the qualifications he had
declared to police and what they had on record.
“As such, I have placed him
on special leave and instructed that criminal investigations and disciplinary
action against him be initiated.”
As a result of this,
Ngcobo’s top-secret security clearance had been denied.
Phiyega announced that
General Bongiwe Zulu, who has a doctorate in education and joined the SA Police
Service in 2002, would be replacing Ngcobo.
According to the press
statement, Zulu spent three years as a brigadier in the crime intelligence
division.
Ngcobo’s suspension is the
latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the police’s beleaguered crime
intelligence unit.
Last month, City Press reported
that Ngcobo had abandoned his office at the crime intelligence headquarters as
a result of being undermined by a faction of crime intelligence officers who
were loyal to suspended crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli.
Ngcobo was appointed to
replace the powerful Mdluli last year, after Mdluli was suspended amid
sustained controversy over the alleged looting of the crime intelligence slush
fund.
Mdluli famously wrote to
President Jacob Zuma ahead of the ANC’s Mangaung elective conference offering
his “assistance” if Zuma intervened in what Mdluli called a conspiracy to get
rid of him.
City Press was told that
the crime intelligence unit now has fewer than 20 intelligence projects, down
from around 120 a few years ago.
Rights group Freedom Under
Law was last month successful in having decisions
to drop criminal and disciplinary charges against Mdluli overturned in the
North Gauteng High Court.
That case has been appealed
by police and the National Prosecuting Authority.
