Police boss in bid to block investigator
6
February 2017
Staff
Writer
Acting police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane is
seeking to interdict investigator Paul O’Sullivan from being involved in
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) investigations into him.
Phahlane, who appointed BDK Attorneys to represent him in the
matter, has asked the high court in Pretoria for O’Sullivan and one of his
employees, Sarah Trent, to be interdicted from threatening or harassing him,
and inciting others to do so.
Phahlane also requested that they be stopped from sharing any
information about his personal, professional and private life unless they were
allowed to do so by the court.
Yesterday, the papers were served on Ipid, O’Sullivan, Trent as
well as magistrate JR Tsatsi, who signed the search-and-seizure warrant last
month that allowed the police to raid Phahlane’s home near Pretoria.
Phahlane is being investigated for allegedly defeating the ends of
justice and corruption related to the building of his personal mansion and the
ownership of luxury vehicles, which appear to be beyond his means. O’Sullivan
is the complainant in both matters.
In the papers, Phahlane said: “O’Sullivan has unlawfully inveigled
his way into what otherwise should be an independent investigation… and is
unlawfully pursuing a scheme of publicity-seeking, mostly for himself. He is
unlawfully attaching himself to Ipid as if he were a member of the SAPS and a
member of Ipid.”
He also said he welcomed the investigation, but did not want the
case to be manipulated by a “private individual for his own personal gain and
profit”.
In the papers, Phahlane also makes reference to emails that were
allegedly written by O’Sullivan to him in 2016 which point out large-scale
corruption by SAPS generals.
Phahlane said he was given an ultimatum: to do
O’Sullivan’s bidding or face his wrath. He claims to have ignored the emails
and, as a result, O’Sullivan presented his information to Ipid, which led to
the investigation against him.
Phahlane sets out samples of emails that he says were sent to
Lieutenant-General Vinesh Moonoo by O’Sullivan and carbon-copied to him, in
which O’Sullivan taunts Moonoo and makes a series of allegations against him.
Phahlane also rejects allegations against him that he
misappropriated SAPS funds to buy his wife and himself luxury vehicles. He says
he acquired them through vehicle financing.
Phahlane also wants the warrant signed by Tsatsi to be reviewed
and set aside.
