A senior South African Police Service (SAPS) official, Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, is challenging his suspension in court. The case involves a dispute over the handling of sensitive investigation files from KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
Sibiya, the Deputy National Commissioner for Crime Detection, claims that the KZN Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, refused to take back 121 case dockets related to political killings. This allegation was made in court papers filed at the Pretoria High Court, which heard the matter on Wednesday.
The dispute began in early July when Mkhwanazi alleged that Sibiya had ordered the dockets to be moved to SAPS headquarters in Pretoria without proper authority. Mkhwanazi also claimed no investigative work was being done on them there.
In response, Sibiya states that before his suspension, he issued instructions to return the dockets to KZN but that Mkhwanazi refused to accept them. Sibiya’s lawyer argued that his client was trying to follow an instruction from the National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, to return the files and should not be disciplined for it.
Last week, Commissioner Masemola confirmed that the dockets would indeed be returned to KZN for the investigations to continue. He and the Acting Police Minister also stated that the files would be submitted to a commission of inquiry set to probe Mkhwanazi’s original allegations.
The court has reserved its judgment in Sibiya’s challenge to his suspension.
