Lieutenant Generals

The charge sheet was defective in charging under section 4 of PRECCA, reversing the roles of who gives and who receives gratification, which should be the other way around according to the law.

“the way they drafted their charge sheet, it was vice versa. They are saying the Generals gave to a civilian. The Generals being public officials...they should receive, not give, and this civilian should give, not receive.”

The corruption charge against the Generals and Ms Mokwele is defective and liable to be challenged as it does not comply with PRECCA and the Criminal Procedure Act.

“I concluded that the corruption charge, as it stood, was defective and did not comply with the definitional elements of PRECCA and was liable to be challenged in terms of section 85 of the Criminal Procedure Act.”

ADV Serunye questioned whether, discounting corruption, the remaining fraud allegations related to Ms Mokwele fall within IDAC's mandate, concluding it does not.

“If you remove corruption and you leave whatever that remains, would that fall within the mandate of IDAC? Definitely not, Commissioner Khumalo, because if I discount the corruption, then let us say what I am left with is fraud, and that would be the fraud against the civilian. Because in that case, then, the Generals would have been my witnesses... and it is clearly a Lower Court matter.”

On August 17th, ADV SERUNYE's position was that the alleged conduct did not meet the definitional elements of an offence, thus no corruption was committed, but further investigation might uncover evidence of corruption by the Generals through bank statements, cellphone records, and computer data.

“Once the alleged conduct committed does not meet the definitional elements of the offence ... that means no crime (corruption has been committed)... if we investigate further and dig more, we are going to find the evidence of corruption of the Generals by Mokwele and not vice versa... in the bank statement, cellphone records, and computer data of the Generals.”

The charge that the Generals colluded to appoint Ms Mokwele, if true, would amount at most to conspiracy rather than fraud, and the same persons cannot be both victims and parties to the fraud.

“If, as the chargesheet alleged, the Generals colluded to appoint her, they were not deceived by her ... conduct would not be fraud ... but at most a conspiracy”

Fraud in this context would be committed against the state, represented by its officials, including the Generals, rather than against the Generals themselves as individuals.

“fraud would have been committed against the state and not necessarily the Generals”

Advocate Sello cites that TSS is a very secretive operations unit within SAPS whose operations are unknown to most members and that it would have been reasonable for Accused to choose Major Generals from Crime Intelligence to reduce compromising the secrecy of TSS.

“TS S is a very secretive operations unit. TSS working on operations methodology practice and capability unknown to the majority of members of SAPS. It would have been reasonable to expect Accused to have chosen Major Generals from CI to reduce compromising TSS and its operations.”

There were allegedly warrants of arrest for two of the same five Generals in the police relating to criminality.

“last week or the week before there were allegedly other warrants of arrest for two of the same Generals of the, two of the same five Generals apparently are going to be arrested again”

Generals in the police are being exposed for criminality.

“we are seeing Generals in the police being exposed for criminality”

The witness stated that the actions of the Generals appeared to be an effort to protect the arrested driver and to obscure the origin of the vehicle and drugs, indicating suspicion of guilt against the driver.

“You say in paragraph 24 that you were concerned that the actions of the Generals appeared to be an effort to protect both the driver of the truck found with the drugs and to obscure the origin of the vehicle and its contents. Are you saying this because you were suspecting the driver to be guilty of an offence?”

General Mbotho directs that the Generals be informed when TO M S is working out of province, but he wants to know all details and suspects which is seen as conflicting to the idea that Generals only focus on unit success once arrests are made.

“The Generals are informed whenever TO M S is working out of the province because itineraries are assigned by the General. Here, the problem is that General Mbotho wants to know all nitty-gritty of the matter, what you are working on, who are the suspects, which is seen as conflicting... they should only be concerned with success of the unit once arrest has been made, not knowledge of suspects being addressed or dealt with by the unit.”

There were concerns Raised that Generals investigating certain people are afraid to mention their names, raising public concern about safety.

“it is a sad day that Generals who are supposed to be investigating these people are scared of them”