Former top cop Lt-Col Mpho Kwinika, who played a critical role in exposing the failed attempt by police top brass to purchase a R45m grabber during the ANC’s 2017 conference, was brutally assaulted by fellow police officers six years ago.
Kwinika, who has served as president of the SA Police Union (Sapu), sustained three broken ribs, a broken hand, a damaged eardrum and was visually impaired in the left eye in the assault on March 27 2019.
Six years on, he is fighting to be reinstated and wants to testify at the upcoming commission of inquiry into allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Kwinika believes he and the officers who exposed the alleged illegal attempt by police top brass to purchase the grabber (an electronic device used by intelligence to eavesdrop and intercept communications) were victimised.
He told the Sunday Times that his troubles began after submitting a memo on March 20 2019 to President Cyril Ramaphosa and then police minister Bheki Cele in which he called for a board of inquiry into the fitness of then national police commissioner Khehla Sitole to hold office. The Presidency responded to Kwinika by saying his letter had been forwarded to the department of police “as this is the ministry that is best placed to engage with you”.
Seven days later he was accosted by a contingent of “blue lights” while sitting in his car charging his phone at a block of flats in Sunnyside, Pretoria, where he was visiting, Kwinika said. The police official stormed his car, claiming to be effecting Operation Okae Molao.
Kwinika said seven days later he was then accosted by a contingent of blue lights while seated in his car charging a phone at a block of flats in Sunnyside where he was visiting.
“As I was seated, holding my glass of cranberry, I saw a lot of blue lights as I looked up. I was grabbed out of my car. I just heard voetsek from nowhere, then the assault began while I was pinned to the ground, even when I said I am one of you,” said Kwinika. Days before the assault he had noticed a BMW following him.
Kwinika said he was then thrown into the Sunnyside police station cells and denied medical attention. He was charged with public disturbance, drinking in public, assault on police and resisting arrest — charges which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew in July 2020 following his representations.
“The representations have convinced me that the police had overreacted to a trivial complaint of a noise disturbance and that such behaviour corroborates the version of the accused that the arrest was premeditated,” said the NPA in withdrawing the charges.
Despite this, and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) findings that the officers who assaulted and arrested Kwinika were in the wrong, Kwinika says he was hounded out of the police service in 2021.
Soon after the [assault] my employer launched disciplinary proceedings against me. I suspected my attack was in retaliation to my report against the then national commissioner and was orchestrated within the higher echelons of the police service.
— Lt-Col Mpho Kwinika
“Soon after the incident my employer launched disciplinary proceedings against me. The proximity of my attack to the date of the submission of the memorandum left me with the suspicion that my attack was retaliation to my report against the then national commissioner and was orchestrated within the higher echelons of the police service.”
In his statement to the police after opening a criminal case against his attackers, Kwinika said: “I am without a job but those who were involved in illegal activities are being protected. This inquiry should look into those allegations for police to be held accountable.”
The illegal attempt to buy a grabber was exposed after disclosures by Brig Tiyani Hlungwani, who was in charge of the police’s crime intelligence (CI) secret services account. Hlungwani alleged the account was used to buy the equipment at an inflated price of R45m for it to be deployed at the ANC conference, to influence its outcomes.
Hlungwani himself has allegedly been victimised. He was suspended from duty from April 2019 until 2024 after the police decided to take him through an expedited disciplinary process.
Sitole at the time refused to declassify documents relating to the failed attempt to purchase the grabber, resulting in a public spat with Ipid.
“It should be noted that Gen Sitole, other senior officers and a government official are themselves alleged suspects in this matter of alleged corruption involving an amount of about R45m ... It is therefore most disconcerting to note that an alleged suspect in an investigation of corruption is utilising powers ordinarily conferred on him by virtue of the office he holds to frustrate an investigation that affects him personally,” said Kwinika in his memorandum to Ramaphosa and Cele in 2019.
“If this is not compelling reason to suspend Gen Sitole, pending an inquiry, nothing can be. This investigation alludes to an intention to unlawfully misappropriate millions in public money to be used unlawfully for a political purpose.”
Kwinika told the Sunday Times how he was kept in the cells in pain and half blind, with police officials denying him medical attention. Cover-ups followed to manufacture proof that he was drinking when they found him in his car in Sunnyside. Kwinika produced police documents which were altered and others which were original that proved that there was no alcohol detected on him.
“This was an engineered case, so much so the state hired three senior counsels during my disciplinary process. During that process, information I provided was suppressed and despite the NPA’s letter they proceeded to fire me so that the cops that assaulted me could be exonerated.”
Kwinika said he immediately referred the case to the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC) for unfair dismissal, arguing that the 2021 dismissal was procedurally and substantively unfair. To date he has not had a chance to be heard or even provided with a date for a hearing.
“I approached the CCMA to intervene in getting this matter heard and that did not help. On May 31 2023, the CCMA revoked its accreditation to SSSBC for noncompliance. SSSBC stifled the process until September 17 2024 when the station commander appeared and confirmed that the case had been tampered with. The matter was postponed pending the SSSBC set-down date. On September 20, the arbitrator died.
“I asked for records and they said they didn’t have any — they died with the arbitrator.”
Sitole was ultimately fired by Ramaphosa in February 2022, in what was termed a “mutual agreement”, following a scathing judgment in the Pretoria high court, which ruled that Sitole and his deputies had “breached their duties” in not providing and declassifying documents for the Ipid to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption.
Contacted for comment this week, Sitole said: “I don’t want to speak on police matters at the moment, I am not allowed.”
Judge Norman Davis in his ruling found the top cops had placed the interests of the ANC above those of the country in obstructing the Ipid investigation into the illegal procurement of the grabber. Sitole’s bid to challenge the ruling was thwarted by the Supreme Court of Appeal in June 2021.
The alleged illegal purchase of the grabber was discussed at a Pretoria hotel on December 13 2017 with now corruption accused, Durban-based businessman Inbanathan Kistiah of I-View, the company that scored more than R54m in police tenders.
Kistiah is a co-accused with another former police commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane, in the Pretoria high court over a police tender for the purchase of social monitoring software.
