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Lieutenant General Peter Jacobs.
- The suspended police chief of criminal intelligence, Lt. Gen. Peter Jacobs, lost a court offer to return to work.
- Jacobs, and five officers under him, face misconduct charges that center on using a secret police bribery fund to purchase Covid-19 PPE.
- The veteran cop claims he is being expelled for exposing corruption at the highest echelons of the police force.
An urgent court offer by police chief of criminal intelligence Peter Jacobs, in which he and five of his subordinates challenged their suspensions over a R1.5 million Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) acquisition scandal, it was dismissed by the Pretoria Superior Court on Friday. .
Officers, at the center of an apparent purge of leaders in the police spy unit, face misconduct charges after allegations surfaced that they illegally used the division’s Secret Services Account, a shady fund used to finance covert operations. , to buy PPE.
Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole, acting on the results of an investigation into alleged “irregularities” in his use of the bribery fund, launched by Intelligence Inspector General (IGI) Setlhomamaru Dintwe, suspended all six in December.
READ | Criminal intelligence leadership battle heads to court
In his challenge, Jacobs argued that the charges brought against him and the officers under his command were unfounded, and that he was being sidelined for rooting out bribery and exposing the looting of the secret fund.
He and the others had contested the suspensions in a strict technical point of law, one that depends on the interpretation of the Intelligence Oversight Act (ISO), and how it was supposedly subverted to suspend it.
He argued that Dintwe and Sitole bypassed Police Minister Bheki Cele, who is the only one who can recommend suspensions and disciplinary actions once a report from Dintwe is provided to him, in terms of his reading of the ISO Law.
He wondered if there was even a report and said that because Cele’s office had been bypassed, the decision to suspend them was an act outside the law.
“Any communication or compromise that arose between the IGI and the national commissioner is not sufficient to trigger a disciplinary response,” Jacobs said in the founding documents.
In December, before the suspensions were served, Cele and Sitole had clashed over the proposed disciplinary measure and ordered Sitole to detain them.
Defiantly, Sitole told Cele that he was sure he was following the letter of the law, and told his political director that the suspensions would not be suspended.
READ | Tensions rise when Cele and Sitole face suspensions in the intelligence division
Sitole in his presentations countered this, saying that Jacobs, and Cele, had misinterpreted the law.
“[The court challenge] it is based on an interpretation of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act that is legally untenable and unsustainable, “Sitole said in his documents.
“Focus [by Jacobs] trenches in the powers and prerogatives of my office … undermines my ability to fulfill my obligations and seeks to clothe the minister with a power and function that he does not have. “
The law, he advanced, does not regulate suspensions, “… nor does it prevent me as National Commissioner from suspending employees.”
He presented his own piles of legislation, namely the SAPS Act and the Public Finance Management Act, which he said empowered him to act on allegations of misconduct, and that failure to comply would be a crime.
READ | Sitole Stamps His Authority As The Criminal Intelligence Purge Heats Up
Acting Judge Jacques Minnaar, who handed down sentencing on Friday, sided with Sitole.
It found that Jacobs’ reading of the ISO Act was flawed and was essentially a death sentence for the hope that the court would return them to their posts.
“It is clear that the provision [of the ISO Act] it does not regulate suspensions at all, nor does it create the preconditions that are intended to be read by applicants, “he said.
“It is the prerogative of the National Commissioner as an employer to initiate investigations and disciplinary actions against the six,” Minnaar added.
There is nothing, he said, in the ISO that prohibits or prevents Sitole from taking disciplinary action or initiating an investigation if it is informed of serious allegations of misconduct.
“It follows that he must act quickly in the execution of his mandate,” Minnaar ruled.
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