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Corruption Watch has followed the Richard Mdluli case almost since the day the organisation launched.
For years Mdluli, the former head of police crime intelligence, had evaded justice relating to charges of, among others, murder, attempted murder, and assault, and in a separate case, of corruption, fraud, and money-laundering. The former head of police crime intelligence turned out to be a criminal himself and in July 2019, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria found him guilty of four counts of intimidation, two counts of kidnapping, and three counts of assault and sent him to jail for an effective five years.
The corruption charges that were levelled against Mdluli during his time with crime intelligence were brought in September 2011, controversially withdrawn in December of the same year by the then newly appointed National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) special director of public prosecutions Lawrence Mrwebi, reinstated in 2015 by the NPA, struck off the roll just months later, and then eventually enrolled at court in 2020 after some documents were declassified. The charges relate to his alleged abuse between 2008 and 2012 of the police intelligence slush fund.
However, it has taken almost a decade since the reinstatement for that case to see the inside of a courtroom – but come to court it finally will, on 7 October this year, reports the Government News Agency.
The corruption trial has been delayed for years, primarily because Mdluli is insisting that the South African Police Service (SAPS) cover his legal fees, which SAPS is refusing to do. Mdluli argues that the charges apply to his period of employment with the police and it should therefore foot the bill, but SAPS has countered with the position that Mduli’s shady dealings at that time were his own business and it has no obligation in the matter.
On 10 June 2024, according to NPA Investigating Directorate spokesperson Henry Mamothame, the Pretoria High Court ordered that the “trial will commence on the set date regardless of the pending outcome on an application by Mdluli compelling the SAPS to pay for his legal fees”.
Mdluli and his co-accused, former SAPS head of supply chain management Heine Barnard and former SAPS crime intelligence chief financial officer Solomon Lazarus, will finally have to answer for their actions.
The three face a series of damning charges regarding the use of public money, including:
- Payment of private trips to China and Singapore.
- Private use of a witness protection house in Boksburg and conversion of this property for personal use.
- The leasing out of Mdluli’s private townhouse at Gordon Villas in Gordon’s Bay as a safe house to the state and using the monthly rental to pay his bond.
- Payment of Mdluli’s financing costs owing on his private BMW through an intricate scheme to the detriment of the SAPS.
- Coercing a SAPS supplier into giving Mdluli a special deal on the use and purchase price of a Honda Ballade.
- Paying transfer costs to an attorney on the purchase of a house in Cape Town.
- Having family members, without adequate qualifications or experience, appointed in crime intelligence, getting them on the payroll and paying their salaries, and providing them with motor vehicles and cell phones.
