Hawks – praag.org

Hawks investigating al-Shabab

The Hawks’ crimes against the state unit are investigating alleged activities by al-Shabab in South Africa.

This follows revelations by Kenyan authorities that one of the suspects in the devastating attack on a Nairobi shopping centre has been travelling on a false South African passport.

Al-Shabab, based in Somalia and linked to global terror network al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya, which claimed at least 72 lives.

Hawks spokesman Captain Paul Ramaloko confirmed on Tuesday that the police are conducting an investigation.

There has been running gun battles, bomb blasts and grenade attacks in the mall since Saturday. Eleven terrorists were in custody. The death toll is expected to rise.

A South African woman is feared to be among the victims not yet identified, South Africa’s ambassador to Kenya, Ratubatsi Moloi, told Eyewitness News.

The British national Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to 2005 London suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay, had been using a possibly falsified South African passport bearing the name Natalie Faye Webb to enter Kenya.

She allegedly entered the country on the passport last year with her three children. An arrest warrant was issued for her this year after allegations she was plotting attacks on Kenyan coastal resorts.

Beeld reported yesterday that Lewthwaite had visited South Africa several times.

South African police sources said Lewthwaite had recently become “someone of interest” to the Hawks investigators probing al-Shabab for allegedly raising funds and possibly recruiting jihadists in the country.

Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said the necessary steps had been taken to ensure the “wrong” elements could not “obtain our passports for use in their nefarious activities”.

Though there is a sizeable Somali community in South Africa, Somali Association of SA vice-chairman, Ibrahim Shuriye, said al-Shabab had “no support from our community”.

“They claim religion as their motive, but religion does not teach the use of violence,” he said. – timeslive/AFP

S. African police block raid on Nelson Mandela Foundation

Senior police management blocked a planned raid on charities associated with former president Nelson Mandela, the Mail & Guardian reported on Friday.

High level police officials were reportedly worried that a raid on the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and the Nelson Mandela trust would cause embarrassment.

After this, a letter from police unit the Hawks was sent, including to some Mandela relatives, demanding financial statements.

Chief executive of the children’s fund Sibongile Mkhabela’s spokesman Oupa Ngwenya confirmed a letter was received.

“The account the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund has with Nedbank is public knowledge and has been accounted in the financial statement for the year ended March 31, 2013 and is included as… [a note in] the annual report.”

Ngwenya and Danielle Melville, spokeswoman for the foundation’s chief executive, said the letters had been passed to Mandela’s lawyer Bally Chuene.

The letters reportedly related to charges of fraud, forgery and uttering laid against Mandela’s former attorney Ismail Ayob.

In July, a court application for the removal of George Bizos, Tokyo Sexwale, and Chuene as directors of Harmonieux Investment Holdings and Magnifique Investment Holdings was struck off the court roll.

The application was brought by Mandela’s daughters Makaziwe Mandela and Zenani Mandela-Dlamini.

Mandela is at home recovering after a lengthy stay in hospital.

Mpumalanga farm murder: One acquitted

The Nelspruit Circuit Court found Aaron Majawodwa Nkosi, 30, guilty on Tuesday of killing white Mpumalanga farmer Johannes Hendrik Tolstoi Schoeman.

A Sapa correspondent reported that Nkosi’s co-accused Thomas Johannes Nyathi, 30, was acquitted.

The two black men were accused of robbing and kidnapping Gudryn Schoeman, 67, and murdering her 86-year-old husband at Vygeboom Farm, near Badplaas, on the night of December 17, 2010.

Judge Mmonoa Teffo said Nkosi incriminated himself during the pointing out of the crime scene, and that his evidence tallied with the testimony of Gudryn Schoeman.

“Nkosi put himself on the crime scene by pointing out the crime scenes,” said Teffo

He had told Captain Martinus Roussou, from the Hawks in Middelburg, that he was at the farm on December 16.

“You said you climbed next to the roof to the top floor of the house and on the first floor, went through a door inside the house.

“You also pointed to the bedroom where Schoeman was found lying on a bed, and attacked him… your accomplice strangled him on his throat until he was unconscious,” said Teffo.

She said Nkosi had shown Roussou how they waited for Gudryn Schoeman to enter the room and how they attacked her before demanding money from her.

“You pointed how Nyathi searched the cupboards, where keys to the couple’s car were fetched and how you left the farm with the wife on the way to Belfast ATM.

“You even pointed the accident scene at the Carolina R33 road, where the Honda Jazz you were travelling in with Schoeman’s wife had the accident.”

Teffo said that, during a trial-within-a-trial, it became clear that Nkosi had not been assaulted to confess to the crime.

“Captain Roussou testified the interpretation was not met with difficulties. Your rights were explained and interpreted. You never even raised to him you were assaulted during the interview and you even signed the rights document.

“If you did raise any complaint to Captain Roussou, he should have asked you to lay charges against those responsible,” said Teffo.

The judge said Nkosi had claimed he was home that night and had no alibi.

“I am satisfied you were involved in the commission of the crime. You are therefore found guilty beyond reasonable doubt on all five counts.”

She said that although the blood samples taken from the car used in the crime, which later crashed into a wall, matched Nyathi’s, the State had failed to prove its case against him.

“Testimony by Pretoria laboratory Warrant Officer Matome Arthur Manyama stated there was error regarding the CAS number. The CAS number on the sample bag was 37122011, instead of 37122010.

“Although Manyama communicated with W/O Orcilla Loubser to rectify the mistake, Loubser herself did not mention it in her testimony,” she said.

“Due to the fact that a proper procedure was not followed by the police

team, there is doubt about contamination.”

Although Nyathi had been unable to explain how his blood came to be on the car’s bumper, she do not accept the DNA results, Teffo said.

“There is no evidence which positively links Nyathi to the crime and he is acquitted of all charges,” she said.

Nkosi will be sentenced on Wednesday. – Sapa

Johannesburg power sabotage ‘terrorism’

The actions of employees involved in turning off power at sub-stations around the city was equal to terrorism, Gauteng safety MEC Faith Mazibuko said on Friday.

“We are angry as a provincial government, and what has happened was equal to an act of terrorism,” Mazibuko told reporters.

She said the matter was being investigated by various agencies, including the Hawks.

Mazibuko said the people behind the power disruptions had endangered people’s lives.

City Power’s managing director Sicelo Xulu said it had realised that switches at a number of sub-stations had been tampered with.

“There was no forced entry, and that simply means that someone turned them off,” said Xulu.

He said that City Power had put in place security measures at sub-stations around the city to ensure the disruptions did not happen again.

Xulu said some of the areas still affected included Lenasia, Alexandra, Randburg and some areas in the Johannesburg CBD.

“The process of laying criminal charges has been undertaken,” said Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau.

He said the labour relations process had to be respected, but that a situation where residents were deprived of electricity could not be allowed.

Earlier in the day City Power management updated him on the restoration of electricity in some parts of Gauteng.

Power was disrupted in parts of the West Rand and northern Johannesburg after a few hundred City Power staff downed tools on Wednesday afternoon.

City Power said the strike was not union-led.

The workers were unhappy about a new shift system being implemented

It was believed that striking workers had sabotaged infrastructure, causing widespread blackouts, which affected traffic flow and some businesses’ operations.

Power had been fully restored by noon to areas including Houghton and Melville by noon on Friday, but it was expected that other parts of Johannesburg could remain in the dark over the weekend, City Power said.

The electricity supply had also been reconnected in Auckland Park, Kew, and Bramley. – Sapa

SA requested Facebook, Google user info

The South African government had over the past year submitted 14 requests to Facebook and three to Google to get information about certain users, according to a report.

Facebook did not grant any of the requests, and Google granted one request, after receiving a court order in a case involving defamation.

Following Google’s example, Facebook has just published its first half-year report on government requests.

According to the report, 71 countries around the world submitted about 25,600 requests during the first half of the year to Facebook to obtain IP addresses, profile information and names.

Locally, the Facebook requests were made by various law enforcement agencies such as the police, the Hawks and the Department of State Security, said the department’s spokesman, Brian Dube.

“Our department made two requests to Facebook centred around cyber security.”

According to Facebook and Google, the merits of each request are thoroughly considered before the information is released. – Sapa

Arms deal docs gathering dust

More than three million pages of documents crucial to the arms deal inquiry are lying unread at the Hawks’ headquarters in Pretoria, City Press reported on Sunday.

The papers are stored in three shipping containers, according to the report. The documents were collected during investigations by the Hawks’ predecessors, the Scorpions.

According to City Press, Fanyana Mdumbe, the commission’s head of legal research, informed evidence leaders in February – a month before the commission was scheduled to start its hearings — that the documents in the containers had not been read because it was “overwhelmed” by the quantity of information.

According to the newspaper, only about 1.3 million pages, which relate to the Scorpions’ investigation of corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma and his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik, had been digitally scanned on to a hard drive that was provided to the commission.

The documents are yet to be declassified and indexed.

A commission team, led by its chair Judge Willie Seriti, visited the Hawks’ headquarters late last year. They were shown the shipping container that housed the Zuma-Shaik documents. The team saw the remaining 3.4 million pages, in two other containers.

These however remained unsorted and did not exist in digital format.

Terry Crawford-Browne, the banker whose Constitutional Court case was widely believed to have forced Zuma to appoint the commission, said it was worrying that the commission had not tried to sort through the evidence.

“It simply confirms they’re wallowing in so much paper that they haven’t a clue how to tackle the issue,” he told the newspaper.

President Jacob Zuma appointed the Seriti Commission of Inquiry in 2011 to investigate alleged corruption in the multi-billion rands arms deal.

One of the three commissioners, Judge Francis Legodi, resigned on the eve of the start of the public hearings last month.

The public hearings, that were scheduled to get underway in Pretoria last week, were postponed for two weeks.

Top official arrested for corruption

A top official in the Mpumalanga safety and security department and a company director were arrested on Thursday for irregularities with a multi-million rand tender, the Hawks said.

“The official and the security company director are facing charges of fraud and corruption over a security tender to guard the department’s offices,” said Captain Paul Ramaloko.

The official, who had the final say about who got the tender when it was awarded in 2011, also faced a charge of contravening the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

Ramaloko said investigators found the company did not meet the requirements for the tender.

“It was also discovered that the company submitted false tax certificates during the application process,” he said.

The company received R4 million a month from the department for its security services.

“Investigations into the case continue. More arrests are expected.”

The two were expected to appear soon in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court. – Sapa

Hawks tight-lipped on Malema arrest

The Hawks would not confirm a news report on Friday that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

“The Hawks don’t issue warrants, so we don’t comment on that,” said spokesman McIntosh Polela.

Asked if the unit was planning to arrest Malema, he said: “Even if we were planning to arrest him, we won’t tell you.”

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, referred queries to provincial police.

Gauteng police spokesman, Brigadier Neville Malila, said he knew nothing about an arrest warrant for Malema.

The City Press reported that the warrant was issued on Friday morning.

Malema was due to appear in a Pretoria or Polokwane court next week on charges of money laundering, corruption and fraud, it said.

The matter related to his Ratanang Family Trust and its shareholding in On-Point Engineering, a company that had allegedly made millions from Limpopo government tenders.

The publication said it was unclear whether Malema would be jailed before appearing in court. – Sapa