Durban – Almost two weeks after it was revealed that senior police officers had unsuccessfully demanded access to the office of suspended KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Hawks boss Johan Booysen, the locks to his office have been changed.
Spokesman for the Hawks Hangwani Mulaudzi said it was “procedural” for the locks of suspended officers’ offices to be changed.
“I don’t know what is this thing. If you get into a new house, the locks have to be changed. Even when [Hawks chief Anwa] Dramat was suspended, we had to change the locks.”
He said that should Booysen return to work he could have the locks changed.
The locks to Booysen’s office were changed at about midday on Tuesday, but at 3pm there were still people in his office in Durban.
“That is a working place. People have to get in there,” said Mulaudzi, without revealing who was expected to be working in the office.
Booysen, who is fighting his suspension, revealed in an affidavit lodged with the Durban High Court two weeks ago that that KZN provincial SA Police Service (SAPS) commissioner Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, newly-appointed head of the Hawks Major-General Berning Ntlemeza, and several other officers tried to gain access to his office on the very day he was suspended.
Booysen revealed in the same affidavit that he was still investigating Ngobeni for corruption and he believed that his suspension was linked to that investigation.
Ntlemeza, in his affidavit submitted to the Durban High Court, claimed that Booysen and the men tasked with investigating a police officer’s assassination fraudulently received an award for shooting dead six innocent men.
Ntlemeza went further, claiming that while the award was for tracking down the men who assassinated superintendent Zethembe Chonco in August 2008, the case numbers used to secure the award were for unrelated cases in Howick, of housebreaking and motor vehicle theft.
Booysen was suspended a month ago for allegedly supplying false case numbers in a bid to obtain the award.
Booysen, however, claims that the document which resulted in him and his men receiving an award for tracking down and killing Chonco’s killers was never drawn up by himself and that he had nothing to do ultimately with granting the award. Booysen claims there was a typing error in the case numbers.
Booysen could not immediately be reached for contact and his lawyer Carl van der Merwe said he had not spoken to Booysen for a few days.
He could not confirm if Booysen had ever been asked for his office keys.
Acting head of the Hawks in KZN, Major-General Alfred Khana referred all queries to Mulaudzi.
African News Agency