By Dylan Bettencourt
- Deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya challenges suspension saying boss Fannie Masemola broke proper procedures.
- Sibiya is accused of stealing murder case files but claims he was following orders when the task team closed.
Deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya is fighting his removal in court, claiming police chief Fannie Masemola confessed to breaking proper procedures when kicking him out.
Sibiya has gone to the Pretoria High Court to challenge his suspension, saying Masemola didn’t follow the law.
Sibiya was told to stay home in July after KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made explosive claims about him. Mkhwanazi accused Sibiya of stealing important murder case files and making them disappear.
In new court papers filed on Tuesday, Sibiya says Masemola has now admitted he messed up the suspension process.
“The commissioner conceded he did not comply with, or even have recourse to, the discipline regulations when he made the decision to instruct me to stay at home,” Sibiya wrote in his court papers, TimesLive reported.
Sibiya argues that police have strict rules about how to discipline officers, and Masemola ignored all of them.
He says his boss should have given him a chance to defend himself before suspending him, but instead just told him to go home after hearing Mkhwanazi’s claims on TV.
“He has effectively suspended me based on untested allegations which he heard in a media briefing,” Sibiya complained.
The suspended cop says Masemola is now trying to cover his tracks by claiming he had constitutional powers to ignore police disciplinary rules.
But Sibiya argues this doesn’t work because his boss has already admitted he broke the proper procedures.
Sibiya also claims Masemola is playing multiple roles in his case – acting as the person making complaints against him, the one investigating, and the final decision-maker.
“The essential facts of my case are that the national commissioner failed to follow the prescribed procedure. He has conceded he did not,” Sibiya said.
The corruption claims against Sibiya centre on accusations that he ordered political murder case files to be moved from a special task team to his office, where they were allegedly buried.
But Sibiya insists he was just following orders from Masemola’s office when the task team was shut down.
He says Masemola is now trying to distance himself from that decision and blame everything on him.
Sibiya wants the court to declare his suspension illegal and force Masemola to bring him back to work.
Pictured above: Shadrack Sibiya.
Image source: File
