Cop found guilty in renditions saga
Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie ‘Cowboy’ Maluleke has been found guilty of kidnapping seven Zimbabweans.
|||Johannesburg - Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie “Cowboy” Maluleke has been found guilty of kidnapping seven Zimbabweans who were suspected of various crimes in their country.
This week, he was also found guilty of being an accomplice to the murder of John Nyoni and Gordon Dube, who were part of another Zimbabwean group who were kidnapped.
The seven Zimbabweans were arrested and detained at various police stations in 2010 and 2011.
They were handed over to Zimbabwean police. Nyoni and Dube were allegedly killed by police in their country.
Maluleke is the latest officer to be axed for his alleged role in the renditions saga.
In July, Gauteng Hawks boss Major-General Shadrack Sibiya was fired after he was found guilty of gross misconduct for his involvement in the rendition saga.
The first operation was in November 2010 in Diepsloot, north of Joburg, and led to the arrests of Sheperd Tshuma, Maqhawe Sibanda, Witness Ndeya and Nelson Ndlovu.
According to a rendition survivor, Tshuma, Maluleke and several other police officers descended on Diepsloot, where Maluleke brandished a list of the people he was looking for in connection with the murder of a top cop in Zimbabwe.
Tshuma said they were all detained at Orlando police station, and Maluleke later transported them to Beitbridge.
Another survivor, Sibanda, said police dropped him and Ndlovu off on a highway on the way to Zimbabwe.
Police had told them that if they were taken across the border, they would be killed.
Maluleke handed Ndeya and Tshuma over to Zimbabwean police at Beitbridge.
Tshuma said they were then told they were under arrest for the murder of a police officer.
Tshuma, who was released after two weeks, said they were tortured twice a day by the police. After his release, he heard that Ndeya had been shot dead by police.
Maluleke said in his testimony during a disciplinary hearing that he didn’t know anything about their involvement in the murder of a Zimbabwean cop. He learnt about that only a few days after they had been handed over to Zimbabwean officials.
In other operations, Dube, Pritchard Tshuma and Nyoni were driven to Zimbabwe and handed over to the police
.
After a Hawks disciplinary hearing was held into Maluleke’s conduct, it was found that the tracing, tracking and arresting of the suspects were illegal.
“I am satisfied that in respect of Ndeya, the first to be killed in police custody in Zimbabwe, there is no evidence before me to suggest that Maluleke knew or ought to have known what his fate would be once he was handed over to Zimbabwean police,” said the chairperson of the inquiry this week.
He added, however, that in respect of Nyoni and Dube, the evidence suggested that he knew or subjectively “foresaw the terrible fate awaiting them in Zimbabwe and nevertheless recklessly reconciled himself with the real possibility of their demise at the hands of their captors”.
“I’m satisfied that Lieutenant-Colonel Maluleke’s conduct in arresting, detaining and handing the suspects over to the Zimbabwean police makes him an accomplice to their murder in Zimbabwe.
“In all the circumstances of the given case, there was such a close link between his unlawful conduct and the subsequent ensuing death of the suspects at the hands of Zimbabwean police that they could be regarded as connecting components of substantially one transaction.
“There is a causal chain that remains unbroken between Lieutenant-Colonel Maluleke’s conduct of deportation and the death of the suspects in Zimbabwe.”
The Star