Shibiri: ‘I didn’t offer bribes’

The suspended head of the organised crime unit in the South African Police Service, Richard Shibiri, has denied handing out three envelopes to bribe officers investigating the assassination of a whistleblower linked to businessman and alleged leader of the Big Five cartel, Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. “I did not distribute envelopes or provide money. I did not solicit bribes.

I did not suggest concealment of evidence. I did not instruct the investigators to participate in any corrupt conduct, more especially to disrupt the course of justice,” he testified at theMadlanga Commissionthis week. The commission is investigating claims of police corruption and political interference in the criminal justice system made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi last July.

Witnesses A and B have told the commission thatShibiri invited them to his officeand informed them that there were three envelopes floating around, suggesting they take a bribe to influence an ongoing case. He subsequently requested arewriting of a case docket, which implicated a Johannesburg central police station officer, Pule Tau. The case involved the murder of Armand Swart, a Vereeniging engineer who was mistaken for a whistleblower in a Transnet tender scandal.

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The investigation led to the involvement of the KwaZulu-Natal-based political killings task team and a joint search-and-seizure operation at Matlala’s residence. Shibiri told the commission he was urging the officers not to take a bribe, instead of offering it to them. “Any reference made during the meeting about money, envelopes or bags of money was a direct repetition of the intelligence received from a source.

“It was not a suggestion or instructor endorsement or corruption. I expressly cautioned the investigator not to accept any bribe,” he insisted. Witness A and B told the commission that Shibiri subsequently invited them to a police social gathering at the Villa and Spa Hotel with intentions to influence the case.

“I did not blur those boundaries by converting a social environment into an operational space,” he responded this week. His attendance at the party was “recreational and personal”, Shibiri added, arguing he did not summon junior officers to question them and that other senior officials were present. “No evidence was viewed there.

No strategic decisions were taken there. No person present was granted access to privileged information by virtue of being present at the settings.” Shibiri is on the list of senior police officials that the Madlanga Commission recommended for further investigation in its interim report. President Cyril Ramaphosa has since established a special investigation task team to look into police collusions with organised criminal cartels.

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