The South African Police Service (SAPS) has noted with surprise the allegations contained in the lead article of the Sunday Independent dated Sunday, 19 December 2010.
We say “with surprise” because over a month ago, on 16 November 2010, a letter was forwarded to the Sunday Independent’s attorneys Webber Wentzel via the Office of the State Attorney.
This followed the appearance of the Sunday Independent’s editor, Makhudu Sefara on “The Justice Factor” television programme on 14 November 2010 during which he alluded to alleged harassment by the police either against himself or members of his staff.
The State Attorney’s letter pointed out that the allegations he made sounded criminal of nature and invited the editor to register a formal complaint to enable an investigation to take place.
To date no response has been received, nor has any allegation of this nature been forwarded to the National Head Office of the South African Police Service.
Late on Saturday evening, 18 December 2010, various police spokespersons received a vague SMS from a Sunday Independent journalist requesting comment on an intention by the newspaper to lodge a complaint with the Inspector General for Intelligence. The journalist, who had obviously been working on this article for some time, clearly knew that there would not be sufficient time for the South African Police Service to look into the matter and formulate an appropriate response before the newspaper went to print. This is ambush-journalism at its worst.
If the Sunday Independent takes this so-called “intimidation” seriously, they would have opened a case against the individuals involved, or at the very least, filed a direct complaint with police management.
The actions of the Sunday Independent appear to us to be more of an attempt at getting publicity through attention-grabbing headlines than a genuine effort to protect their staff.
The article in question states that “Khanyile became aware that she was placed under surveillance. She discovered that agents had been assigned to follow her and that her cellphone had been tapped”. We would indeed be very interested to learn how Khanyile became aware of these “facts” and would certainly follow up on these assertions.
This morning we heard Mr Sefara telling 702 Talk Radio that they were considering allocating protection for one of their journalists. We must pose the question – why first publish and then start considering “protection”? Why seek to attract public sympathy before acting on a member of staff feeling threatened?
The management of the SAPS again invites the Sunday Independent (as we did via the State Attorney on 16 November) to file a complaint so that we can establish the veracity of the claims and if necessary, institute criminal or departmental proceedings.
Enquiries:
Brigadier Sally de Beer
Cell: 082 779 865
Colonel McIntosh Polela
Cell: 082 475 1427
Source: South African Police Service
