Richard Mdluli's legal troubles are far from over despite his sentencing to five years in prison yesterday by the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.
Mdluli, the once powerful and feared crime intelligence boss, together with his former colleague Mthembeni Mthunzi were found guilty for the kidnapping of his customary wife 20 years ago. Mdluli's sentencing yesterday marked the “beginning of the end” for the man whose proximity to power is believed to have kept him out of trouble all these years.
Criminal law expert Dr Johan Burger said Mdluli’s problems with the law are far from over. Burger said while Mdluli may be going to prison for five years, he will also likely be in court to face other criminal charges. These relate to fraud and corruption linked to the crime intelligence slush fund.
“Unfortunately for Mdluli that is not the end. Now the charges that he is likely to face have to do with the time that he was head of the police crime intelligence division and what happened to the police crime intelligence slush fund. They [the NPA] have already indicated that they are considering bringing those charges against him. If he is convicted, the court will have to take into consideration that he has a standing criminal record. He has a very difficult road ahead of him,” Burger said.
“It is absolutely the beginning of the end for him. It is doubtful that he will be employed anywhere in the future. He is not young anymore.”
Burger said Mdluli’s sentence will help in improving the image the criminal justice system has that those in the highest positions can avoid prosecution.
“Many people have been able to evade justice in the past ... There is now growing evidence that the criminal justice system is beginning to perform in a way that it should,” he said.
Freedom Under Law, which challenged the NPA decision not to charge Mdluli for his alleged abuse of the crime intelligence slush fund, welcomed yesterday's sentencing.
“Today’s sentencing is an important vindication of the rule of law in that one of SA’s most senior police officers has finally been held accountable for some of the crimes he has committed,” said CEO Nicole Fritz.
Former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Johan Booysen who wrote a book titled Blood on their Hands which detailed how Mdluli declassified a secret intelligence report which had among others implicated then police commissioner Bheki Cele and other politicians in a plot to oust former president Jacob Zuma.
It’s believed that this brought Mdluli close to Zuma, his political allies and led to the removal of Cele as police commissioner in June 2012.
Booysens told Sowetan yesterday that he believed that the report, known as Ground Coverage, had planted doubt in Zuma about Cele and was the real reason the former police commissioner was removed.
Booysens said he “had no doubt in my mind” that Mdluli had used his position to get close to politicians.
“One thing I can say is that under Mdluli’s watch, the secret service account was looted and politicians and senior police officers benefited from that,” Booysens said.
Time Line : The rise and fall of a crime boss
1979 – Mdluli joins the then South African Police at the age of 21 in Pietermaritzburg, KZN;
1991 – promoted to an officer cadre during the reforms in the police force;
1997 – Vosloorus police station commander until 1999;
2007 – serves as deputy police commissioner of Gauteng, heading the investigation of fraud and corruption charges against advocate Gerrie Nel, then head of the elite Scorpions investigation unit in Gauteng. Nel was arrested in Pretoria on January 8 2008 and appeared in the Pretoria magistrate's court the following day, where the chief prosecutor refused to charge him, due to insufficient evidence;
2009 – became police crime intelligence boss in July; 2010 writes a letter (Nov 2010) to former president Jacob Zuma and ministers in the security cluster, asking for intervention in investigating crime intelligence members for meddling in the politics of the ANC. In the letter, Mdluli said investigators were trying to “take control of the intelligence environment” before the ANC's 2012 Mangaung conference;
2011 – he is suspended after criminal charges against him emerged relating to the abuse of slush fund money. During his suspension, until 2018, Mdluli continued to earn his salary and bonuses totaling R8.3m;
2013 – Pretoria high court judge John Murphy found that Lawrence Mrwebi and his boss at the time acting NPA head Nomgcobo Jiba failed in their constitutional duties when they dropped corruption charges against Mdluli;
2018 - then police minister Fikile Mbalula fired Mdluli in January. By that time Mdluli was already facing criminal charges which he was sentenced for yesterday;
2019 – seasoned Hawks investigator Col Kobus Roelofse told the state capture commission in September that senior police officials had obstructed his investigation into the looting of crime intelligence secret service fund which implicated Mdluli;
2020, Sept 29 – Mdluli is sentenced to five years in prison.
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