A former South African Police Service (SAPS) crime intelligence analyst has opened a criminal case of perjury at Rosebank Police Station on Tuesday 8 September and called for an investigation into Major General Wally Rhoode’s sworn account of the controversial Phala Phala investigation, alleging that statements attributed to the senior police officer may have been materially false.
In a police statement, which Africa Daily has seen, Pilasande Honenimous Dotyeni alleges that there is no contemporaneous evidence supporting Rhoode’s claim that he reported the 2020 burglary at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm to the late Lieutenant General Sindile Christopher Mfazi and received instructions from him to conduct a preliminary investigation.
Dotyeni, who served in SAPS from 2004 to 2012 as a Crime Intelligence Analyst, said he personally knew Mfazi and examined the late general’s surviving handwritten records following his death in July 2021.
According to Dotyeni, his examination of Mfazi’s official pocketbook and personal diary found no record of Rhoode reporting the theft to Mfazi in March 2020, no record of an instruction from Mfazi to conduct a preliminary inquiry and no record of Rhoode reporting back or handing over a report.
He acknowledged that the absence of a diary entry, on its own, could not prove that a conversation did not take place.
However, he argued that the absence was significant given Mfazi’s practice of recording operationally and administratively important matters.
The statement further points to findings previously made by the Public Protector and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).
The Public Protector reportedly recorded that Rhoode had not provided proof that he reported the matter to Mfazi and that there was no evidence supporting his claim that Mfazi had instructed him to conduct a preliminary investigation.
The Public Protector also found that Rhoode and Sergeant Rekhoto had conducted an unofficial investigation into the housebreaking and theft without a registered case docket.
IPID similarly raised concerns about Rhoode’s reporting line, according to the statement.
The document states that Rhoode, as head of the Presidential Protection Service, reported directly to the then National Commissioner, General Khehla Sitole, rather than Mfazi.
Sitole reportedly told the Public Protector that he had not been informed of the security breach and theft at Phala Phala and that no operational plan relating to the incident had been escalated to him for approval.
Dotyeni further alleges that Mfazi personally told him, approximately a month before his murder in July 2021, that he had investigated what he considered an unauthorised operation linked to Phala Phala.
According to Dotyeni, Mfazi said he had obtained records concerning the alleged use of an SAPS helicopter to travel to Namibia as part of the operation.
He alleges that Mfazi specifically mentioned Rhoode and then Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant General Peter Jacobs in connection with the alleged operation.
Dotyeni stressed that he was not presenting the conversation as proof that the helicopter trip occurred or that an offence had been committed.
Instead, he called for investigators to examine SAPS Air Wing records, flight plans, passenger manifests, border records, travel authorisations, financial records and other documentation to establish what happened.
The sworn statement argues that the alleged Mfazi instruction is central to understanding whether the Phala Phala operation had lawful authority.
If the instruction did not occur, Dotyeni argues, investigators would have to determine who authorised the deployment of police personnel, surveillance, travel and other state resources, and why the matter was not reported through Rhoode’s ordinary command structure.
He has requested that law-enforcement and oversight bodies investigate whether Rhoode knowingly made false statements under oath, as well as possible fraud, defeating or obstructing the administration of justice, SAPS Act contraventions, misconduct, misuse of state resources and other offences or maladministration that may emerge.
Dotyeni repeatedly stressed that the allegations should be investigated rather than treated as established facts.
“I do not ask any receiving authority to presume Major General Rhoode guilty or to predetermine any factual or legal issue,” he states in the document.
The statement calls for the original affidavits and records submitted to the Public Protector and IPID to be obtained and compared against contemporaneous SAPS records and other evidence.
The allegations come amid continued scrutiny of the circumstances surrounding the burglary and theft of foreign currency at Ramaphosa’s Limpopo farm and the subsequent handling of the matter by senior police officials.
Dotyeni said the investigation was particularly important because Mfazi was deceased by the time Rhoode made his July 2022 affidavit and was therefore unable to confirm or dispute the version attributed to him.
In media release on Wednesday, Dotyeni confirmed that he has opened a case against Rhoode.
“I have decided to lodge a criminal complaint and submit a sworn evidentiary statement to competent
investigative and oversight bodies concerning statements attributed to Major General Wally Rhoode
regarding the Phala Phala burglary and his alleged reporting to the late Lieutenant General Sindile Christopher Mfazi.
I am not asking the public to reach a conclusion about Major General Rhoode. I am asking the
competent authorities to independently test material inconsistencies against telephone and
communication records, witnesses, official SAPS systems and other objective evidence,” he said.