Blue light case: Mashatile ‘didn’t lie’ – Mbalula defends deputy president

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has defended Deputy President Paul Mashatile after allegations that he might have lied about not seeing his security detail assaulting three military trainees who appeared to have been dragged out of a Polo Vivo while travelling on the N1 highway in Johannesburg.

Eight men who used to be the deputy president’s security personnel made their first appearance in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday, charged with several counts of assault, malicious damage to property and pointing of a firearm.

One of the accused yesterday told the court that the deputy president had left the scene during the incident.

They arrived at his Midrand home 40 minutes later and reported the incident to him. Replying to questions from the media yesterday, Mbalula said when one was in a convoy, it was most likely they would see what happened around them because “you are being defended”.

He said Mashatile did not command the attack.

“The deputy president has never said he was not in the convoy. What we said as the ANC is that this matter must be investigated by Ipid [the Independent Police Investigative Directorate]. The deputy president has said himself this must happen,” he said.

“We said we do not know whether these police were threatened … we don’t know and we can’t judge them. Let the process of the law that has been put in place in terms of checks and balances do that work.”

He added: “We said they should be suspended and the police management has done that. Action has been taken about the convoy because the police are not just doing things, they are guided by the law. There is no banana republic where police can just stop and kick people.”

He said a convoy of the president was once attacked in Cape Town by a man who was later taken head-on.

“It became a big issue politically in this country, but because we have checks and balances. Nobody can abuse the state one way or the other.

“An investigation was taken because we have got Ipid to do that work.”