‘Fake arrests’ and state lawyers earning R66K a day. How cops and lawyers fleece SA

An ongoing probe by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has already uncovered more than R24 million worth of dodgy awards made against the police for wrongful arrest, detention, assault and malicious prosecution – along with an elaborate scam in which people are evidently trying to get themselves locked up so they can claim damages.

“We understand that there’s a trend where people arrange with a friend to be arrested. As a result, they put up a wrongful arrest claim against the SA Police Service. They get paid and they share the money,” an SIU investigator told the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services last week, during an update on the unit’s investigations into the office of the state attorney.

He said his team had identified more than 300 claims against the police which they needed to investigate further. The combined value of these claims was R24,076,581.42. And this was after analysing just two provinces – the Free State and Northern Cape.

Investigators are still waiting for data from the rest of the country. In 2018, the SIU was tasked with probing the office of the state attorney and, in particular, its handling of lawsuits against the police and the Gauteng and Eastern Cape health departments.

A recent briefing revealed damning findings in both focus areas, which committee chair Gratitude Magwanishe described as “quite serious”. During the briefing, Magwanishe said there were massive amounts of money involved.

“I noted that there is also an advocate that was earning R66,000 a day, every day – including Saturdays and Sundays,” he said.

The advocate in question, Hassan Kajee, was last year slapped with the costs of an application to rescind a court order in which a claimant was, by consent, awarded R34 million in damages from the police.

This despite the fact that the police had instructed the office of the state attorney to defend the matter. Kajee had been representing the office of the state attorney in the case.

It emerged during those proceedings that Kajee had apparently been paid R66,522 a day, every day, for 517 consecutive days, for his work representing the state.

In handing down her ruling on the matter, High Court Judge Raylene Keightley found the “overwhelming probability” was that Kajee and the now former head of the office of the state attorney in Johannesburg, Kgosi Gustav Lekabe, had been involved in a collusive relationship and “milking” these kinds of claims.

Kajee has now resigned from the Johannesburg Society of Advocates, as has Lekabe from the office of the state attorney. Looking ahead, Magwanishe recently told The Citizen that his committee was hoping to fast-track any criminal prosecutions flowing from the SIU’s investigations.

“It’s shocking. The legal profession is involved and this will taint our justice system,” he said.

He believed that bringing those implicated to book would “go a long way to restoring confidence in our criminal justice system” but said the committee also wanted to engage “with the profession itself”.

“We want to engage with the Legal Practice Council. It cannot be that members of that profession are doing this to the community,” Magwanishe said.

In addition to the widespread looting of public funds, the SIU’s findings so far suggest that, in some instances, legitimate claimants who were awarded massive sums of money from the state were never notified or were not notified of the full amount.

“I think that is the worst you can expect from an officer of the law,” Magwanishe said. “It’s the worst form of criminality.”

– bernadettew@citizen.co.za

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