Suspended KZN Hawks head and Toti resident, Johan Booysen has written a tell-all book about his ongoing legal battles with the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP).
Johan, who was head of the now-disbanded Cato Manor serious and violent crimes unit, had been charged with his former colleagues of running a criminal enterprise.
He was born in Johannesburg, but lived in Toti since he was a teenager. He went to school at Warner Beach Prep, Port Natal and Kuswag.
In Blood on Their Hands, when Johan hears that the new provincial police chief takes backhanders from a Durban businessman, he decides to give her the benefit of the doubt. But the evidence becomes impossible to ignore and he soon gets dragged down the corridors of power and politics into a web of intrigue, deceit and betrayal that, at times, he has trouble making sense of.
Only when he is arrested, handcuffed and tossed into a cell does Johan realise just how ruthless those opposed to him are – an opposition he comes to call the ‘cabal’ – and whom he believes have more blood on their hands than the so-called Cato Manor Death Squad with which he is closely associated.
The book traces Johan’s life and career – from patrolling the streets of Amanzimtoti in the 1970s to his rise in 2010 to major general and head of KZN’s directorate for priority crime investigation unit, the Hawks.
But his tenure is short-lived. When he decides to take on those so determined to be rid of him, each legal battle he wins is met with hostility and further efforts to shut him out of the criminal justice system. But capitulating is not in his DNA.
“I wrote the book to clear my name and because I believe ‘ for evil to triumph, good men must do nothing’. I am determined to do something,” said Johan.
‘Blood on Their Hands’, which Johan co-wrote with Jessica Pitchford, is published by Pan Macmillan.
After graduating from Rhodes University in the 1980s, Pitchford became a news reporter in Johannesburg during one of the most turbulent and exciting times in South African history. Twenty-five years later, having worked for Special Assignment, Carte Blanche and Checkpoint, she thought she’d heard it all – until she met Johan, who restored her belief in the adage ‘life is stranger than fiction’. Blood On Their Hands is Pitchford’s third book.
A book launch takes place at The Book Boutique, 26 Rockview Road on Tuesday, 13 September at 5.30pm for 6pm. RSVP via email to thebookboutique@gmail.com or call 031-903-6692.
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