Suspended senior intelligence officers have openly challenged Attorney General Mmako Abram to deny their claims that President Mokgweetsi Masisi sanctioned an investigation into Directorate of Intelligence (DIS) Director General Peter Magosi.
The officers, Pulane Kgoadi and Desmond Setlhabi were recently suspended amid growing tensions within the country’s intelligence agency. They allege that President Masisi authorized a confidential probe into Magosi’s conduct. Therefore, they are calling on Abram to refute their claims, should they be untrue. According to the officers, their suspension is directly linked to their involvement in the investigation against Magosi, which they claim was ordered at the highest levels of government.
The two officers said they conducted “investigations in accordance with The President’s specific directions and reported to the Permanent Secretary to The President (Emma Peloetletse). Kgoadi and Setlhabi said the material gathered during the investigations, including an audio recording of an interview with a whistleblower or informant was submitted to her for the President’s consideration.
“The Plaintiff’s made a challenge to the Defendants to deny the President ordered investigation which the 1st Defendant (Abram) has failed to do in her appearance to defend. The Plaintiffs once again call upon the 1st Defendant to deny specifically in her pleadings, if she is minded to, the fact that the President had ordered the investigation. His Excellency, the Permanent Secretary to the President and the Plaintiffs regularly directly communicated and met with each other in the absence of the 2nd Defendant’s Director General. Such communication included but was not limited to telephonic calls and text messaging,” Kgoadi and Setlhabi said. They said Magosi was wrongfully informed of the covert assignment against him and given investigative material he should not have been given including the audio recording of the suspect/whistleblower specifically by the Permanent Secretary to the President Ms. Emma Peloetletse who had been supplied with both documentary and audio material on the investigations the Plaintiffs (Kgoadi and Setlhabi).
They argue that the Defendants (The Attorney General, DIS, Police Commissioner, Magosi) have been deliberately dodgy in their Appearance to defend. The Appearance to defend does not state the grounds of defence with any particularity and is therefore defective.
“The Plaintiffs specifically put the 1st Defendant on notice that in the event that the avasiveness continues summary judgment or such other remedies as are available at law, or in terms of the rules of court, will be sought,” said the two officers. They lament that the evasiveness by the Plaintiffs is deliberately intended to ambush them and to embarrass them . Kgoadi and Setlhabi are demanding P4.4 million from the State as compensation for unlawful arrest and detention.
