First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

Three prominent Western Cape police officers have recently found themselves in the centre of a cop disciplinary war.

Lieutenant-General Peter Jacobs, Major-General Andre Lincoln and Major-General Jeremy Vearey have similar political backgrounds rooted in the ANC and have all come up against colleagues before.

Two of the officers have successfully approached the Labour Court to halt disciplinary proceedings against them, with one doing so twice because he faces two disciplinaries.

The third officer has been found guilty of misconduct and National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole signed off on his dismissal on 28 May 2021.

All these police service disciplinary manoeuvres and rebuttals via the courts appear to be a cut-throat chess game, with some cops as pawns and others forming the hand that moves them about.

Sitole comes across, whether it is the case or not, as the master who decides who gets placed where, including who gets knocked off the board. Jacobs was the head of the Western Cape’s Crime Intelligence before he was transferred and then promoted to national Crime Intelligence boss. He was then suspended and, in March this year, controversially transferred to head the police’s Inspectorate.

Lincoln heads the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit and Vearey was the province’s detective head. His dismissal from the police service was recently rubber-stamped by Sitole. All three were previously members of the ANC’s armed wing uMkhonto weSizwe. All three have previously come up against fellow police officers. And, aside from facing allegations themselves, they have all investigated fellow cops.

Cop vs Cop

With the onset of democracy, the police service was amalgamated to include ANC operatives as well as police officers who served under apartheid. The officers of the new police service undoubtedly had different political beliefs. This would also have seen Lincoln, Jacobs and Vearey, with their ANC backgrounds, come up against those who were pro-apartheid. Lincoln was the first to feel friction. In around 1996, he headed the Presidential Investigative Task Unit, set up by then-president Nelson Mandela.

However, this move to head a unit, tasked with investigating high-profile crimes including the suspected involvement of state officials and cops, backfired. Lincoln ended up being convicted of crimes relating to fraud. He countered that apartheid-era cops were setting him up because of where his investigations were leading, presumably back to the state.

He managed to successfully appeal his convictions and, in 2010, re-entered the police service. Fast forward a few years and, in June 2016, Vearey and Jacobs were heading up a massive investigation into allegations of cops funnelling firearms to gangsters.

When they were suddenly transferred – Jacobs from Western Cape Crime Intelligence head and Vearey from acting provincial detective head – they claimed that this led to the effective collapse of their investigation. Vearey and Jacobs successfully fought their transfers in the Cape Town Labour Court.

This happened under Jacob Zuma’s presidency (as did Sitole’s appointment as national police commissioner in November 2017).

In February 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa became president and Jacobs was promoted to head South Africa’s Crime Intelligence a month later. Then, in April 2018, Vearey was appointed Western Cape detective head, the position he was transferred from during Zuma’s presidency. A few months later, in November 2018, Lincoln was appointed to head the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit.

‘Heads must roll’

Among the members of this unit was Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear.

Kinnear, together with Lincoln, had been involved in investigating underworld crimes, including how police officers in Gauteng were allegedly creating fraudulent firearm licences for suspects, some in the Western Cape.

On 18 September 2020, as arrests were still being carried out in this investigation, Kinnear was assassinated outside his Bishop Lavis home in Cape Town.

Kinnear had previously complained to his police bosses that a group of cops, some linked to Crime Intelligence, were working against him as well as some of his colleagues, including Vearey and Jacobs.

Jacobs labelled the group Kinnear referred to as a “rogue” unit.

Following Kinnear’s assassination, Police Minister Bheki Cele warned that “heads must roll”. He was effectively saying that if police officers were found to be connected to Kinnear’s murder, they should be held to account. However, some within the police service believed that there were other reasons bosses were targeting the “heads” they wanted to get rid of. There are now two main sides to this theory – one is that the people being targeted are cops who have been investigating fellow figures within the state for an array of crimes, and that there is an attempt to get rid of them so that the corrupt will not be held to account. Indeed, the Western Cape ANC issued a statement this week saying that Vearey’s “dismissal appears to be part of a pattern to sideline and fire people’s soldiers who joined SAPS”.

The other theory is that the police officers being targeted are in the wrong.

Peter Jacobs

Jacobs was among a group of officers suspended late last year.

In an affidavit related to linked court proceedings, he explained: “On 10 December 2020, myself and a number of Senior Members of SAPS Crime Intelligence were suspended by [Sitole] following a meritless allegation made by the Inspector General of Intelligence (“IGI”) that we irregularly procured Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) using the Secret Service Account.

“The allegations made by the IGI were bizarre and alarming given the fact that SAPS Crime Intelligence is entitled to procure PPE from the Secret Service Account as it is empowered by the Secret Service Account Amendment Act…

“We maintained then, as we do now, that the charges are entirely meritless and trumped-up.” The PPE allegations resulted in an expeditious disciplinary process being launched against Jacobs and his suspended colleagues. Meanwhile, Jacobs countered that there was evidence suggesting that police officers, including Crime Intelligence colleagues, had abused the Secret Service Account. In any event, the disciplinary against him went ahead in February. But, on the first day, claims emerged that the three police officers driving the process did not have security clearance and, therefore, were not legally allowed access to key classified documents.

A criminal complaint, on behalf of Jacobs, under the Information and Intelligence acts, was then lodged at the Silverton police station in Pretoria.

This derailed the disciplinary and Jacobs approached the Labour Court in Johannesburg to have it halted.

In mid-March, the court ordered that the disciplinary be halted, pending a hearing relating to it being heard by the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC).

That same month, Jacobs was transferred from his position as Crime Intelligence boss to head the police’s Inspectorate.

Some cops viewed this as a demotion. They said Jacobs was being sidelined because he had claimed to have uncovered looting of the Secret Service Account.

Peter Jacobs and Andre Lincoln

Jacobs found himself the focus of a second disciplinary matter, this time alongside Lincoln. The duo faced allegations relating to Kinnear’s security (more precisely, the lack thereof) in the run-up to his assassination.

In this disciplinary saga, Jacobs and Lincoln were effectively up against Sitole and Lieutenant-General Japie Riet, chairperson of the proceedings against them.

However, Jacobs felt he was being targeted due to protected disclosures he had made against other police officers. Some of these disclosures related to Kinnear, as well as to other alleged wrongdoing by cops.

Lincoln felt that he would not receive a fair disciplinary hearing if it was chaired by a police employee.

Lincoln and Jacobs referred the matter to the SSSBC and asked police to halt the disciplinary against them pending this.

On 4 May 2021, Riet apparently refused to postpone it, so both Jacobs and Lincoln took legal action, each in the province they were based. Jacobs approached the Labour Court in Johannesburg to effectively try to halt the disciplinary. Meanwhile, Lincoln approached the Labour Court in Cape Town, wanting to pause the disciplinary proceedings to wait for the outcome of Jacobs’s Labour Court application. Lincoln also wanted an independent chairperson appointed to preside over the disciplinary.

Jacobs was successful in his Johannesburg Labour Court action. On 18 May 2021, the court ordered that Riet’s decision to refuse a suspension of the disciplinary matter pending the outcome of the SSSBC referral was “reviewed and set aside”.

Lincoln was similarly successful – an order from the Cape Town Labour Court dated 24 May 2021 said that the disciplinary hearing against Lincoln had been “postponed” pending the outcome of the SSSBC referral.

Both Lincoln and Jacobs had said, in affidavits, that they were being “persecuted” within the police service – Lincoln for pointing to senior colleagues as not pulling their weight, and Jacobs over protected disclosures. The SSSBC hearing in this case is set to proceed on 1 July.

Jeremy Vearey

Earlier this year, a disciplinary was launched against Vearey relating to some of his Facebook posts between December 2020 and February 2021.

The posts were comments he made, without naming anyone but in words police viewed as disrespectful, along with links to news articles on happenings within the service. Towards the end of May, the disciplinary meeting concluded that Vearey should be fired. Sitole subsequently signed off on his dismissal.

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union was dealing with the matter – also referring it to the SSSBC – on Vearey’s behalf.

This is where Jacobs fits in again: Jacobs represented Vearey in the disciplinary meeting that found Vearey should be fired.

This, in turn, all loops back to Sitole.

In the disciplinary against Vearey, it was further found that Sitole should consider addressing Jacobs’s conduct because Jacobs, despite being Inspectorate head, had seemingly sided with Vearey. Sitole’s signing off on Vearey’s dismissal was reminiscent of what happened to Lincoln in the 1990s when Lincoln was accused of crimes and forced to leave the police service.

And so, aside from similar political and policing histories, Vearey, Jacobs and Lincoln now share similar current situations – each has been the focus of disciplinary proceedings with Sitole as national police commissioner. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.