A sensitive police probe – located in the office of the National Commissioner – is closing in on a number of suspects said to be behind the riots in July last year.
This is according to a report carried in News24.
A senior officer, anonymous but ‘close to the investigation’ said that those implicated included ‘a prominent former mayor of a Gauteng metro, Cabinet ministers, former premiers, Crime Intelligence agents, State Security Agency operatives, and members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association.’
The investigation had been able to expose meetings between the various alleged conspirators through cellphone and car tracking records.
The source said that the hope was to bring charges of treason against those implicated.
National Commissioner Khehla Sithole would hand a ‘closeout’ report to President Ramaphosa when he vacated the office. This would presumably include details of the investigation.
In other developments, a study by Ivor Chipkin and Jelena Vidojević, with Laurence Rau and Daniel Saksenberg – which looked at the July unrest – concluded that elite contestation within the ANC was the most significant cause of political instability in the country. This echoes the findings of an official inquiry into the events.