Cop lied about Yengeni arrest

2008-11-14 14:03

Cape Town - The policeman who arrested former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni for drunken driving told the court on Friday how, under pressure from his commanding officer, he made a false statement changing the time of arrest.

"I was forced to change the statement, I was threatened to change the statement," Constable Charles Jafta told the Goodwood Magistrate's Court, where he was testifying in Yengeni's drunken driving trial.

The false statement gave the time of arrest three hours earlier than it actually was. An earlier arrest would have made the blood sample taken from Yengeni soon after the arrest useless as evidence against him.

Yengeni was arrested shortly after midnight on the night of November 25 last year, after Jafta saw him drive his BMW M5 repeatedly onto a traffic island in Voortrekker Street, Goodwood.

No-alcohol parole

At the time Yengeni was on no-alcohol parole following his conviction for fraud.

Jafta said the day after the arrest, Goodwood station commander Senior Superintendent Siphiwe Hewana stopped him in the police station's parking lot.

"He told me my arrest, it's like a frying pan, like cooking oil," Jafta said.

"He told me that he would come back at ten that night and that there's certain information in the dossier we must change."

That night, Hewana called him and fellow-constable Jeremy Voskuil, who had been with Jafta at the time of the arrest, to his office.

"He told me to sit, and said the same thing, that the arrest was like a frying pan, cooking oil, hot.

"Superintendent Hewana asked me if I knew a person from Popcru, with a Xhosa name. I said I did not know; I said, why?

"He said this person from Popcru was phoning him the whole day asking him what the race of the arresting officer was."

'Instructions' from commissioners

Hewana also asked if he knew what Yengeni's parole conditions were, and when Jafta said he did not, said Yengeni was not allowed to consume alcohol, or be out of doors after 21:00.

"Superintendent Hewana said that as a result, he had got instructions from the provincial office, from commissioners at the provincial office. He had got instructions that we must change the docket, the arrest time, from after 12 to nine o'clock."

Hewana said he should put in his statement that he spent the three hours between the supposed 21:00 arrest, and the time the blood sample was taken in the early hours of the next morning, driving around to various police stations looking for a breathalyser device.

Jafta said that when he protested, Hewana said he must not worry, and that the provincial office would "sort it out".

"Superintendent Hewana said we must think about our families, we must think about ourselves, that they can transfer us immediately, and that the people at the provincial office were old Umkhonto we Sizwe members.

Prevent Yengeni going back to jail

"He also said that these people would do all in their power to prevent Mr Yengeni going back to jail. He also said that if Mr Yengeni went down, we would go down too."

Hewana had also said their promotion prospects would be affected if they did not co-operate.

"At that stage I was so confused, disappointed and threatened, I felt so threatened as a result of all the things that Superintendent Hewana was saying."

Jafta said he and Voskuil wrote new statements to Hewana's dictation, and he also opened a completely new case docket.

He kept the old one, containing their original statements, in case the whole thing backfired.

Dismissed

Some days later, when a senior officer from the provincial office came to investigate, he initially stuck to the 21:00 story, then made a clean breast of the plot.

Hewana has since the incident been dismissed from the police.

He is contesting the dismissal as an unfair labour practice.

- SAPA