\t\t \t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t \t\t <\/p>\n
Bernadette Wolhuter <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Major-General Johan Booysen has fired back at allegations that a former police reservist witnessed the Cato Manor organised crime unit execute a crime suspect on his orders. <\/p>\n
Speaking to The Mercury yesterday, Booysen said the reservist\u2019s accusation was \u201cfraught with fabrications\u201d. <\/p>\n
Yesterday the Sunday Times reported that Ari Danikas, a Greek national and former police reservist who worked with the unit, witnessed members of the unit torture and execute crime suspects. He also said Booysen had told him to \u201cput a bullet\u201d in the head of gang leader Jabulani Mhlongo, days before the suspect was shot and killed by police. <\/p>\n
Danikas said Booysen was at the scene after the shooting to commend the officers involved.<\/em> <\/p>\n \u201cAt the time of the 2001 shooting Danikas mentions, I was working at the provincial headquarters. I did not work that night, I was not even there,\u201d said Booysen. <\/p>\n He also said the Cato Manor branch only came into being in 2002. <\/p>\n \u201cDanikas said unit members gathered at the Cato Manor police station,\u201d said Booysen, \u201cBut the Rossburgh Projects Office handled that matter.\u201d <\/p>\n The Sunday Times said that Danikas had shared information with investigators and, in October last year, a newspaper quoted the Independent Police Investigative Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini saying Hawks investigators and a member of the prosecuting team had interviewed Danikas at a \u201csecret European location\u201d. <\/p>\n However, yesterday Dlamini denied having said that. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have never interviewed anyone by the name (Ari Danikas),\u201d he said. \u201cI did not say that. It is nonsense.\u201d He added that he was \u201cpuzzled\u201d by the story and by the Sunday Times article. <\/p>\n When asked if the directorate would investigate Danikas\u2019s allegations, Dlamini said he was unable to answer. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have completed our investigation and handed it over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n NPA spokeswoman Natasha Ramkisson was unable to comment. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Booysen and his co-accused will appear next in the Durban Magistrate\u2019s Court in May. <\/p>\n He and 27 of his colleagues face murder and racketeering charges in connection with alleged \u201cdeath squad\u201d activities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bernadette Wolhuter KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Major-General Johan Booysen has fired back at allegations that a former police reservist witnessed the Cato Manor organised crime unit execute a crime suspect on his orders. Speaking to The Mercury yesterday, Booysen said the reservist\u2019s accusation was \u201cfraught with fabrications\u201d. Yesterday the Sunday Times reported that Ari Danikas, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-18265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}