PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The DA in the Western Cape has slammed a call by the ANC to reopen an investigation into sedition charges involving high-ranking DA politicians and a Plett township group allegedly sparking public violence in an effort to unseat the ANC in Bitou about 12 years ago.
DA Western Cape premier campaign spokesperson Dirk Linde, on behalf of DA Western Cape premier candidate Alan Winde, his colleague MEC Donald Grant and Garden Route District Council mayor Memory Booysen, said the allegations related to events as far back as 2007. "These have been investigated and have no substance," Linde said.
He added that it was "remarkable that the issue is dug up again by the ANC" just weeks ahead of the elections. "The ANC did the same in 2007 and again in 2013."
Bedevilling Bitou in 2007
The complaints stem from unrest that bedevilled Bitou in 2007. The allegations included that a group comprising DA members and the political organisation Quina Mhlali Qina (QMQ) were behind the unrest that included the destruction of cars and assets and the burning of ANC members' homes in May of that year.
The ANC claims Winde and Grant, along with Booysen who was Bitou mayor at the time, were allegedly involved in destabilising the municipality at the time.
In 2013, the Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions indicated it would not continue with prosecution. Some of the reasons given were that allegations were vague, there was no substantive evidence, the charges did not meet the description of the alleged offences, and there was not a reasonable prospect of a successful prosecution.
'Sufficient evidence at the time'
ANC Western Cape provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said in a statement this week that despite "sufficient evidence that was obtained at the time", the sedition docket never "saw the inside of a courtroom as certain evidence appears to have been excluded". "There was a covert attempt to subvert the course of justice," he said.
Jacobs added that, to his knowledge, the deputy commissioner of crime detection in the Western Cape, Major General Jeremy Vearey, has instructed that the Plett sedition docket "be immediately reopened and reinvestigated in light of the previous and new evidence that was deliberately and covertly excluded".
Western Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa confirmed to News24 that the matter would be reopened, but several attempts to confirm the course of action were unsuccessful at the time of going to print.
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