Fort Hare: Forensic Investigators Under Fire
Sanity (and justice) have prevailed!
At the end of last month, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew controversial fraud charges against forensic lawyer Sarah Burger, the former lead investigator who uncovered evidence of massive wrongdoings at the University of Fort Hare.
Sarah and her colleague, Bradley Conradie (who is still in custody), are directors at Horizon Forensics, the company appointed by the University in 2018 to investigate suspected incidents of academic fraud and financial mismanagement.
Since then, they’ve launched multiple investigations (many alongside the Special Investigations Unit – SIU) that have exposed syndicates involving university staff, politically connected individuals, and local businesses.
In the wake of their findings, about 40 University employees have either been dismissed, or have resigned, and 20 cases have been referred to the Hawks for further investigation.
Despite all their efforts, however, they received a frustrating lack of support from the police, saying it was “incomprehensible” that not a single arrest has been made relating to any of the cases they’d referred to the SAPS in the past six years.
“In any functioning democracy, the university could go to their local police station and complain about possible fraud and corruption,” Conradie says. “The police would do what is necessary – investigate and arrest after following due process.
“Not in South Africa. This work has to be done by private forensic companies and even after it is done, the police do not follow it up despite all the evidence already gathered and prepared for trial,” Conradie said.
Of all the incidents they’ve looked into, Sarah believes it was their investigation into alleged academic fraud involving Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, and the handing over of documents and a forensic report to the Hawks, that triggered their arrests in March last year.
In what some would later describe as a “Hollywood-style” arrest, and which Burger and Conradie labelled “an unnecessarily dramatic show”, with “patently unlawful” search and seizure warrants, they were arrested by over 20 members of the National Task Force and the National Intervention Unit (NIU) and flown to East London in a private jet.
Conradie estimated the cost of the operation must have been around R3 million. “As court officers, we could simply have been summoned to appear in court,” he said. “There was no need for this elaborate arrest.”
He also claimed the arresting team had been told he was “dangerous, will resist arrest, and has armed bodyguards.” One of the arresting officers later commented, “All I saw was a calm and gentle man.”
After the arrests, Burger was left in holding cells for six days without access to her attorney. She later said, in an interview with BizNews, that she believed their arrests were designed as part of a character assassination in order to gag witnesses.
She was eventually granted bail, but Conradie spent a further nine days in prison, with people he described as hardened criminals, before he too was released on bail.
“There are people being shot at and assassinated and murdered because people are trying to cover up truths that are out there,” said Burger. “Now the retaliation that we’ve experienced – and which we believe is very politically motivated – is that we’ve uncovered something and we formed a view based on thousands and thousands of documents. And that view and the evidence that supports it is now turned as a smoking gun towards us because we are effectively the wrongdoers now and we need to be silenced.”
Thankfully, after her case was dragged through the courts for 17 long months, Sarah is now free. She is also traumatised and very, very angry.
“There was not a single charge against me in the charge sheet, and there was no evidence against me in the docket whatsoever,” she said. “I’m glad the state came to their senses, but at the end of the day, there are people who put me in this position, and they have to be held to account, and they will.”
Both Sarah and Conradie believe their arrests were an attempt to discredit them. I would go so far as to add that it was an attempt to discredit the forensic investigation profession as a whole.
The recent allegation of links to organised crime levelled at Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, and his subsequent suspension by President Ramaphosa is a case in point. He has set up a judicial commission to investigate the allegations, but it all smacks a little of putting a fox in charge of the henhouse.
When you allow the people in power to investigate themselves, how likely is the prospect of genuine accountability?
Cast your minds back to the Zondo Commission. Years – and millions of Rands – wasted, yet the accused remain untouched.
Is this new enquiry simply paying lip service to justice to placate the South African public?
We deserve justice, and right now, private forensic investigators are the country’s best chance of getting it. But when they are falsely arrested and accused of crimes that are later found to be completely baseless, I have to wonder if it was all just an elaborate smoke and mirrors exercise.
A classic case of deflection to take public attention away from those who are actually guilty and, as Burger suspects, discredit the forensic investigation profession and all those who are trying to restore good corporate governance and ethical leadership to our country.
It’s imperative that the profession stands together to ensure this doesn’t happen.
In a statement after her release, Burger said, “While I am relieved that justice has finally prevailed, the entire saga has been a harsh and costly lesson marked by immense personal and professional destruction. Accountability must follow for every cog that aided in this process.”
She went on to say, “If the NPA and the SAPS are truly committed to restoring public trust, they must uphold due process, act within the bounds of the law, and respect the rule of law at all times. More importantly, they must respect fundamental constitutional rights, which are rights meant to be enjoyed by all. Without this, no citizen will be safe.”
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