Police officers ready to seek protection order against McBride

According to the Pretoria News, Saleem Ebrahim said last night the papers were now ‘signed, sealed and ready’. Chief Superintendent Stanley Segathevan has prepared a founding affidavit of more than 50 pages to seek a protection order against his boss. His suspended colleagues, Chief Superintendent Patrick Johnston and Superintendent Itumeleng Koko, will provide supporting affidavits against the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Chief and 15 of his officers. Ebrahim said the crux of the application will be to convince the judge that, McBride and his men will step up their intimidation tactics in light of recent developments. ‘It\'s known now that they have turned State witnesses,’ he said. And yesterday, The Star revealed the statements the three officers made to police about McBride\'s heavy drinking before his controversial car crash on December 21. Full report in The Pretoria News

The three affidavits about the night of the crash include allegations that McBride drank glass after glass of whisky before crashing his state-owned car. He was then treated by a doctor related to Segathevan and later secretly travelled to Durban for a bogus medical certificate. These are some of the allegations now being considered by the National Prosecuting Authority, along with at least five statements from civilian witnesses who claimed the Ekurhuleni metro police chief was drunk. This is an allegation McBride has publicly denied. The statements of the ‘clean-up team’ are made under section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which protects the trio from incriminating admissions. They were handed in on May 30. Full report in The Star (subscription needed)

The NPA says it still has not decided whether to prosecute McBride, according to an SABC News report. NPA spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi says: ‘The difficulty with the matter regarding Mr McBride is that every day you get new information coming from different sources. So it’s very important that as the NPA we don\'t ignore that information, so we will follow up on every matter that is raised to us. So that is the reason for the delay, but at one stage we will make a decision on whether we\'re prosecuting or not.’ Full SABC News report