Mdluli plot claims rock hearing

More drama is expected when the bail application of crime intelligence boss Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli resumes in the Boksburg Magistrate's Court tomorrow.

Mdluli and three others were arrested in connection with a 1999 murder, but the top cop has fought back with astounding allegations of a witch hunt by police.

He claims that:

• He was the victim of a witch hunt orchestrated by senior police officers; and

• His pleas to police commissioner General Bheki Cele and President Jacob Zuma to stop the "personal agendas" in crime intelligence had gone unanswered.

Mdluli and his co-accused - colonels Nkosana Sebastian Ximba and Mtunzi Mtunzi and court orderly Samuel Dlomo - are accused of killing Oupa Ramogibe in Vosloorus in 1999.

It has been alleged that Mdluli and Ramogibe were involved in a love triangle with a woman identified as Tshidi Buthelelzi.

The prosecution on Friday came under fire from the magistrate for stalling tactics. Magistrate Emmanuel Magomba told prosecutor Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka: "It can't go on like this ... I'm getting agitated at the manner in which things are proceeding."

Central to Mdluli's bail application is a top-secret document Mdluli declassified and handed in as evidence. The document contains a letter Mdluli said he wrote to Zuma and Cele, among others.

In the letter, dated November 2010, Mdluli said he had become aware that two police members had been ordered to dig up dirt on him.

"I got information that junior members of crime intelligence were assigned by then provincial commissioner Afrika Khumalo to gather intelligence against me ...

"This was done prior to my appointment ... and one of the main reasons was that I have not been involved in the struggle."

Khumalo died in August last year.

Another letter, from the original investigating officer in the murder case, Marthinus Gysbert Botha, stated that he could find no evidence linking the four to the crime.

The letter said: "These allegations were investigated, and at no stage could I find (evidence) to prove these allegations or link ... (Mdluli) with the death of the deceased or that he was at any stage involved ..."

The bail application continues tomorrow.