Probe into Mandela cop an apartheid era conspiracy‚ court hears

The investigation into Major General Andre Lincoln was a conspiracy by apartheid era police to keep him out of the Western Cape‚ the Cape Town High Court heard on Monday.

Lincoln also said that witnesses were "pressurised into giving false statements and forced to lie under oath" by police with "hidden agendas" and who knew how to "set you up"‚ as his cross examination continued.

In 1996 Lincoln was personally picked by former president Nelson Mandela to investigate organised crime headed by then Italian mafia boss Vito Palazzola.

Lincoln also uncovered a plot to kill the former head of state.

The top cop is now suing the former head of state security for R15 million for what he described as "malicious prosecution". He told the court last week that senior police officials had gone to extreme lengths to blow his cover after telling Palazzolo that he was being investigated.

• Details of 'plot' to kill Mandela emerge in courtShocking details about an alleged plot to assassinate the late President Nelson Mandela were revealed in the high court in Cape Town on Monday.
   

Lincoln faced criminal charges‚ most of which he was acquitted of before having 17 convictions set aside on appeal.

"I had nothing to hide‚ so if there were allegations by all means investigate me. [But] the investigating officer appointed to my case could not be trusted‚" he said.

Lincoln testified that he had told then deputy president Thabo Mbeki about pressure put on witnesses to testify against him‚ and that Mbeki's response was for the case against him to "run its course".

"I told him that witnesses were being made to lie under oath‚" he said.

• Plot to kill Mandela and government mafia links: Skeletons come tumbling out of the closet on day one of sensational court caseA plot to kill Nelson Mandela and a cover up by police. This‚ along with other evidence presented to the Cape Town High Court on Monday‚ is central to SAPS Major-General Andre Lincoln's claims for damages relating to a “malicious” investigation against him by police in the 1990s.
   

He said "a senior policeman had told Palazzolo that I was not his friend and I was investigating him‚ which led him to change his statement against me".

"That is where the malice comes in." 

Lincoln also said that affidavits used in his prosecution were "helped and coxed"‚ and that the decision to prosecute him did not come from the department of public prosecution‚ but that police investigators played a "serious role in the decision".

In earlier testimony Lincoln said one of the officers‚ Leonard Knipe‚ told Mbeki that he would drop charges against Lincoln if he resigned from the SAPS.

- TMG Digital/The Times