The Johannesburg Review of Books, July 2019<\/p>\n
Jonathan Ball Publishers has shared an excerpt from\u00a0The Enforcers: Inside Cape Town\u2019s Deadly Nightclub Battles<\/em>\u00a0by Caryn Dolley.<\/p>\n Read the excerpt:<\/strong><\/p>\n ~~~<\/p>\n Heading an elite team of investigators who were looking into high profile individuals was no easy task for Andre Lincoln. In a 1996 letter to his bosses outlining the stumbling blocks he faced, he expressed \u2018great concern\u2019 about \u2018the fact that it would seem as if there is a concerted effort by certain members to harass and sabotage the efforts of this investigation\u2019.<\/p>\n Then, in 1997, Lincoln\u2019s investigative team was dealt a severe blow when the Mail & Guardian ran an article saying that the Mandela-mandated unit was effectively a rogue unit which was under investigation on the instruction of George Fivaz. The details of the article mirror more recent claims of rogue units operating in South Africa\u2019s police and revenue services \u2013 claims widely believed to have been concocted to protect high-flying politicians, including former president Jacob Zuma, involved in overwhelmingly suspected corruption.<\/p>\n \u2018[The article] clearly indicates that certain members of the South African Police Service [SAPS] with very devious intentions have passed on information to the press with the intention of discrediting the unit and its members. This newspaper report and the continuous radio reports over the weekend have blown a considerable part of our investigation as well as putting the lives of the unit members, our agents and sources in danger,\u2019 Lincoln noted in a letter to Fivaz two days later. \u2018One of this unit\u2019s best sources was attacked \u2026 at a nightclub and while he was beaten up it was clearly told to him by his attackers that they now know what he and Director Lincoln are busy with \u2026 It is very clear that certain elements in the SAPS are becoming scared of the results of our investigation and that they are now trying to go all out to shut down this unit.\u2019<\/p>\n But if Lincoln had been looking for support from Fivaz at that point, he was out of luck. The police commissioner wrote back saying that he felt Lincoln\u2019s letter indicated \u2018a total lack of respect\u2019 and contained false accusations. \u2018The style of the letter is furthermore arrogant, and I intend to direct that Departmental steps be taken against [Lincoln],\u2019 Fivaz noted.<\/p>\n Lincoln nevertheless pushed ahead with his investigations, uncovering, for example, a police officer attached to the commercial crimes unit who was allegedly involved in counterfeiting and fraud; and, in a probe in conjunction with the American Secret Service, a racket in which counterfeit US dollars, matric certificates and university degrees were being printed in the police head office in Pretoria.<\/p>\n Much more shockingly, however, Lincoln said that his unit took over an investigation, which had previously been put on ice and which he believed had been covered up, into a brazen assassination plot of which Nelson Mandela was the target. The killing was meant to have been carried out at Mandela\u2019s inauguration as South Africa\u2019s first democratically elected president in 1994. Lincoln said the investigation into this was reopened against fierce resistance, and even though a handcrafted rifle suspected to have been the intended murder weapon was found under a policeman\u2019s desk in Pretoria, the probe later again hit a dead end and amounted to nothing. If this is true, Nelson Mandela\u2019s potential murderers have never been brought to account.<\/p>\n By 1998, as a result of the Lincoln investigations, and allegations that Cyril Beeka had tried to get Lincoln to see that a case against Palazzolo was dropped, there were warrants of arrest out for Beeka and Palazzolo. This put a strange spy-versus-spy spin on the situation: Lincoln, at that point an undercover state official in terms of nightclub-underworld investigations, was probing, among others, Beeka, a suspected intelligence operative.<\/p>\n Beeka, and whoever was backing him, had the upper hand, however, staying a step ahead of the reach of the law and never being convicted of the crimes of which he was accused in relation to club-security matters.<\/p>\n Lincoln, on the other hand, got entangled in legal troubles. His worries about sabotage relating to the probes he was conducting appeared not to be unfounded \u2013 his investigations collapsed because he was suspected of being corrupt and working with the very person he was meant to be investigating, Palazzolo, and this meant that fellow police officers investigated Lincoln and pushed for criminal charges to be instituted against him.<\/p>\n Lincoln believed that a former senior policeman, Leonard Knipe, who at the time was tasked with probing Mandela\u2019s investigative unit and who said he had no personal agenda against Lincoln, was among the cops used to tarnish his (Lincoln\u2019s) image because he was investigating high-ranking police officers.36 In effect, if Lincoln is to be believed, he was one of the first-ever victims of state capture in democratic South Africa.<\/p>\n ~~~<\/p>\n