Sibiya arrested in Sandton as Presidency says it will wait for the courts

Suspended Deputy National Commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya was arrested in Sandton on Monday and faces charges of grooming a 16-year-old and raping an 18-year-old woman, as SABC News reported on Tuesday.

The Presidency will not be drawn on the matter until the legal process has run its course. Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the Presidency will comment only once investigations are concluded and evidence is tabled in court.

Ntshavheni was speaking in KwaThema, Ekurhuleni, during the Love Your Street programme, an initiative that promotes active citizenry and clean, safe neighbourhoods. She addressed the arrest in a province that has been dealing with a run of gender-based violence cases, murders and the discovery of bodies.

Sibiya is a senior figure in the South African Police Service. He held the rank of deputy national commissioner before he was suspended, which places him among the most senior officers in the country. The arrest of an officer at that level is unusual, and it is the kind of case that tests whether the police service and the National Prosecuting Authority can act without fear or favour inside their own ranks.

Two things are worth separating for readers following the story. The first is the criminal case. Charges have been laid, and an arrest has been made. Nothing has been proven in court, and Sibiya has not had his day there. The second is the disciplinary position inside the SAPS, which runs on its own track and can move at a different speed to a prosecution.

The Presidency’s position is that it will speak when there is something on the record. That is a defensible line for an institution that is not a court and should not act as one. It also means that for now the public account of what happened rests on the charges and on whatever the investigation produces.

The case lands in the middle of a national argument about gender-based violence that has been running for years. Ekurhuleni in particular has been the site of repeated discoveries of bodies and a series of killings that have left communities demanding a faster and more visible response from the police. Ntshavheni’s appearance in KwaThema, on a programme about clean and safe streets, put her in front of residents in one of those communities on the same day she was asked about the arrest.

For ordinary South Africans, the practical question is the one that follows every high-profile case: whether the investigation and any prosecution proceed at the same pace they would for a person without a rank, a lawyer or a state vehicle. The answer will be visible in the court roll.

SABC News reported the arrest and the Presidency’s position on Tuesday.

Source: SABC News, Gen Sibiya Arrest | Presidency will only comment once investigations are concluded