He now heads up the Western Cape\u2019s Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) \u2013 a critical task team because the province is the most gang-ravaged in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lincoln\u2019s experience as a gang-buster has, according to sources, put him in the running to become the province\u2019s next police chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, past and more current happenings may count against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highlighting tensions within the province\u2019s already fraught police service, Lincoln recently revealed that he distrusted three members of his own unit who had been placed in the AGU by Western Cape police commissioner Khombinkosi Jula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jula has allegedly been central to some of the conflict between police factions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June Lincoln wrote to Jula\u2019s office saying that the three members had gone behind his back to plot an operation which then backfired, with officers being ambushed and wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lincoln\u2019s words came as gang shootings surged and allegations surfaced that the AGU was being deliberately starved of resources and that another policing unit in the province was actively working against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This prompted police minister Bheki Cele to start probing allegations of instability in the Western Cape\u2019s police leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At roughly the same time it emerged that after more than three years Jula was possibly on his way out of the Western Cape and was potentially KwaZulu-Natal\u2019s next police boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
READ<\/strong>: SAPS wars update: KZN top cop post suddenly \u2018vacant\u2019, Cape general \u2018earmarked\u2019 for it<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n If Jula accepts the transfer, the Western Cape police chief position will be vacant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources said there was intense manoeuvring among senior officers and politicians in the province to either try and land the Western Cape post, or to see that someone they favour does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years several sources have voiced suspicions that allegations were planted and actions taken against certain Western Cape police officers in order to try and block their promotions or thwart investigations they were busy with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no secret the province\u2019s policing arena has for years been deeply fractured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016 the tensions involved current national crime intelligence head Lieutenant General Peter Jacobs (who at the time filled the provincial intelligence position) and Western Cape detective boss Major General Jeremy Vearey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were suddenly transferred out of those positions to \u2018desk\u2019 jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This move appeared to be linked to their investigation of a massive national firearm smuggling case which revealed that guns in police custody were ending up with gangsters.<\/p>\n\n\n Western Cape detective boss Major General Jeremy Vearey (Photo: Caryn Dolley).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The duo successfully fought their transfers in the Cape Town Labour Court in a case that exposed the fragmentation among officers provincially and nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then in December 2018 a fresh batch of claims were levelled against Western Cape police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n READ<\/strong>: SAPS Wars Part 1: The blurry blue line between the cops and the Cape underworld<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This time AGU member Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear alleged that a group of officers, some with links to the province\u2019s current crime intelligence head, Mzwandile Tiyo, were plotting against him and his colleagues, including Vearey and Jacobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These allegations, as well as counter-allegations, became the focus of investigations by <\/span>police head office and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Members of the Western Cape\u2019s National Prosecuting Authority are now studying the dockets in this matter and will decide whether any officers will face prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacobs and Vearey are both former uMkhonto weSizwe operatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So is Lincoln.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three are seen to be in aligned to each other and each one has been promoted under President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Included in the (real or perceived) police grouping opposing them are Jula and Tiyo, both appointed in the Western Cape during the Jacob Zuma administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was under this administration that Jacobs and Vearey were controversially transferred in that contested 2016 reshuffle, which also saw Lincoln being moved sideways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacobs has the credentials to become Western Cape police commissioner but it is understood he is likely to stay at national crime intelligence in order to clean up its dubious Zuma era legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Lincoln, while viewed as a contender for the top Cape position, comes with baggage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His critics view him as a policeman who has consistently deviated from the chain of command and accused other officers of wrongdoing to try and deflect accusations of incompetence on his part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others view him as a victim of his past, having been unfairly targeted by colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One consequence is that, despite heading the AGU, he is in a legal deadlock with the police ministry over decades-old happenings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole Lincoln legal saga dates back to June 1996 when then-President Nelson Mandela appointed him to head an elite unit to investigate allegations that high-ranking police officers and politicians were on suspected mafioso Vito Palazzolo\u2019s payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the ’90s Palazzolo was suspected of being one of the most powerful members of the Italian mafia, Cosa Nostra, and was based in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wanted by Italian authorities, he managed to avoid extradition while in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n READ: Palazzolo: Italian authorities target \u2018mafia banker\u2019s\u2019 SA wealth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln\u2019s team, the Presidential Investigative Task Unit (Pitu), also investigated figures linked to nightclub security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This included rumoured military intelligence operative Cyril Beeka, who had suspected ties to ANC heavyweights, and his alleged links to police officers and to Cosa Nostra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln therefore investigated (and later made claims against) powerful members of the previous and the current government, as well as police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palazzolo, who absconded from a Swiss jail and fled to South Africa in 1986, had reputedly helped the Apartheid regime bypass international sanctions and built up a network of influence, first in the Ciskei and then in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of Pitu\u2019s directives was: \u201cThe unit operates with the approval of the President and all efforts must thus be made not to create any form of embarrassment for the President, his office or the South African Police Service in general \u2013 this must be the motto of the unit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it became the source of extreme embarrassment for the ANC because it imploded and became the core of one of the country\u2019s messiest and longest running legal sagas, with high-level political offshoots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The year after Pitu\u2019s creation, police officers were instead investigating Lincoln.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This related to suspicions that he was actually in cahoots with Palazzolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln argued it may have seemed so because to infiltrate Palazzolo\u2019s operations he had needed to get close to the kingpin and did so under the guise of being his ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He claimed the investigation into him was driven by \u201cold order\u201d cops wanting to protect their own networks and colleagues. In 1998 Lincoln was arrested and slapped with 47 criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These included for drunk driving and fraud relating to money linked to the investigative unit, as well as a trip that Lincoln and Palazzolo had taken to Angola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In November 2002 Lincoln was convicted on 17 of the 47 charges and the following year he was sentenced to nine years in jail without the option of a fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln was also discharged from the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He appealed both the conviction and the sentence, arguing that \u201cold guard\u201d police officers from the apartheid-era had set him up to kill Pitu\u2019s investigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2009 Lincoln was acquitted of all the charges and his sentence was set aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am satisfied the magistrate misdirected himself in convicting the appellant… All the facts just scream out that there was no fraud in this case and once again, the magistrate was wrong,\u201d the judgment in this appeal said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe entire trial consisted of intrigue, name dropping and very little else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Lincoln\u2019s woes were far from over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His advocate Johann Nortje was unsure if Pitu investigations had anything to do with subsequent pushback against Lincoln.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said when Lincoln was acquitted in 2009 he should have been reinstated in terms of a section of the SAPS Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cele was national police commissioner at the time and, according to Nortje, did not comply with this section \u2014 it effectively says if a police officer is convicted and sentenced, but successfully appeals and these are set aside, the officer may be reinstated from the date of discharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln was reinstated into the police in June 2010, but not with all the losses he had incurred during his seven year exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe therefore issued summons,\u201d Nortje said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This led to a civil case in the Western Cape High Court in 2017 in which Lincoln pushed to prove he had been maliciously prosecuted (which resulted in the 2002 convictions) and also tried to claim R15-million in damages from the police minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The money related to the loss of income while he was out of the police service following his discharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2017 the court ruled that Lincoln failed to prove that he was maliciously prosecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He appealed and in October 2018 was successful – two judges ruled that Lincoln\u2019s appeal should be upheld, while one disagreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But police then approached the Supreme Court of Appeal with the ministry of safety and security (now the police ministry) as the applicant and petitioned for leave to appeal Lincoln\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n\n\n Members from the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit (SAPS Facebook).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was recently granted and the appeal will likely only be heard next year, dragging the overall matter into its 24th year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state attorney\u2019s notice to appeal, dated mid-June, said the majority of the Western Cape High Court misdirected itself in finding that the alleged bias of investigators was \u201csufficient to establish the delict of malicious prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The push for the appeal has raised several questions in policing circles because the police ministry approached the supreme court in late 2018, roughly the same time Lincoln was announced as the head of the newly-created Anti-Gang Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means that Lincoln, despite getting the president\u2019s nod to lead the fight against gangsterism, is again apparently being second-guessed by some colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nortje said when Cele was initially addressed about the petition to appeal Lincoln\u2019s victory, \u201cthe Minister said that he wasn\u2019t aware of (it).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Cele\u2019s stance since then puzzled Nortje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand why the Minister is pushing ahead with this further special appeal specifically in the light of Lincoln\u2019s promotion to head the Anti-Gang Unit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A well-placed source told amaBhungane that Cele was likely proceeding with the appeal because if he backtracked now, it could set an unwanted precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If this source is correct, Cele is in a catch-22 \u2013 if he drops the appeal he could set a precedent and if does not, he is seen to be among those pushing against Lincoln even if this is not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cele, via his spokesperson, declined to comment because the matter is before a court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of June this year Nortje was quoted in the Sunday Times<\/em><\/a> as saying the AGU was created before the 2019 election as an ANC attempt to try and gain votes on the Cape Flats, but that it was launched without proper procedures being followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another source previously expressed a similar view of the unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever its intention, the Anti-Gang Unit has exposed more problems within the Western Cape\u2019s police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 12 this year a team from the unit was carrying out an operation in Samora Machel in Nyanga, dubbed the \u201cmurder capital\u201d of South Africa because of the high numbers of killings reported there, when they were ambushed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shots were fired at the group and five police officers were wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day Lincoln wrote to Jula\u2019s office requesting that three members \u201cplaced at the (Anti-Gang Unit) by the Provincial Commissioner\u201d be removed due to a breakdown in trust between him and the trio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln alleged the operation was not discussed with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said there was no approved operational plan and no specialised forces, for example the tactical response team, present as backup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dockets on which the operation was based, Lincoln said, were not gang-related and therefore did not fall under the AGU\u2019s mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lincoln appointed a colonel to conduct a disciplinary investigation into the three officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Provincial police said the acting Western Cape police commissioner Major General Mpumelelo Manci had also appointed a major general to investigate the Samora Machel incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is requested that the investigation be allowed space to reach finality,\u201d the provincial police told amaBhungane.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDivisions<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Veary-pic.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Presidential appointment<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Kicked out<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Legal ping-pong and deadlock<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIntensifying internal cop friction<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Opposing units?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n