Don’t mess with Jacques Pauw. Ever.

In a piece he wrote for News24, the author of the bestselling book The President’s Keepers describes how a Durban North detective Colonel Reuben Govender, tried to arrest him on false charges:

After my book … was published at the end of October last year, security tycoon and racehorse owner Chockalingam “Roy” Moodley went to his pet cop, Govender, and laid charges of fraud, forgery and uttering, crimen injuria and criminal defamation against me.

Meanwhile, Pauw said that Moodley had laid similar charges against News24 investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh. This despite the fact that Myburgh had nothing to do with his book at all – although he has written about the tycoon’s “allegedly shady” business deals before, Myburgh had not written about him at the time the offences were claimed to be committed.

Pauw thinks that Moody probably ordered Govender “to use the opportunity to bag Myburgh as well”.

First the Hawks raid his house, and now this – no rest.

Obviously, Pauw didn’t think highly of the detective in question:

Govender is either incredibly inept or exceptionally devious and dishonest.

It’s both. He is an amateurish and sly cop who is in the pocket of one of the most controversial businessmen in the country – a Zuma crony who has paid the former president a salary while he was in office.

Of course, Pauw wasn’t going to take this matter lying down. During the course of the week, he obtained a stack of documents, among them two affidavits by Govender, and applications for warrants for his and Myburgh’s arrests that he had prepared for a magistrate.

Perusing each document, said Pauw, they showed how Govender – although knowing that he had insufficient evidence – had actually lied under oath to obtain the warrants. The detective then “embarked on a plot to lure Myburgh and I to Durban” in order to arrest them:

He would probably have locked us up and presented us with trumped-up charges. He has a track record of intimidating suspects and detaining them for weekends.

Pauw also determined that in court papers concerning other matters, such as allegations of abuses of power and processes, whose names popped up but *drum-roll* Govender and Moodley.

Unfortunately, Govender’s “pet cop” has not yet got his just desserts.

The astonishing thing is that nothing has ever happened to Govender, and he seemingly acts with impunity. I have no doubt that he enjoys protection from above.

The documents I obtained this week prove how the senior policeman then committed perjury and lied at the behest of Moodley.

Read Pauw’s full piece here.

[source:news24]