Pubdate: Mon, 23 Feb 2004
Source: Cape Argus (South Africa)
Copyright: 2004 Cape Argus.
Contact:  http://capeargus.co.za/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2939
Author: Norman Joseph

UNDERCOVER DRUG COP 'SPIRITED FROM CLINIC BY HIS BOSS'

A top Western Cape police director has been accused of abducting an
undercover colleague - who had been used to bait drug stings - from a
rehabilitation centre because the agent had damning information on him and
his unit.

The undercover inspector has told the Independent Complaints Directorate of
a drama which reads like a movie thriller script.

He said he had enough information to "sink" the director and all his
"blue-eyed boys" for involvement in drug circles.

But when he was removed from the Claremont clinic and stashed in another
hospital, he managed to escape his captors and book himself back into the
clinic.

In the statement to the ICD, the undercover officer said he had become
hooked on drugs while acting as a "trap boy and agent" for police units.

He would buy drugs from dealers and gangsters in police traps.

In order to be trusted by the dealers, he had to socialise with them and
take drugs with them.

He had booked himself into the clinic in early December.

One day, he said, the director and colleagues arrived and booked him out
against his will, telling him his life was in danger while he remained
there. Part of the statement reads: "I told him that I don't want to leave
the clinic of my own free will ..."

The inspector told a member of the medical staff that "these people are
taking me away from here against my will."

When the director arrived at the clinic, he allegedly told the inspector he
and two colleagues had been seen at a restaurant in the company of a
well-known city drug dealer.

He added he had enough information to "sink" the trio.

But the inspector replied he could "sink" 17 members of the director's unit
as well, including his "blue-eyed boys".

The inspector was removed from the clinic and taken to a house in Hermanus,
and the following day to the N1 City Hospital in Goodwood.

But at the hospital he paid a nurse R100 to help him escape and again booked
himself in at the Claremont clinic.

The director, who has not been suspended, declined comment.

The ICD confirmed it was investigating a case of abduction.
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