One of the country’s top gangbusting police officers, Major-General Jeremy Vearey, will now have to fight to try to keep his job in the police service.
Last week it emerged that a disciplinary meeting chaired by Lieutenant-General Liziwe Ntshinga found him guilty of misconduct relating to eight Facebook posts he made between December 2020 and February 2021.
She recommended that he be dismissed.
Daily Maverick has seen a notice in terms of the police’s discipline regulations, in which Ntshinga says he should be dismissed.
Sitole signed the notice on Friday.
A typed section of it said: “By the virtue of the power vested in me, in terms of… the South African Police Service Discipline Regulations, 2016, I General Khehla John Sitole hereby confirm the following.”
Free speech at issue in top cop Jeremy Vearey s disciplinary case - experts
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Cape Town - As the fate of top cop Major-General Jeremy Vearey hangs in the balance over a string of Facebook posts, civil society has called the saga problematic as it raises issues of oppression and attacks on free speech.
Vearey was found on May 27 to have brought the name of the police into disrepute for eight Facebook posts between December 7, 2020 and February 25, 2021, which in some cases featured pictures of the national commissioner Khehla Sitole, and links to stories and documents.
In one such example on December 7, 2020, he posted a picture of the police national commissioner with a message that read “Good morning and how is the mind today? Lighting up the shadows.” A linked media report from the daily maverick.co.za Deep Dive: Sitole vs Jacobs”.
Western Cape’s head of detectives, Major-General Jeremy Vearey has been fired, but many have stepped forward to voice their support for him calling for ministerial intervention.