Police raid Milites Dei in Mpumalanga. [Picture: Screengrab/ X/ Newzroom Afrika]
There are a number of questions over what 95 Libyans were actually doing at a “military-style” training facility Millets Dei in White River, MP. They were arrested on Friday, and some will appear in court on Monday.
Chairperson of the portfolio committee on police, Ian Cameron, told Newzroom Afrika the discovery left many questions unanswered. A major concern, he said, was SA’s state security and the real motives behind the security training facility.
“We welcome the fact that the police and the relevant authorities acted eventually, but obviously there’s a huge question mark regarding state security and what their real capacity is. What have they done?”
“There are a lot of unanswered questions. We need to try and understand what the loopholes were that they got into,” he added.
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Meanwhile, security expert Mike Bolhuis urged the public to come forward if they identified suspicious activity, regardless of whether they were confident in the police.
“Crime begets crime. This can escalate. This can become the norm; others could follow and it can become worse,” he warned, in an interview with SABC.
He hoped authorities would take the public into confidence by keeping them updated regularly. But stamping out corruption, in his view, was key to maintaining security.
“My concern is still – and has always been – corruption; government corruption and police corruption. I hope the penny has by now dropped that as long as that is going to be tolerated it won’t work.”
Operated by Milites Dei Security Services (Pty) Ltd, the site was accredited to provide training. However, the kind of training it was approved for and the kind apparent at the site did not match when police arrived.
