By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) police have questioned the lenient sentence imposed on alleged vehicle theft kingpin and controversial businessman James Stuart Scharnick.
Scharnick is linked to 29 criminal cases across the province.
The impromptu media briefing called by provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s office on Thursday was addressed by provincial Deputy Commissioner for Crime Detection Major-General Anthony Gopaul.
The briefing comes after Scharnick opened cases of perjury and defamation of character against crime intelligence boss Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo over what he said at the Madlanga commission of Inquiry.
Khumalo’s testimony before the commission, labelled Scharnick “a serial hijacker” and linked him to criminal syndicates.
He also claimed that a Toyota double-cab bakkie driven by embattled deputy national commissioner Shadrack Sibiya was registered in Scharnick’s name.
But Scharnick insists that Khumalo’s statements are false and damaging to his reputation, has hit back. Scharnick concedes that he has criminal convictions, but none are for vehicle hijacking, as stated by Khumalo.
In response, Gopal said they will approach the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regarding how all serious cases were merged into one plea deal.
“In our course of doing this preliminary investigation, on the 16th of January, a particular employee of the South African Police Services went into the criminal record system and made some adjustments to the benefit of Scharnick,” Gopal said.
Gopal added that the employee who made the changes did not fully understand the auditing system, and the deleted records remain visible in the system’s back end.”
“Unfortunately, the particular employee doesn’t understand the full extent of the auditing side of the back end of systems. And on the back end of systems, the transactions that he deleted reflect and remain on the back end of the system,” Gopal said.
“The entire forensic side of the system investigation will now be continuing to bring that evidence forward and to hold that employee accountable, he said.”
He said at this stage there are no records of Scharnick having applied for his record to be expunged.
He emphasised that while police cannot comment on prosecutorial decisions, the matter raises serious questions. “This is something for the NPA to comment on as to how they arrive at that plea for so many of these cases, “Gopaul said.
The NPA’s provincial spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said the investigating authority would respond in due course.
KZN police are now preparing two separate dossiers based on their findings. One will be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the scope and mandate of the prosecutor who handled Scharnick’s plea agreement.
The investigation also uncovered that Scharnick currently owns five firearms, despite his criminal history. Gopaul questioned how someone with such convictions could acquire firearms licences.
According to the acting deputy commissioner, records show Scharnick made multiple attempts to obtain competency certificates and licences, with several applications initially refused for failing to disclose previous convictions and pending criminal cases.
However, he eventually succeeded in obtaining licences for multiple firearms in 2023, all under the category of “sporting” purposes, as per Section 16 of the Firearms Control Act.
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate allegations of misconduct, corruption and maladministration within the South African Police Service’s top ranks. The tensions between Scharnick and senior SAPS officials, including Khumalo and Sibiya, form part of broader factional disputes that have surfaced during the hearings.