Former Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss Robert McBride told the commission of inquiry into state capture on Thursday that there was a “blue curtain” around the police crime intelligence (CI) unit, with bureaucracy playing a major part in hindering investigations into corruption within it. McBride dived into the issues between Ipid and crime intelligence at the start of his testimony to highlight some of the challenges he faced when he was at the helm. A point of struggle throughout most of McBride’s tenure was CI classifying documents that Ipid had requested to further its investigations. This was widely seen as an attempt to cover up corruption in the police. “Any request for information from CI, except for a brief period, is generally met with resistance, and very often CI will resort to the classification of documents ... This issue will bedevil future investigations,” he said.
“There is actually what we call in Ipid a ‘blue curtain’ … More often tha...
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