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Pretoria - Suspended police crime intelligence unit head Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli arrived in the Pretoria Commercial Crime Court on Wednesday morning.
Dressed in a grey striped suit and a red and gold striped tie, he confidently greeted journalists waiting outside the court and walked through the metal detector.
Mdluli stood in the dimly lit passage waiting for proceedings to start, talking to his co-accused Colonel Heine Barnard.
Mdluli and Barnard, who was also in crime intelligence, face charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering.
Mdluli allegedly employed his friends and family as intelligence operatives, and misused police money to buy luxury cars.
Netwerk24 reported that, according to the charge sheet, the fraud amounted to about R1.28m.
The case against them was withdrawn in December 2011, and no reasons were given at the time.
Mdluli was made head of the crime intelligence division in 2009, a post he held until May 2012, when then police minister Nathi Mthethwa announced he would be moved to the office of the deputy national police commissioner for operations, Fannie Masemola.
Mdluli faces a separate set of charges pre-dating his time as head of crime intelligence. He was allegedly involved in the murder of Oupa Ramogibe, his ex-lover's husband, on February 17 1999.
An inquest into this matter concluded in November 2012 that there was no evidence implicating Mdluli in Ramogibe's murder.
Following an application by Freedom Under Law, North Gauteng High Court Judge John Murphy on September 23 2013 instructed police to reinstate all criminal charges against Mdluli.
