The ‘grandiose†media tactics employed by the Scorpions may have influenced the judiciary into believing offences had been committed, the ANC Youth League said on Tuesday.
The ”grandiose strategy and form of media investigation” employed by the Directorate of Special Operations’ (DSO) had given the DSO ”temporary fame”, said ANCYL national working committee member Clifford Motsepe.
Motsepe was addressing the public hearings of Parliament’s justice and safety and security committees on legislation to dissolve the Scorpions.
”This grandiose strategy took many forms that included inviting rolling cameras and journalists. This was a pure form of trial by media in the court of public opinion,” he said.
ANC president Jacob Zuma, and many other South Africans, became the ”anchor stories” of all media houses, both nationally and internationally.
Media leaks of very sensitive information still under investigation became the norm, he said.
”By the time the accused appears in court, the public, including judges, have already been convinced that an offence has been committed,” Motsepe said.
The ”secret media briefing” of selected journalists by former national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka on Zuma’s case had marked the turning point of the abuse of state resources to ”attain narrow, selfish, and sponsored aggrandisement”.
During this briefing, Ngcuka had ”amongst others, averred” that the state did not have a ”winnable case” against Zuma.
”Although his message was very explicit that he had no case against the ANC president, the use of the word winnable was wrong in law. It is not the responsibility of the prosecutor to determine whether a case is winnable or not. Our law has long been settled on this matter.
”All [that] the prosecutor has to determine is whether or not there is a reasonable and probable case for prosecution,” Motsepe said.
”We have been, and are, very clear that the charges against [the] ANC president are politically motivated and therefore require political intervention, not [the] conventional judicial system.
”The youth league has, and is, steadfast in its commitment to inculcate the culture of human rights,” he said.
Another reason for the Scorpions’ dissolution was the so-called Special Browse Mole Report.
Former DSO head Leonard McCarthy had admitted to Parliament that it had been ”authored by the Scorpions”.
This had involved intelligence gathering, which was far beyond the Scorpions’ mandate.
The report had made far-reaching conclusions about the country and Zuma, including that he ”intends to overthrow government with the help of external forces”.
”Just to make this allegation, by the Scorpions, was treasonous on its own,” Motsepe said.
”The mole report has once and for all confirmed that the DSO is indeed infiltrated by foreign agents. This was something that they have denied until [the] mole report was exposed.
”This was but a final confirmation that the DSO is not serving the interest[s] of our people but Western imperialists,” he said.
‘We will kill them’
Earlier this week a top official from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warned that the ANC will not hesitate to ”kill” the Scorpions if they continued to pursue Zuma, the Sowetan newspaper reported.
The report on Monday quoted Cosatu’s KwaZulu-Natal secretary general Zet Luzipho as saying: ”If the Scorpions bite the wrong people we will kill them. Like a dog when it starts biting relatives at your home. You get rid of it. We will do the same to the Scorpions.”
Luzipho’s statements followed the protests held throughout Durban on Friday when members of the ANC’s eThwkweni region staged protests at 16 police stations throughout Durban to demand that criminal charges against Zuma be dropped. – Sapa