/ 5 May 2009

‘Selebi tapes’ leak angers DA

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said it was alarmed that formerly classified information was given to police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s lawyers in what the party believes was a violation of the laws on communication interception.

The classified information includes tape recordings of, among other people, former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy and ex-National Prosecuting Authority head Bulelani Ngcuka discussing the African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and Selebi prosecutions.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on April 6 2009 that it would drop charges of corruption, fraud and racketeering against Zuma.

Zuma’s prosecution was abandoned after the NPA said it had heard taped conversations of Ngcuka and McCarthy and construed the substance of the conversations as interference in the prosecution process.

DA safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard on Tuesday said the party would ask the inspector general of intelligence Zola Ngcakani to investigate the matter of the ”Selebi tapes”.

She said the DA would write to Ngcakani to ask him to add the recordings handed to Selebi to the investigation into possible irregularities surrounding the disclosure of tapes in Zuma’s trial.

This was in response to the NPA submission in the High Court in Johannesburg on Monday that the police had declassified information and given it to Selebi’s lawyers in preparation for his trial on corruption allegations.

Selebi was charged with three counts of corruption and one of defeating the ends of justice on February 1 2008.

”Again, state intelligence officials are providing copies of intercepted communication material to private individuals, and it is unclear that they are legally entitled to do so.

”Why do the lawyers of politically well-connected suspects in criminal cases receive such preferential treatment?” asked Kohler-Barnard.

The party believes authorities appear to have ignored the Regulation of Interception of Communication Act of 2002, which it said specifies that intercepted communication material can only be released publicly in specific circumstances.

”Though the police may be able to declassify certain material, legislation provides citizens with certain rights to privacy, so it does not automatically follow that such information can be made public, or indeed passed on to Mr Selebi’s lawyers,” she said.

”Any state agency that decides to release intercepted communication publicly must also prove that doing so meets the requirements of the legislation. This issue appears to have been completely ignored.”

At Selebi’s court hearing on Monday, the state complained that while they had a lengthy struggle to get information from the police for their investigation, they discovered last week that information was declassified and handed over to Selebi’s lawyers.

The Star on Tuesday reported that Selebi’s prosecutors yesterday cried foul over the police’s decision to declassify the tapes — claiming that they have not heard the recordings.

They further claimed their investigation had been hampered by the disappearance of a ”crucial” police file containing confidential UK reports that Selebi is alleged to have shown to convicted druglord Glenn Agliotti.

After a heated court battle between Selebi’s lawyers and the state, Johannesburg High Court Judge Meyer Joffe postponed Selebi’s corruption trial to October 5 — but declined to make a finding on whether police were sabotaging the Selebi prosecution.

Apologising to Selebi and South Africa for the trial’s delay, the judge said he would have postponed the case until an earlier date if a court and judge had been available to hear the conservatively estimated three-month-long trial. — Sapa