/ 3 December 2011

O’Sullivan reacts as Selebi faces jail

O'sullivan Reacts As Selebi Faces Jail

Former police national commissioner Jackie Selebi should be kept alive so he can serve his entire sentence, reported the Saturday Star.

“I hope they put him on a drip and keep him alive for every day of those 15 years so that he can serve his entire sentence,” said security consultant Paul O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan is the country’s former head of airport security, who investigated Selebi for almost 10 years after linking him to his dismissal from the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa).

“That man has got to go to prison for the 150 000 people who were murdered in the nine years when he was police chief, for the 500 000 women who were raped and for the two million people who were robbed.”

Selebi collapsed at his Waterkloof North, Pretoria, home after the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed his attempt to have his corruption conviction set aside on Friday.

“He is not doing well,” said Wynanda Coetzee, who was part of the legal team that represented him at the trial where he was convicted.

An ambulance arrived at Selebi’s house in Waterkloof shortly after he collapsed.

Last month it was reported that Selebi could not travel to Bloemfontein because of ill health, however, his legal team refused to speak about his health at the time.

Selebi was found to have accepted money from convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti. Cheque counterfoils bearing the annotations, “cash JS”, “A”, “cash cop” and “cash chief” linked Selebi to payments from Agliotti.

They rejected the submission that the cheques were for an ill policeman Agliotti was helping to support.

“The appeal is dismissed,” Judge Kenneth Mthiyane said in Bloemfontein.

Selebi was appealing last year’s judgment by Judge Meyer Joffe in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, where he was found guilty of corruption

He has until Sunday evening to report to Johannesburg Prison to start his 15-year sentence.

O’Sullivan said he hoped Selebi would be forced into a prison in a wheelbarrow if necessary.

“This is the man who said: ‘I will jump off Sandton City if I’m convicted of corruption’, who waved his hands at the media and said, ‘who do you think I am so cheap to be bought for R50 000?’

“He’s not going to deprive South Africans from seeing justice being done,” said O’Sullivan.

Selebi was also ordered to repay the legal fees he incurred as he had asked the state to assist him in carrying the cost of his legal battle. – Sapa and Staff reporter

For coverage of former police chief Jackie Selebi’s corruption trial and aftermath, visit our special report.