`justice’
When hit squads roamed KwaZulu-Natal during the early 1990s, the province’s Attorney General, Tim McNally, developed a reputation for being reluctant to prosecute alleged Inkatha Freedom Party assassins and their police accomplices.
McNally’s seemingly ambiguous attitude to prosecution was once again in the public spotlight last week when the attorney general released a press statement attacking a businessman, Sateesh Isseri, who had been on the witness protection programme for more than a year after implicating senior IFP officials in a fraud scam.
The officials’ scam boiled down to sending Isseri unauthorised cheques and splitting the money between him and the party.
In a lengthy statement handed to the police in August 1997, Isseri made detailed references to senior IFP officials discussing with him the need for “loyal businessmen” to help the party. Some of the officials have confirmed meeting Isseri, others have not.
There are aspects of Isseri’s statement, such as his involvement in the fraud, which remain murky, but his information has proved interesting enough to occupy the police for 13 months.
It is incontrovertible that fraud took place in the provincial government. The police are still investigating.
McNally’s statement nevertheless concentrated on criticising Isseri and exonerating the IFP officials he named – an unusual intervention for an attorney general.
McNally’s statement was also an implicit attack on the Mail & Guardian, which has published several articles about the businessman’s allegations.
The statement said: “In its 7 to 13 August 1998 edition, the Mail & Guardian reported that it was in possession of a statement from a businessman, Sateesh Isseri, who was on the witness protection programme and who implicated IFP officials in an elaborate scheme to milk millions from official coffers …”
McNally said Isseri had obtained five fraudulent provincial government cheques worth almost R2-million, two of which he had banked. McNally said the police had been unable to identify the officials who provided the cheques and Isseri’s version of how he had received the cheques could not be corroborated.
“Those implicated by him have denied involvement. Isseri’s credibility is suspect. In addition to his association with the fraudulent cheques, a number of other cases are being investigated against him.”
He ended: “I have decided not to institute any prosecution based on Isseri’s statement. I have ordered his discharge from the witness protection programme. His own position will be reviewed when the police investigation is complete.”
The M&G has written four articles on Isseri, reporting twice that Isseri is himself the subject of a criminal investigation.
As McNally and everyone else well knows, people on witness protection programmes are rarely innocent themselves, having invariably consorted with those who now threaten their lives.
It is therefore irrelevant to the fraud investigation whether Isseri is also the subject of other criminal investigations.
However, as McNally is mentioning it, why not provide details? And if Isseri is such a hopeless witness, why has he been on the witness protection programme since August 1997 at considerable cost to the taxpayer?
Isseri’s bank records show he deposited all five cheques – not only two, as indicated by McNally. Isseri’s statement to the police says he banked the first two and, fearing he was being sucked into a fraudulent scheme, was about to return the next three when the police instructed him to bank them to lay a trap.
McNally clearly knows that, for whatever reason, Isseri was suspicious of the last three cheques; according to McNally, Isseri did not even bank them. The essence of Isseri’s story is that he received cheques worth about R2-million from the provincial government. The officials identified, or other bureaucrats, had to generate the cheques.
It is strange that McNally informs the public that those implicated by Isseri have denied involvement. If they are guilty, what does he expect?
McNally told the M&G that Isseri had failed to identify pictures of the men he named, including the province’s head of expenditure, Wesley Buthelezi. Isseri claims Buthelezi was not included in the photos he perused, but that Buthelezi and other officials were recorded in his office on police tapes which disappeared.
One of the most compelling aspects of Isseri’s story is that in February this year he sued the provincial government for money he claims was genuinely owed to him in terms of a contract to supply medical equipment.
The government’s defence in the case, filed in the Durban High Court, was that the officials he purported to have contracted with, including Buthelezi, fraudulently conspired with him to steal.
McNally did not mention this. When contacted by the M&G to discuss his statement, McNally admitted he had not seen the defence plea. The M&G quoted liberally from this plea in its first article on Isseri, published in July.
After the M&G read and faxed the relevant document to him, McNally agreed the province had effectively accused the civil servants of fraud, but suggested it had done so erroneously.
Isseri’s civil case, due to be heard in December, will no doubt shed more light on the matter. There are rumours that other provincial government officials could be implicated during the trial.
It is difficult to fathom why McNally has taken this position on the Isseri case. His primary duty should be to prosecute whichever officials generated the cheques and take a firm stand against all corruption.
It is not to draft premature press statements attacking witnesses and newspapers. In doing so, the attorney general could have undermined and endangered a key witness while a police investigation is under way.
After the August article, the IFP sought to interdict the M&G from publishing more on the story, but the Pietermaritzburg High Court dismissed its application with costs.
The IFP said last week it will continue preparations to sue the newspaper for defamation, which perhaps explains why a party representative described McNally’s announcement as a “triumph for justice”.