The national police chief is under investigation in a row over airports security.
National Commissioner Jackie Selebi is being probed by the police oversight body, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), on allegations that he intimidated the man who heads security at South Africa’s main airports.
Paul O’Sullivan, the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) executive for aviation security, first laid an intimidation charge against Selebi in December. Last month he submitted more allegations, among them a charge that Selebi deployed top detectives to investigate petty complaints against him and the Acsa chairperson.
”It is my humble belief that Selebi is continuing with his intimidation against me,” O’Sullivan said in the second of two affidavits obtained by the Mail & Guardian. The affidavits were submitted to the ICD by O’Sullivan in support of his charges.
Police crime intelligence head Commissioner Ray Lalla, responding on behalf of Selebi this week, retorted: ”The insinuation that this is a personal vendetta [by Selebi against O’Sullivan] is unfounded.”
Confirmation of the investigation, not reported before, focuses the spotlight on the role of Selebi in an ongoing row over a R99-million contract to provide security at the country’s main airports. Acsa and O’Sullivan terminated Khuselani Security and Risk Management’s three-year contract mid-term last November, accusing the company of not performing adequately.
Selebi has in the past acknowledged that police senior management argued against the immediate cancellation of Khuselani’s contract. He has also acknowledged that Noel Ngwenya, Khuselani’s chief executive, is an acquaintance – but has denied Ngwenya is ”a buddy” or that their relationship influenced him to bat for Khuselani.
ICD spokesperson Steve Mabona this week confirmed O’Sullivan’s complaint against Selebi and said: ”It is being investigated.”
Both O’Sullivan and prominent businessman Mashudu Ramano, the chairperson of Acsa, came under pressure soon after Acsa moved against Khuselani.
Ramano’s house was reportedly attacked by gunmen and he was detained for questioning on the apparently unsubstantiated charge he was an illegal immigrant.
Both O’Sullivan’s affidavits claim that he, too, has not been spared. In the first he states that on December 6 the balaclava-clad occupant of a Golf that had been following his Audi aimed a gun at him. ”I immediately slammed on my brakes … I also made a quick U-turn and drove, at high speed, away from there.”
O’Sullivan’s affidavits do not suggest that the armed incidents suffered by him and Ramano are the work of Selebi. But they do place much else at the door of the police chief. O’Sullivan states in the affidavits:
- He received information that ”Noel Ngwenya had engaged the assistance of … Selebi to put pressure on me so that I would not cancel the [Khuselani] contract. It was alleged that they were close friends.”
- Selebi personally told him he wanted to take over responsibility for airports security from Acsa but that he favoured overseeing it rather than deploying police officers. Soon he received a call from one of Selebi’s deputies advising him the commissioner did not want a change in Khuselani’s security contract for the time being.
- He was discharged as a police reservist.
- Ramano’s questioning on immigration charges was by a Superintendent Swart of the serious and violent crimes unit based at police headquarters. It appears unusual for a member of an elite unit to investigate an immigration case.
- O’Sullivan was being investigated by a Captain Henderson, also of the serious and violent crimes unit, on the ”ridiculous” allegation he had contravened aviation law by carrying his firearm into a restricted area of an airport. ”In the course of the discussions I had with [Henderson], she advised me that she and others at head office were fed up with the commissioner using them to conduct his vendetta against me.”
- Director Stef Grobler, the national commander of the police anti-corruption unit, was personally tasked to investigate O’Sullivan’s acquisition of a lie-detector-like machine in the United States. O’Sullivan denies an allegation, first published in the M&G, that he bought the machine under false pretences.
Lalla, on behalf of Selebi, confirmed the firearm investigation against O’Sullivan, saying the alleged infraction had been reported by an Acsa security guard. ”As a matter of routine a case docket was opened and is presently under investigation.”
Lalla also confirmed Grobler had received ”a complaint from the public that O’Sullivan had obtained this equipment [from the US] by fraudulent means”.
Lalla justified the deployment of top investigators by saying airports security was on the agenda after September 11; that ”there was definitely a hype” on the subject; and that there was a perception that security at the airports was ”not up to standard”.
While Lalla denied a ”personal vendetta” against O’Sullivan, he did say the airports security situation required a senior response. ”The reality is we had to respond even from the top.”
O’Sullivan confirmed his complaint this week, but declined further comment. Acsa declined to comment.