As latter-day Randlord Roger Kebble prepares finally to enter the dock in his much delayed fraud trial, allegations have emerged of a campaign, conducted by his family and associates, of financially inducing witnesses.
Some evidence points to Willem Heath, the former judge who once headed the corruption-busting Special Investigating Unit, having played a less than proper role in the rough-and-tumble that followed Kebble’s arrest in November 2002.
Heath, who did not return calls before publication, issued quasi-legal threats to potential witnesses and allegedly helped to arrange work for others who had come forward to make affidavits used by the Kebbles in their counter-attack. Heath was consultant to Kebble and his son, Brett, at the time.
The fraud trial of Roger Kebble (65) is set down to be heard in Johannesburg’s Specialised Commercial Crimes Court from 10 to 21 January. Barring the unforeseeable, Kebble will have his day in court after two years of postponements resulting in what he has called an ”unconscionable delay”.
Kebble is charged with pocketing R2,33-million from Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD), the mining house he once headed. He allegedly siphoned off part of monthly payments made by DRD to struggle sports luminary Ronnie Watson for ”labour related services” between 1996 and 2001. Kebble has repeatedly denied the charges, saying every cent is accounted for.
The trial is the culmination of a series of exchanges in what an industry publication has called a ”mining-town shootout” between the Kebbles and Mark Wellesley-Wood, who is Roger Kebble’s successor as chair of DRD.
It has been a duel in which both sides have fired from the lip as much as the hip, flinging insults, allegations of impropriety and threats of legal action.
The November 2002 arrest of Roger Kebble, followed by a night in a police cell before he was granted R250 000 bail, resulted from charges laid by Wellesley-Wood and DRD. Kebble responded at the time: ”It is a measure of the man that he has resorted to the shabby and desperate stratagem of trying to have the state prosecute me because of a boardroom dispute.”
Earlier in 2002 there were allegations that the Kebble camp had had a hand in a Department of Home Affairs decision, later reversed, to bar Wellesley-Wood, a British citizen, from South Africa for alleged immigration law contraventions.
The chink in Wellesley-Wood’s armour was arguably his hiring of private investigations company Associated Intelligence Network (AIN) to assist in the investigations he had launched into the Kebbles. AIN has been criticised for its robust investigative methods.
The Kebbles, in turn, engaged the services of Heath to help in a counter-investigation. Heath had entered the private sector, trading as Heath Specialist Consultants, after his disappointment when his Special Investigating Unit was excluded from the joint investigation into the government’s controversial arms deal.
Heath helped the Kebbles deliver a series of spectacular strategic and publicity scoops. The first was when the Kebbles obtained a High Court order, called an Anton Pillar order, allowing them to search Wellesley-Wood’s home and the offices of DRD and AIN.
The Kebbles and Heath charged that AIN had illegally accessed private information, including phone, bank and tax records, in the course of their investigations. Brett Kebble wrote a public letter to AIN principal Warren Goldblatt: ”We are intent on exposing you and your organisation for that which you are in order to demonstrate that the criminal justice system has been hijacked by persons such as you for private ends.”
Goldblatt responded: ”We were employed by DRD to perform a task within the ambit of the law. We have performed and continue to perform our tasks within the ambit of the law.” The Anton Pillar order was later overturned after a full hearing. Records seized by the Kebbles had to be returned.
In making their charges of illegal invasion of privacy, the Kebble camp relied on affidavits made by several former AIN employees. Now there is evidence, some of it emanating from AIN, that the employees had been induced to do this, or rewarded afterwards.
Providing much ammunition for the Kebbles was Michael Moss, a former police security branch member who had been working for AIN, including on the investigation into the Kebbles. He left AIN on February 14 last year, the week before the Kebbles obtained the Anton Pillar order.
On February 19 Moss signed an affidavit, used by the Kebbles in the Anton Pillar matter and made public, backing the allegations that AIN had accessed information illegally for Wellesley-Wood and DRD.
Within a week Moss was in business with Brett Kebble’s brother, Guy, in a security company called Kemotto Security Consulting Services. That May he also became a director of a soya processing business, Nutrx, which was funded by Kebble mining house JCI. Moss could not be reached for comment.
Louw Wepener and ”Rassie” Erasmus, both former AIN members, also made affidavits containing allegations against AIN, and at least one other former AIN member cooperated with the Kebble camp.
Wepener, who learnt the ropes as a military intelligence operative, was offered a job at JCI, which he says he did not accept, but that May he also joined JCI-funded Nutrx as a director.
A JCI press release, announcing its funding of Nutrx, quoted Wepener as saying traditional lending institutions were wary of his and Moss’s profile, as they had worked for AIN. ”Then we heard about JCI’s track record in funding small entrepreneurial projects … we decided to give JCI a try.”
Wepener last week told the Mail & Guardian: ”I left AIN for moral reasons. At no time did I tell Judge Heath that I was looking for employment. My whole reason for leaving AIN was because they asked me to do physical surveillance of Judge Heath, and I respect him. Anyone who claims that I was financially motivated is making a huge mistake.”
we
A more serious allegation comes from Peter Otto, a former member of the old National Intelligence Service. Otto, who has worked with a number of those involved, says in an affidavit provided by AIN but confirmed by him to the M&G, that one of the people who had left AIN had showed him a bag containing R1-million in cash.
”I later learned that the money in the bag was for evidence in the matter against AIN and DRD. I was informed of these facts by [the former AIN member]. [He] was flown down to Cape Town to be questioned by advocate Willem Heath.”
The M&G is withholding the name of the alleged recipient of the cash for legal reasons.
A second round of propaganda scoops for the Kebble camp came with the resignations that March of DRD company secretary Maryna Eloff and in-house legal adviser Benita Morton, both of whom publicly claimed that DRD and AIN had spied on them.
Both Morton and Eloff would have been potential state witnesses in the prosecution of Roger Kebble. Their leaving DRD, and effectively siding with the Kebble camp may have undermined any potential testimony from them. Were they improperly interfered with as witnesses?
Eloff’s husband, Paul, became a director of Nutrx later in the year, placed there to represent JCI’s interests. And Morton, according to AIN’s Goldblatt, worked for Heath after leaving DRD. Neither Eloff nor Morton could be reached for comment.
Heath personally played a role in what seems to have been a quasi- legal attempt to pressure a number of DRD directors to switch allegiances.
Apparently capitalising on Eloff and Morton’s resignations, Heath wrote to at least some of Wellesley-Wood’s co-directors at DRD.
In his letters, seen by the M&G, Heath repeated the charges of invasion of privacy by AIN; claimed that this had led to the ”fabrication of a criminal case against Mr Roger Kebble”; and said that a civil counter-suit was being nsidered against Wellesley-Wood.
Heath effectively told the DRD directors that they could be joined in the action against Wellesley-Wood — unless they confirmed that they ”did not associate [themselves] with the activities of Mr Wellesley-Wood and AIN, and that it was merely a personal and private frolic of Mr Mark Wellesley-Wood”.
Roger Kebble’s bail conditions included that he ”refrain from any contact or communication with Durban Roodepoort Deep Limited [and] its directors or employees, other than for purposes of pending civil litigation”.
Did Heath, on behalf of Kebble, interfere with potential witnesses in contravention of this bail condition?
Legal scholar Professor Shadrack Gutto last week said it appeared that Heath had ”cut it rather thin”.
On the face, of it Heath may have been instrumental in breaching the bail condition, although a court might interpret it differently.
A spokesperson for the Kebbles was fully apprised of the content of this article on Thursday but did not respond before publication.