Theories and speculation on why and how mining magnate Brett Kebble was killed on Tuesday this week abounded in South African media on Thursday.
”Was mining magnate Brett Kebble the victim of a classic diamond murder?” Beeld newspaper asked in an article on Thursday.
The newspaper said the question is being asked amid growing speculation that missing shares in Kebble’s Randgold Resources were related to his diamond interests in Angola and Lesotho.
It said there are strong similarities between Kebble’s killing in Melrose Road Extension and the murder of socialite Hazel Crane on November 10 2003 — 800m from where Kebble died.
Crane had been on her way to testify about illegal diamond trading when she was shot dead in her car.
Kebble (42), known as the ”new Barney Barnato” for the excitement he had injected into Johannesburg’s mining industry, was on his way to the house of his partner, Sello Rasethaba, when he was shot at about 9pm on Tuesday evening.
He was found by a passer-by in Melrose on a bridge over Johannesburg’s M1 highway less than a kilometre from his home in Illovo.
He was hit at least five times in the chest.
Police consider hijacking
Police gave more detail on Thursday on why they think Kebble was killed in a botched hijacking, and not an assassination.
”The vehicle was stationary [while] he talked to his assailants. It’s very clear to us. And then, from there, he was shot and he drove further,” said police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken.
”So, that’s why we are actually piecing [together] our facts on the fact that it might have been a hijacking that went wrong.”
Wilken told SAFM Morning Live an assassination attempt would more likely have taken the form of a drive-by shooting, and Kebble would have been shot while driving.
However, Wilken told the Mail & Guardian Online that the police are ”investigating all possibilities”.
He refused to elaborate on any specifics but said that their investigation will ”involve everything”.
It was reported in The Star newspaper that Kebble bled to death less than five minutes after being shot. The newspaper quoted a police source saying that at least one attacker, armed with a 9mm handgun, was standing in front of the car’s bonnet.
It was not clear when, exactly, the assailant began shooting but Kebble slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The first shot pierced the windscreen and hit Kebble. He tried to speed away, but his car hit the pavement and it was probably then that the assailant began shooting through the driver’s open window, said The Star.
Kebble then managed to drive about 400m before his vehicle swerved across the road and smashed into the bridge railing.
Shock waves
Kebble’s death sent shock waves through South Africa’s business and political circles on Wednesday, Business Day reported, prompting Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka to move to assuage fears that the killing might damage international investor perceptions of the country.
She said the killing needs to be investigated to ”rebuild confidence” in South Africa and that Kebble ”would not want this tragedy to be used in any way to spoil the progress of our country”.
Business Day also reported that Kebble is believed to have died owing up to R100-million in tax to the South African Revenue Service (Sars), which said on Wednesday that it was probing his tax affairs.
Investigative magazine noseweek reported last December that Kebble had not submitted a tax return or paid tax since 1993, but until now, Sars had kept quiet on the matter.
On Wednesday, Sars said: ”Kebble has paid some amounts with regard to those issues that have been resolved, [but] not all the issues are resolved.” It also denied that it had scrapped its investigation into Kebble after being leaned on by influential government figures.
‘Big challenge’ in Angola
Kebble, who resigned from all managerial positions in JCI, Western Areas and Randgold & Exploration (R&E) last month, planned to get more involved in the Angolan diamond industry than he had been previously, and on a larger scale.
”He regarded it as a big challenge to bring about change in that country by means of economic development. However, he gradually admitted his concerns about corruption in the systems,” his spokesperson, David Barritt, told Beeld.
Kebble, who was forced out as chief executive of R&E — as well as JCI Limited and Western Areas — on August 30, was also reported to have been involved in a multimillion-rand share scandal.
According to a regulatory filing by Randgold Resources with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington on June 30, 14,4-million shares that R&E claimed to hold in Randgold Resources had gone missing.
The ”missing” shares — currently worth $225-million — were sold under the direction of Kebble, mostly during and around the third quarter of 2004, according to certain investors who have studied the action in great detail.
”For weeks, there has been the overwhelming sense of a cover-up. Kebble, however, had no end of plain old-fashioned enemies, of the kind that would not hesitate to exact revenge,” financial website Moneyweb reported.
Kebble admitted in a radio interview that at least 9,9-million of the 14,4-million missing shares were loaned to an empowerment consortium to enable it to buy a big share of the ”undervalued” Western Areas, another Kebble company, from Anglo American.
That transaction would have enabled R&E to obtain a large share in Western Areas.
According to Kebble, the rest of about 4,5-million shares were used to finance Angolan diamond interests.
Kebble’s present and known diamond interests were in the Letseng diamond mine in Lesotho, where huge diamonds of 100 carats or more had been found recently.
Letseng is jointly owned by JCI, Matodzi and the Lesotho government. Several loans for JCI were also made against the Letseng assets.
The Angolan diamond industry is also popular at present, with various foreign players trying to get prospecting rights.
Support for Zuma
Questions have been raised about Kebble’s dealing with the African National Congress and his support for axed deputy president Jacob Zuma.
The Citizen said documentary maker Liesl Gottert, who filmed Kebble, an ANC member, in her documentary The Zuma Media Trial, confirmed that the police had been in talks with her since Wednesday morning.
In the documentary, Kebble is said to have taken his gloves off in lambasting ”the political elitists” who he believed had conspired to get rid of Zuma.
”He mentioned people by their names and was the only one I knew who had the guts to speak his mind,” Gottert told the newspaper.
She said she recalled a three-hour meeting at Kebble’s home in which he expressed concern over her safety, as the documentary she was making touched on a sensitive subject.
Former National Prosecuting Authority director Bulelani Ngcuka was said to have suggested to newspaper editors in 2003 that Kebble’s alleged financial support of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) was for protection, political favours and manoeuvring in murky business deals.
Kebble’s advocate Willem Heath said he had been instructed by Kebble’s father, Roger Kebble, to investigate abuse of power by Ngcuka and former justice minister Penuell Maduna.
Andile Nkuhlu, who is a member of the ANCYL, was one of a group of people expecting Kebble for dinner on Tuesday night.
”This was pure assassination. There is no doubt about it,” Nkuhlu said on Wednesday.
Kebble’s family also think his murder was an assassination and not a botched hijacking.
Barritt, their spokesperson, said: ”Police are saying it could be a hijacking, but nobody in the family believes that.” — Sapa