Once upon a time, there was a judge, a bank robber serving time and the head of a prison. Then there was a famous video showing prison warders selling juvenile prisoners to older inmates for sex; drinking with prisoners; dealing in drugs; and selling firearms to prisoners. Since that watershed event, the three men have gone dramatically different ways.
Judge Thabani Jali, before whose commission of inquiry the video was presented as evidence, announced this week that he is leaving the judiciary for an ”exciting opportunity” in the private sector.
The former head of Bloemfontein’s Grootvlei prison, Tatolo Setlai, who allowed the video to be recorded, is in a Bloemfontein hospital recovering from a stress-related illness after being fired last week.
And bank robber Gayton McKenzie, who helped smuggle in the video recorder, is now sponsored by a security company to give talks on the futility of crime.
McKenzie has just returned from London, where he negotiated with British TV’s Channel Four for rights to his life story. The reformed gangster was lamenting the theft of his cellphone this week. ”I don’t know what’s wrong with today’s criminals. It seems there’s no longer honour among thieves and ex-thieves.”
Such have been the vicissitudes of the men who, in 2002, kept the South African public captivated in the course of the Jali commission of inquiry.
President Thabo Mbeki established the inquiry in 2001 to investigate corruption and other malfeasance in South African jails, with Judge Jali of the KwaZulu-Natal division as its head.
Until Setlai, McKenzie and three other prisoners, Petrus Sekutoane (housebreaking and theft), Moosa Mia (murder) and Samuel Grobbelaar (stock theft), collaborated to smuggle in a video camera, the commission seemed destined to end as an irrelevant sideshow.
The drama recorded in their cell, flighted on SABC TV, gave the commission a huge fillip, and virtually guarantees that Jali’s recommendations will be taken seriously by the government. The recommendations were recently handed to Mbeki.
The video also propelled Jali to stardom, attracting the interest of private business.
Setlai’s life has taken a less happy turn. Interviewed at a Bloemfontein private clinic this week, he complained that the department dismissed him in absentia.
He was found guilty of communicating with the Kimberley-based news-paper, the Diamond Field Advertiser; of using improper language by referring to the Free State correctional services’ management style as ”mafia-like”; for going absent without leave; and for not signing a duty register.
He has appealed, and showed the Mail & Guardian documents that he said he would use to disprove the department’s allegations.
”How could I serve apartheid as a warder with a clean record and fail to do the same with our own government? For 20 years I did not even have a reprimand for lateness or absent myself from work except when I was sick.”
Setlai is adamant that his troubles started with the Grootvlei video. He insists the department is victimising him for allowing the embarrassing tape to be recorded.
In August 2004 he was charged with 19 departmental and 20 criminal charges including corruption and allowing prisoners to have unauthorised electrical equipment.
He was acquitted in both tribunals after all five of the state and departmental inquiry witnesses confessed in court that they had been coached to frame Setlai in return for early releases.
Later in 2004 the department again charged him, this time with using state vehicles while on private business. He was acquitted after it was established that the trips were authorised.
Setlai says he is not about to give up.
”My family has put me under pressure to resign. I tell them that if I do, I will let other loyal people down.
”People will be afraid to stand up for what is right, and will point to me as an example of what happens when you do.”