National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is not being investigated by the Scorpions, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) reacted on Friday to a claim in the Mail & Guardian.
The M&G reported on Friday that Selebi was linked to a ”shadowy” network of figures associated with slain businessman Brett Kebble.
”It appears highly likely to us that the Scorpions are following some of the same leads,” M&G reporter Sam Sole said.
These leads include ”the significance or not of Selebi’s links to the network”, the newspaper reported.
However, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said it was for precisely this reason that it threatened to interdict the newspaper against publishing its reports on Thursday.
”Their story was saying the Scorpions are investigating and we never said we are investigating Mr Jackie Selebi.
”In fact, I want to put it on record that the National Police Commissioner Mr Jackie Selebi is not the subject of any investigation by the [Directorate of Special Operations, also known as the Scorpions].”
In his own defence, Selebi told the newspaper: ”They can look at anything about it. I’d say, ‘Go ahead.’ I’ll still be sitting here and there will be nothing that comes out of that. I’m not bothered.”
Said Sole: ”The seeming lack of progress on the investigation of the murder and now the exposure of these links with people who were very close with Mr Kebble do raise questions as to whether there is any potential conflict of interest or perhaps … just questions that need to be answered about what’s going on with the investigation.
”The investigation has been a black hole in terms of information.”
The M&G reported that Selebi was ”closely associated” with Kebble intimates who had attracted the interest of law-enforcement agencies.
Its investigation, which began before Kebble’s death, had revealed ”a web of relationships” connecting Selebi to Clinton Nassif and Glenn Agliotti, who worked with Kebble on a series of ”security” and other projects.
”Both Nassif and Agliotti appear to have attracted the attention of law-enforcement agencies in the course of the latter’s broader investigations into the coordination and financing of contraband smuggling activities.”
Sole told South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news: ”Whether the links to Selebi are significant or not we don’t know, but we are looking at that.”
The newspaper said it launched its investigation after it was alerted by independent sources of Kebble’s possible connections to a syndicate involved in the smuggling of tobacco and other contraband.
Its probe drew on company records, interviews with business associates, friends and people close to other investigations into his activities, court and other public records, and confidential documents.
Kebble was shot dead behind the steering wheel of his car in Johannesburg in September last year.
The M&G reported that Agliotti and Selebi — friends since at least 1994 — denied there was anything sinister about Agliotti’s call to Selebi on his private cellphone from close to the scene on the night of the murder.
Agliotti told the newspaper he called Selebi en route to the murder scene because ”we needed all the help we could get”.
Later, Agliotti’s lawyer said his client phoned Selebi about an hour-and-a-half after the murder to ”request immediate investigation”.
Agliotti was a well-known figure at the Johannesburg and Cape Town offices of JCI, the company headed by Kebble until a month before his death, and distributed business cards with a prominent JCI logo and telephone number.
When Selebi was asked about meetings with Agliotti at various restaurants, casinos and offices, and claims they had gone shopping together, he replied that he did not keep a diary of where they had gone and that he had never been inside a casino.
The newspaper said Agliotti shared an interest in a company and was friends with Nassif — the man who it seems arranged for Kebble’s car to be removed from the crime scene to a panel beater before forensic tests were completed.
Selebi’s former secretary, Ntombi Matshoba, is a director of Nassif’s Central National Security Group.
”Two separate sources told the M&G that companies had been asked to find a job for Matshoba on Selebi’s behalf,” the newspaper reported.
”In both cases, the man who (made the request) was Paul Stemmet, a bodyguard and security expert who was engaged by Selebi … to conduct sensitive undercover operations for him relating to syndicates involved in smuggling of drugs, tobacco and other commodities,” it continued.
According to the newspaper, Selebi also denied its claim that he was a guest at Kebble’s Johannesburg home.
It claimed that phone records showed Agliotti and Kebble had a number of conversations on the night before the murder. ”During at least two of these calls, Kebble was in the vicinity of the same overpass where he would meet his death 24 hours later.”
Cellphone records for the last two days of Kebble’s life revealed that he had also spoken to, among others, Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, his business partner Sello Rasethaba, Nassif and prominent African National Congress Youth League member Lunga Ngwana. — Sapa