The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Monday distanced itself from a Sunday Times report that the Scorpions were in possession of a diary linking police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi to Glenn Agliotti.
Spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the report was written in a “dishonest way” that created the impression that the information was derived from the Scorpions, or that the Scorpions had confirmed contents of any documents in its possession.
“The contents of the diary shed more light on the inappropriate relationship that Selebi, president of Interpol, has with Agliotti, a known underworld character,” the Sunday Times wrote.
“In the circumstances the Sunday Times had to reveal the source of the alleged contents of the said diary in order to give its readers a correct and balanced account of events,” Nkosi said in a statement.
The Sunday Times reported that the Scorpions had seized a diary that contained dates and times of regular meetings Selebi held with Agliotti.
It said the diary was confiscated when the Scorpions raided Agliotti’s home in September as part of a criminal investigation into a R250-million drug bust, racketeering, money laundering and corruption.
The Sunday Times referred to Agliotti as the “landlord” of a huge smuggling syndicate and said the diary contains other explosive information on Agliotti’s international operations.
Nkosi said the NPA is “seriously concerned” about the report. “We did not give the Sunday Times access to any information or material in the NPA’s possession arising from the searches or any other operation in this matter.”
He said such action would go against the NPA’s policies and regulations.
Selebi has said he believes a smear campaign is being waged against him to remove him from his post.
“I don’t do crime; I am not corrupt,” Selebi reacted to a previous front-page report in the Sunday Times and articles in the Rapport newspaper implicating him, his Deputy Commissioner Andre Pruis and other senior police officers in criminal activity.
Selebi named the Airports Company South Africa’s former security group executive Paul O’Sullivan as the man behind the allegations. O’Sullivan has some kind of vendetta against him and wants him removed from his post, Selebi charged. “No person who works for a foreign intelligence service would come to South Africa and say I must go.”
It is not the first time O’Sullivan has claimed to have evidence implicating him in criminal activity, Selebi continued. “His allegations were investigated by the Independent Complaints Directorate [ICD]. He had to produce witnesses of the allegation he was making in this dossier; he failed to produce this; the ICD said there was no way we could proceed,” Selebi said.
However, the “Selebi dossier”, made public last week, is a fascinating chronicle of O’Sullivan’s relentless pursuit of his own case against Selebi, the Mail & Guardian reported on Friday.
The M&G had for some time been in possession of similar information, but had refrained from making it public for fear of jeopardising investigations and endangering witnesses.
O’Sullivan’s dossier reveals that there is much more than a smear campaign against Selebi — it provides backing for previous reports by the M&G indicating there is a serious Scorpions investigation of Selebi.
It also shows how O’Sullivan came to play a pivotal role in this investigation — leading him to be intensely scrutinised by Selebi’s office.
The dossier sets out the genesis of O’Sullivan’s conflict with Selebi, which emerged out of a 2001 decision by O’Sullivan — then head of security for the Airports Company South Africa — to terminate the lucrative contract of the company providing security at Johannesburg International Airport.
O’Sullivan believes that Selebi intervened to try to protect the company — Khuselani Security — and, ultimately, manoeuvred for the police to take charge of security at the country’s airports. O’Sullivan’s resistance to these moves, led, he believes, to attempts on his life and to his dismissal from ACSA and finally launched him on a private quest to probe Selebi’s activities.
That quest has now had dramatic public consequences that have seen Selebi having to deny reports that he received R50 000 from the shadowy Clinton Nassif, who was recently accused of fraud, and to downplay his friendship with Glenn “the Landlord” Agliotti — both of whom are being investigated by the Scorpions as part of a massive probe into crimes ranging from murder to drug-smuggling and money-laundering.