The Mail & Guardian on Wednesday faced possible legal action and even an interdict over a new instalment it plans to publish in its series of articles detailing the criminal networks surrounding Glenn Agliotti, a friend of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Agliotti stands accused of orchestrating the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble, and of involvement in a drug-smuggling syndicate.
The M&G has uncovered new information about close links between Agliotti and a foreign national who is globally notorious for the scale of the drug-smuggling allegations against him.
The newspaper wants to tell readers this extraordinary story in this week’s edition, available on Friday, and raise the question of how Agliotti’s access to the highest levels of the South African Police Service may have played a part in its unfolding. But it may not be able to do so.
Lawyers acting for Martin Wingate-Pearse, a Johannesburg businessman and former associate of Agliotti, had threatened legal action to prevent the M&G from publishing the story.
However, Wingate-Pearse will now be given a chance to reply in the newspaper. ”It is our policy to give people the opportunity to reply as much as possible,” said M&G associate deputy editor Nic Dawes.
Last week, Agliotti’s case was postponed to October 5 in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
Agliotti was released on bail of R500 000 on December 13 last year. He was placed under 24-hour house arrest and can only leave his home at Bryanston in Johannesburg with the permission of Scorpions prosecutor Gerrie Nel or the investigating officer.
Controversial mining magnate Kebble was murdered in Johannesburg in September 2005.
The M&G reported at the beginning of June that a team from the National Prosecuting Authority had visited police national headquarters three weeks before, seeking material that they thought might assist their investigation into the criminal syndicates surrounding Agliotti.
According to two sources sympathetic to Selebi, the investigators were allowed to review material related to the investigation but they were not permitted to take it with them.
”The commissioner said he wouldn’t let them take it, because he didn’t want it to get handed to the media,” one person familiar with the circumstances told the M&G.