Kunene: ‘I must be killed’

The man at the centre of the so-called ‘hoax email” trial claims he will either be framed or assassinated before the start of the ANC’s national conference in December.

Muzi Kunene spoke to the Mail & Guardian on Tuesday — a day before he was shot in the hand by a gunman on a street in Pretoria.

Kunene, who was subcontracted by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to intercept emails as part of Project Avani, is accused of fabricating messages between prominent politicians, National Prosecuting Authority officials and journalists, claiming there was a conspiracy to oust ANC deputy-president Jacob Zuma.

Kunene’s co-accused, former NIA boss Billy Masetlha, recently told the M&G that the ‘hoax emails” presented in court as part of their fraud trial were not the original messages Kunene found.

The state still has to link the emails forensically to Kunene’s seized computers. He said he now fears he will not be able to attend his next court date because he might be dead or behind bars.

He outlined four recent incidents that, he said, prove the state is out to ‘make [him] look like a lampooner — someone running away from his own shadows”.

On October 15, while he was driving to visit his parents in northern KwaZulu-Natal, two men claiming to work for the South African Police Service’s crime intelligence unit in Stanger approached him.

The M&G is in possession of a signed affidavit in which Kunene describes what allegedly transpired during his discussion with the men.

‘[The two men] informed me as follows: that certain elements within the police are working together to ensure that I am arrested for a capital crime before December 2007 [and] that they are aware of the fact that my car registration number has been duplicated in Durban in order to be used with a car that is similar to the silver BMW that I use.

‘[They informed me] that a team has been going around scouting and profiling my type of clothes, spectacle types, shoes, takkies and track suits, that at certain restaurants my fingerprints have been taken from coffee cups, plastic water bottles and other containers, and that my rubbish bins are being tampered with at my place of residence.”

Kunene said the ‘policemen” also told him that samples of his hair had been taken from a Durban salon, his cellphone conversations were being recorded, clones of his phones and simcards were manufactured and that he is under constant surveillance.

The alleged plot involved setting him up with a woman who would claim that he raped her, or a scheme where a business partner would be killed and he would become the suspect, or drugs or firearms would be planted in his home or car, or cheques forged to make it appear that he committed fraud.

‘When I asked them why this was happening to me, these gentlemen explained this whole situation is linked to the political cases that I am in [court for]. They stated that the main reason for these activities is to ensure I should not win those cases, but that I must be viewed by the public as a criminal and be imprisoned before the ANC conference.”

He claimed that once he was imprisoned he would be killed or, if none of the set-ups succeeded, he would be assassinated.

He said he had been hijacked two weeks ago, the night before he was supposed to have appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s court on charges of contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act.

Two men allegedly hijacked him near Diepsloot and forced him to drive to Tugela Ferry in KwaZulu-Natal. When they dropped him off early the next morning, the men allegedly said to him: ‘You need to understand — we can get to you at any time.”

As a result Kunene could not appear in court the following day and the case was postponed.

Kunene said the third incident happened last week when he claims he borrowed a bakkie from a friend in Empangeni and left his BMW with her. Fifteen men, claiming to be policemen, confronted his friend and urged her to lay a complaint of theft against him. She refused, but the men allegedly gained access to his car and ‘tampered” with it.

Kunene claimed that a security guard working in a Pietermaritzburg shopping mall provided him with details of men who allegedly tried to access the mall’s CCTV footage in search of video material of Kunene.

‘They were talking about changing the dates of the videos,” the guard allegedly told him.

Kunene claimed he is being victimised because of the information he found while working for the NIA. This includes details about arms deal bribery, the Jacob Zuma case and police corruption.

This week the ANC rejected his claims as ‘irresponsible and unfounded”. Police spokesperson Sally de Beer confirmed that an investigation into the shooting incident would be carried out by an experienced detective.