Pinocchio as police chief

In last week’s court application to block his prosecution, Jackie Selebi swore he was never ‘involved in any bribery and/or corruption”. Why, then, did he lie to the Mail & Guardian about meeting Brett Kebble, who bankrolled bribes Glenn Agliotti allegedly paid him?

Before the M&G‘s first exposé in May 2006, Selebi admitted in an interview that Agliotti was his ‘friend, finish and klaar”.

But when we put it to him that, according to our sources, he had visited Kebble at his Johannesburg residence a number of times, he was emphatic: ‘I have never visited Brett Kebble.”

Measured against his own later version, in a November 2006 interview with Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy, this was a straight lie.

In the interview, a transcript of which is included in his court application, Selebi describes visiting Kebble to get copies of a video, featuring Kebble, about the ‘media trial” of Jacob Zuma. He then confirms further visits.

McCarthy: ‘Let me just understand you, commissioner. You’re saying you met Brett, and [Kebble associate John] Stratton, together with Glenn, on three or four occasions?”

Selebi: ‘Yeah.”

McCarthy: ‘At his house?”

Selebi: ‘At his house, nowhere else.”

Also measured against the Mc-Carthy interview, there were two further instances when he was less than frank with the M&G:

l In July 2006 we asked Selebi whether he had received gifts from Agliotti. His reply: ‘I have not received any gift.”

But Selebi qualified this by pointing out a framed T-shirt signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, displayed in his suite at police headquarters. Agliotti presented the shirt to him at a 2001 Special Olympics event in South Africa, which was supported by the police. Agliotti had helped manage the event, and Schwarzenegger was the drawcard.

When McCarthy asked Selebi the same question, his response was different: ‘Yes he did, he gave me a knife, a Swiss knife.”

According to the Scorpions’ draft charge sheet against Selebi, Agliotti bought him clothing during Sandton shopping trips. The M&G has, in the past, reported allegations from a variety of sources that Selebi received gifts of exclusive clothing from Agliotti.

l In our May 2006 interview we asked Selebi: ‘A number of people, including forensic expert David Klatzow, have claimed that evidence at the [Kebble murder] crime scene was severely compromised by poor police work — Can you comment also on Mr Klatzow’s apparent belief that he was removed from the investigation following intervention by you?”

Selebi replied: ‘As far as I know, the police handled things properly. About private forensic investigators, I don’t know.”

In the McCarthy interview, Selebi said that after Brett Kebble’s murder he asked Agliotti to arrange a meeting with Kebble’s father, Roger. This was after he learnt that a number of ‘outside private investigators” had been contracted. He went there to deliver this ultimatum: ‘If he chooses to go with these people, we will pull back. If he says the police must do it, we will do it.”