When Jackie Selebi steps into the Randburg Regional Court on Friday, he faces a case cast in a matrix of evidence that appears solid enough to withstand the vacillations of Glen Agliotti, the prosecution’s fragile star informant. He also faces the ghost of Brett Kebble.
Unlike most accused, Selebi knows the details of the case against him.
That is because, in response to Selebi’s Pretoria High Court bid to interdict the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the NPA disclosed the main elements of its case, including the report of the independent panel that reviewed the decision to prosecute him.
The draft charge sheet revealed two main charges — corruption and defeating the ends of justice. These are supported by an overlapping web of evidence consisting not only of Agliotti’s detailed statements, but backed by banking records, supporting witnesses and a forensic analysis of Selebi’s income and expenditure.
Trail of payments
The charge sheet states that during the first meetings of 1990 between Selebi and Agliotti, Selebi accepted money from Agliotti. Selebi was then running the ANC’s social welfare department and was short of money to pay his son’s medical bills.
It was a pattern that was to repeat itself after Selebi resumed his relationship with Agliotti in 2000.
The relationship became, in the famous phrase now adopted in the charge sheet, “generally corrupt”, with payments being made by Agliotti to Selebi on a regular basis — amounting to at least R1,2-million between 2000 and 2005.
In a new twist, the charge sheet alleges that the last known payment — of R30 000 — occurred just a day or two after the September 27 2005 killing of Kebble.
Criminal context
Crucial to the framing of the charges is how the state alleges that Agliotti came to operate as a bagman for the Kebble empire, paying bribes to Selebi with money ultimately sourced from Kebble’s JCI group.
Kebble and his consilieri, John Stratton, became aware of Agliotti’s influence on Selebi and conspired to “buy” — through Agliotti — the favour and support of the police National Commissioner over legal and political problems Kebble faced.
One million dollars was agreed as the sum to be devoted to this project.
Supporting evidence in this regard was provided by Selebi himself.
In a November 2006 interview under oath with Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy, Selebi referred to how he became aware in 2003 that Agliotti was apparently soliciting a bribe from JCI on his behalf.
Taking care of Jackie
“Glenn’s problem was, in the process of wanting to make money from Brett and Stratton he had said to Stratton, ‘Hey, but the national commissioner need to be taken care of, right'” Selebi told McCarthy.
“So Stratton, thinking that this is true, actually goes to the [police] intelligence people and says this.”
The intelligence person Stratton approached was Assistant Commissioner Mulangi Mphego who obtained a statement from Agliotti admitting his guilt but absolving Selebi.
As Selebi put it in his interdict application: “He [Agliotti] explained that he indeed misused my name by suggesting to his business partners … that he needed money to pay me. He confirmed on video that this was absolutely not true and that he only misused my name to obtain money for himself …”
Innocence or guilt?
But the review panel argued — as will the prosecution — that this incident provides evidence of Selebi’s guilt, not his innocence.
The report states: “It is worth notinng that the commissioner’s meeting with Stratton and Brett Kebble, as arranged by Agliotti, took place in 2004.
“This was after the interview of Agliotti by Commissioner Mphego of the SAPS on Ausgust 28 2003 [when] Agliotti was being confronted about an allegation that the commissioner needed to be taken care of and that a ‘million’ was involved.
“Surely the commissioner must have been displeased … After Agliotti one would have expected the commissioner to distance himself from any association with Agliotti. Quite the contrary seems to prevail. He continued to meet him and attend meetings arranged by him. According to objective evidence [records of itemised cellphone billing] constant contact between them continued until July 2007. Until explained, such conduct on the part of the commissioner raises many questions and does not seem to accord with innocence.”
The supporting evidence
Agliotti, the man who has flip-flopped between confirming his payments to Selebi and denying that he ever bribed the police commisioner, is a crucial but problematic source. His advocate, Laurence Hodes, told the M&G this week: “The absolute truth is that if he doesn’t behave himself [as a state witness], he nwill be added as an accused.”
But Agliotti’s statements implicating Selebi are not the only evidence on which the prosecuting relies.
Kebble money allegedly paid over to Selebi was generally laundered through a shelf conpany controlled by Agliotti and Martin Flint.
Flint was an accountant who worked at Maverick, an events company owned by Flint’s daughter, Dianne Muller.
Agliotti had once been engaged to Muller and remained on good terms with her, maintaining an office at Maverick where he frequently met Selebi.
Affidavits of Flint and Carol Plaatjes, the secretary of Maverick, both confirm elements of Agliotti’s story.
So do the dates, amounts and counterfoil notes to the cash cheques paid out, with refer to “Cash Cop” and “Cash GAJS”.
But it is Muller’s evidence that is devastating, as the report of the review panel makes clear.
Cash for ‘JS’
“On some occasions, Agliotti would ask her [Muller] to count cash and place it in separate envelopes marked ‘JS’, ‘CN’ and ‘AD’, among others. She believed these initials represented Jackie Selebi, Clinton Nassif and Anthony Dormehl.”
And on one occasion, Muller claims to have been present when Selebi collected his envelope.
“Muller recalls during the course of 2005 being requested by Agliotti to count the sum of R110 000 in cash at Mavericks. Having done so. she put the cash into a cloth bag, took it into the boardroom where commissioner Selebi and Agliotti were, and placed it on the table. Agliotti pushed the bag across to Commissioner Selebi saying ‘Here you go, my china’ or ‘Here you go, my brother’.”
A break from the fight against crime
Selebi’s visits to Maverick as regarded as significant.
“If the several witnesses who say that Commissioner Selebi visited Maverick frequently during office hours are telling the truth (and nothing suggests that are not), it passes more than strange that someone like the commissioner, who is obviously busy, must have managed to find time to pay frequent visits Mavericks in Midrand, during office hours. Does it makes sense that he would have done so to socilaise with Agliotti? Certainly not. On the other hand, going there to receive money would have been an incentive enough.”
Defeating the ends of justice
Agliotti’s statements reveal a number of incidents when Selebi allegedly intervened to protect Agliotti or his principals.
The first relates to attempts by Billy Rautenbach, a Zimbabwean fugitive from South African justice, to have an arrest warrant against him withdrawn.
Agliotti states that he met with Rautenbach’s lawyer, James Tidmarsh, who paid him over $40Â 000 in cash to enlist Selebi’s help. Agliotti claims he paid over $30 000 to Selebi.
Apart from Agliotti’s say-so, there not other witness to confirm this payment — but it is alleged that Selebi thereafter approached National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli and recommended that the NPA not pursue the prosecution of Rautenbach.
Selebi’s secret documents
Agliotti claimed in one statement that Selebi showed him a copy of a 2005 “NIA report” revealing that businessman Jurgen Kögl was alleging Selebi was getting Selebi’s money.
Kogl has declined to comment, but investigators subsequently obtained a copy of the secret National Intelligence Estimates report, dated October 10 2005.
This makes reference to one Jurgen Kögl who claimed that the national commissioner “received large sums of money from the Kebbles emanating from questionable business dealing concluded on his behalf”.