Police bungled their investigation of Brett Kebble’s murder so badly that former judge Willem Heath suspected they had ”deliberately stalled and attempted to sabotage” it, Heath concluded after a probe on behalf of the Kebble family.
Heath, in a previously unpublished report acquired by the Mail & Guardian, also revealed his early suspicions about Kebble security consultant Clinton Nassif, who later admitted complicity in the murder.
Brett Kebble’s father Roger appointed Heath and forensic specialist David Klatzow to investigate the murder. They very soon pulled off the probe after police national commissioner Jackie Selebi intervened.
Heath’s account lays bare, for the first time, the extent of alleged police malpractice — and of Nassif’s apparently unchallenged interference in the investigation — which he encountered in only 10 days of investigation.
Heath and his son Marius, who also participated in the investigation, have a risk consultancy, Heath Executive Consultants.
The police have repeatedly defended their investigation.
The Heaths drew up the report in December 2006, 14 months after the murder and in the week Selebi’s friend, Glenn Agliotti, admitted in court he was involved in what he claimed was Kebble’s assisted suicide.
In a twist, the report says that it was John Stratton — the close Kebble associate now also a suspect in the murder — who contacted Heath the night of the killing, September 27 2005.
The Heaths travelled at his request to Johannesburg the following day, where Stratton and Roger Kebble asked them to investigate ”separately from the authorities”. Heath brought Klatzow on board.
That day they encountered Nassif at Brett Kebble’s home. Despite past work for the Kebbles, they were unaware that Nassif and his Central National Security Group had also been employed by them.
The Heaths, Klatzow, Kebble family members and Stratton visited the scene of the crime, an overpass over Johannesburg’s M1 highway.
Heath reports: ”It was immediately patently clear that the SAPS had failed to secure the site and that as a result had possibly irretrievably lost evidence.”
Only the immediate area where Kebble’s car had come to a standstill had been temporarily cordoned off, they were told.
Further up the road, where the fatal shots were fired, shell casings were picked up ”from the position in which they had fallen without the positions having been marked, photographed and flagged for reconstruction purposes”.
When Heath and Klatzow raised this, ”white markings were made where the SAPS ‘could’ recall the shell casings had been found”. This was done two days after the murder and in positions which were ”not only improbable, but impossible”.
Further aspects of what the Heaths saw as inadequate police work and interference by Nassif included:
- Within days of the murder, the Heath took an affidavit from a witness to the shooting. The witness, whose name is withheld to protect her identity, lived nearby, where it was obvious witnesses should be sought. The police apparently did the same only a year later.
- The police failed to collect sediment from the gutters at the murder scene to analyse for evidence. Klatzow later collected material, but was removed from the investigation before he could complete the task.
- When Heath and Klatzow heard Nassif had had Kebble’s car taken to private panelbeaters, allegedly to be cleaned, they inspected it and found it uncovered. Says Heath: ”The vehicle had not been sent to the SAPS for forensic testing. The SAPS apparently released the vehicle to Nassif shortly after the murder — The only indication of any forensic examination was arbitrary chalk dusting for fingerprints, which were so limited in their presence that such an exercise could not have been conducted with much dedication.”
- Kebble was shot through his open window or door where he sat in the driver’s seat. But there was also a bullet hole in the rear window. This window was not removed for testing.
- It seemed no testing was done on the blood spatter pattern in the vehicle, while an impact mark on the windscreen ”remained untouched and unexamined”.
- Heath ordered the vehicle to be sealed and not moved until the police had done a thorough forensic investigation. A day later Klatzow heard Nassif’s staff were moving it again. Heath phoned Nassif, who, the report says, claimed the police had asked him to do so. ”This was later established to be a blatant lie.”
- An independent pathologist was appointed — on Nassif’s advice — to do an autopsy on Kebble’s body. Heath and Klatzow were blocked from attending.
- Three days after the murder, says the report, Heath asked Stratton to provide cellphone numbers for Nassif and his employees so that their movements on the night of the murder could be tracked. Stratton refused, saying they could be trusted. ”We found this reaction to our request as strange and uncooperative.”
The Heath report concludes: ”If the SAPS behaviour during the investigation — is examined, it is our contention that the SAPS either deliberately or negligently failed to secure, destroyed or attempted to destroy evidence —
”Considering the links between Selebi and Agliotti, and the alleged financial links between Selebi and Nassif, it is highly plausible that the SAPS deliberately stalled and attempted to sabotage the murder investigation.”
On October 8 2005, 10 days into the investigation, Roger Kebble asked Heath and Klatzow, to stand down. Kebble told him Selebi had met him and made a request to that effect.
Selebi, in a November 2006 interview with then-Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy, effectively admitted requesting Heath and Klatzow’s removal, saying he had met Kebble ”to find out from him does he want the police to investigate this or not — If he chooses to go with [private investigators], we will pull back.” A transcript of the interview became public through court proceedings.