Former police chief Jackie Selebi showed his deputies and provincial commissioners a video of an interview with drug-dealer Glenn Agliotti in January 2008, shortly before Selebi was charged with corruption.
This was revealed in the South Gauteng High Court on Monday morning during the evidence of former deputy commissioner Mala Singh, who headed human resources in the police while Selebi was national commissioner.
Singh was the second witness called by the defence to give evidence in mitigation of sentence after Selebi was convicted of corruption last month.
Selebi’s counsel Jaap Cilliers led Singh’s evidence about Selebi’s leadership qualities and his upliftment of women in the police. She recalled an incident where Selebi instructed her to transfer a woman constable from Upington to Nelspruit to be closer to her child.
In cross-examination, chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked Singh whether she condemned corruption. After asking her twice, Singh softly replied: “Yes”.
Nel then quoted to her three speeches she made in her career as police deputy commissioner (she resigned in October 2008) in which she strongly condemned police corruption. In one of the speeches, Singh said police corruption was “destructive to society”.
“Do you still belief this?” asked Nel, to which Singh responded timidly: “Yes”.
Nel also grilled Singh about a statement issued by Selebi’s four deputies, including her, in May 2006 after the Mail & Guardian revealed Selebi’s links with Glenn Agliotti.
‘No reason to doubt the commissioner’
Asked why the police blindly defended Selebi and did not investigate the allegations, Singh said it was “my honest belief at the time that there was no reason to doubt the commissioner [Selebi] … The only thing I fell back on was the nature of the man I knew.”
Singh also said she trusted the “legal process to take its course” if Selebi was found guilty.
Nel then asked Singh about a management forum meeting she attended in January 2008 in Pretoria during which the police’s top management were shown a video of an interview with Agliotti.
Singh said she didn’t remember why they were shown the video, adding that it was of “very poor quality” and that it “kept getting stuck”.
During the Selebi trial, his defence team showed the court a recording of an interview by former crime intelligence boss Mulangi Mphego of Agliotti in which Agliotti slams the Scorpions and claims he never bribed Selebi.
Singh said she recalled the video was the interview Mphego did with Agliotti.
After Singh, former deputy minister of foreign affairs Aziz Pahad took the stand for Selebi, saying he was an excellent student leader in exile and that he was internationally praised for his work as South Africa’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Pahad said there was never any allegations of corruption against Selebi and that he was surprised to hear of the guilty verdict. He said Selebi “was not God and may have made mistakes”.
The M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism, supported by M&G Media and the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, produced this story.”www.amabhungane.co.za.