Huge gaps in the state’s case against 2010 Soccer World Cup head of security Linda Mti have raised concerns that his trial was ”cooked”.
It was touted to be a friendly, "inquisitorial" forum, but had all the elements of a bitter family feud where old comrades squared up in new battles. On the one side: the mandarins of the state and the political party that brought liberation, fighting to protect old networks of solidarity.
The Scorpions’ successful model of investigation will be destroyed by legislation tabled in Parliament this week which absorbs the unit’s investigators into the police. The government previously indicated that the unit’s model of prosecution-led investigations would be incorporated into the new “super” unit set up to tackle organised crime.
ANC president Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial will not go ahead in August this year. The Mail & Guardian has established that the legal teams of both Zuma and French arms company Thint have told the National Prosecuting Authority and KwaZulu-Natal Judge President Vuka Tshabalala that they will not be ready to proceed on August 4 in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
The government’s astonishing bid to protect police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi from being arrested was laid bare this week in minute detail by suspended prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli. Compelling evidence produced by Pikoli at the Ginwala inquiry in Johannesburg indicates President Thabo Mbeki and several other senior government officials colluded to save Selebi.
Suspended prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli was instructed by Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Brigitte Mabandla, acting on President Thabo Mbeki’s orders, to cancel the Scorpions’s investigation of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
South African Revenue Service commissioner Pravin Gordhan has been asked to consider becoming South Africa’s next police boss. If he were to agree and be appointed by President Thabo Mbeki, Gordhan could take over the reins from embattled police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi before the end of June.
ANC and opposition councillors of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality stand to gain handsomely from a controversial land deal, which may have robbed the municipality of millions of rands. The M&G reported last week on Flusk’s allegation that land ”worth not less than R100-million” was alienated to developer Rean Booysen for ”the paltry sum of some R7-million”.
The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality may have lost more than R93-million in a dodgy land development deal. This startling allegation is made by metro manager Patrick Flusk in an affidavit submitted to the Pretoria High Court this week, in an application by the developer of an upmarket East Rand property development.
Colleagues say he’s racist and authoritarian; local people say he’s straight, dedicated and effective.One of the country’s most successful police bosses is sitting at home terrified that his own colleagues might kill him. Superintendent Joe Odendaal, 48-year-old station commissioner at the highly effective Sandringham police station in Johannesburg, is on sick leave caused by stress.