Brett Kebble’s former strongman described in vivid detail this week the violence and deceit that lay beneath the surface of Kebble’s opulent life.
Clinton Nassif, former owner of the Central National Security Group, is the state’s key witness in its case against convicted drug-dealer Glenn Agliotti, the only person charged with Kebble’s murder on September 27 2005. Nassif took the stand in the South Gauteng High Court on Thursday.
He testified that he met Agliotti on the golf course in 2003, where they “started discussing business”. Nassif told Agliotti he was “doing security, investigations”. Agliotti told him he was working for Brett Kebble.
A week later Agliotti invited Nassif to a breakfast meeting in Sandton.
“He spoke about what he did for the Kebbles. I gave him advice about the things they were doing. He told me he was working with Palto, a team under [former police boss] Jackie Selebi. He told me he was friends with Jackie [Selebi]; they worked on investigations.”
Nassif said Agliotti suggested that he should start working for Kebble and his business partner, Australian John Stratton, who they flew down to Cape Town to meet.
It was agreed that Nassif and his security firm would do work for the Kebbles, but Agliotti told him: “I handle the Kebbles and Stratton. Any meetings with them go through me.”
At a meeting with Stratton — at that stage a director of JCI, of which Kebble was chief executive — he was told about the company’s interests and where JCI’s “problems were coming from”.
Nassif was contracted to “get information and do surveillance”, including “bugging people’s motor vehicles” and tapping “many people’s phones” for Kebble and Stratton. In one case child pornography was planted on a JCI employee’s computer.
According to Nassif, he was given a list of people to spy on, including former Durban Roodepoort Deep boss Mark Wellesley-Wood, Uranium One chief executive Jean Nortier and Randgold Resources chief executive Mark Bristow.
“We had to get bank statements, keep tabs on everyone [who was] against them [Kebble and Stratton],” Nassif testified.
He also told the Kebbles he could bribe prosecutors and magistrates. One case against Roger Kebble, Brett’s father, “fell away and we got favoured”.
‘Something had to be done’
Kebble and Stratton’s alleged methods were at their crudest in the shooting of former Allan Gray chief investment officer Stephen Mildenhall, who flew from London on Wednesday to testify in the trial. Mildenhall stood in the way of a large Investec loan to JCI.
Nassif said that in mid-2005 Agliotti and Stratton gave him names of people “who … had to be taken care of”.
“In one meeting Mildenhall came up. I was informed by Agliotti and Stratton that Mildenhall was the real, real problem. Something had to be done.”
At a meeting at Stratton’s Cape Town house, “Stratton said he wanted this thing done” and pointed a sushi knife at Nassif.
Nassif said: “I wasn’t willing to take on the job of killing Mildenhall.” They renegotiated with Stratton and Agliotti, who agreed that Mildenhall should be “taken out of the system for three to six months” (see accompanying article).
Nassif also revealed for the first time that Brett Kebble’s father, Roger, knew about his son’s plans to die. After Nassif was asked by Brett Kebble and Stratton to find a pill that could induce a heart attack, Nassif went to Roger’s house at night and told him his son had “crazy” plans.
“He [Roger Kebble] freaked out, saying since he [Brett] was a teenager, when things got hard, he always threatened this [suicide] … we left it at that.” When Brett Kebble found out Nassif had told his father, “he blasted me from a dizzy height”.