Double agent claims against Paul O’Sullivan have resurfaced after former head of the Gauteng Hawks (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation), Major-General Prince Mokotedi, this week made explosive claims that he and members of the South African intelligence community had confirmed in 2017 that O’Sullivan was working for foreign intelligence agencies.
The explosive claims are contained in the podcast Unpopular Opinion by veteran investigative journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika. It is scheduled to air on Saturday 22 August at 6pm.
O’Sulivan has dismissed the claims.
Mokotedi accuses O’Sullivan of operating as a foreign intelligence agent while disguising himself as an anti-corruption activist.
“We succeeded in proving that he is working for foreign intelligence agencies. The aim is to capture crime intelligence and the State Security Agency (SSA).
“His major assignment from his handlers is not about corruption; it is about identifying sleeper cells of radical Islamic movements in the country. His anti-corruption is a cover which gives him access to our law enforcement and security services,” he said.
The allegations associating O’Sullivan with espionage first appeared in parliament’s ad hoc committee earlier this year, which was established to investigate claims KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made about political interference in the criminal justice system.
O’Sullivan told the committee that he had initially come to South Africa as a tourist.
He denied that he was a spy but added that he had been involved with the British Army and military intelligence focused on counterterrorism, including activities related to Irish terrorism and the Irish Republican Army.
Mokotedi said O’Sullivan, through his lawyer, Barry Roux SC, had approached him at the South African Police Service (SAPS) provincial offices in Parktown, Johannesburg, in July 2016. Mokotedi was flanked by his colleagues, Colonel Bongani Gininda and Commissioner Mpho Mmutle.
He said O’Sullivan had offered to revoke his South African citizenship and cooperate with the police in exchange for the criminal charges against him being withdrawn.
According to documents the Mail & Guardian has seen, among the multiple cases opened against O’Sullivan, he appeared in court on 26 and 27 January 2017 on charges ranging from extortion, fraud and intimidation to possession of three passports and kidnapping.
Other cases, such as fraud involving a pilot licence, extortion, espionage and money laundering, were either under investigation or have been handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority.
Although Mokotedi said he briefly met O’Sullivan at OR Tambo International Airport while en route to Cape Town for the police camp in early September 2017, they officially met only later that month in the city, alongside Major General Zamile Kulele, then head of Crime Intelligence in Gauteng, major General Mzwandile Tiyo and agents from the SSA.
O’Sullivan has denied all the claims Mokotedi has made, labelling them “fictional”.
“This is again the fictional work of a criminal by the name of Prince Mokotedi, who belongs in prison. Mokotedi was the criminal who unlawfully demanded that I surrender my citizenship and leave South Africa and he would ensure that all the fake cases against me would
be withdrawn.
“Instead, I fought all the fake cases the criminal with a badge brought against me. In all the cases I was either found not guilty or the cases were thrown out of court.
“Mr Mokotedi is a delusional, self-confessed 100% Zuma supporter, who is angry because I identified his criminal conduct and exposed him.
“Prince Mokotedi belongs in prison. How he has escaped prison is totally beyond me.
“However, he keeps surfacing
and dishing out his diatribe to gullible Zuma supporters. Maybe he will one day get what he deserves,” O’Sullivan said.
Mokotedi said that during the meeting in Cape Town, O’Sullivan volunteered to become their spy.
“He accused me of having targeted him but we went over that. He said he wanted to work with us in formal law enforcement.
“He admitted that he was a spy. It’s on record. He told us that he was with MI6, the British intelligence and he was still active.
“We told him that we needed to register him as our spy, which would turn him into a double agent. He was fine with it.
“In my mind, we want to prove if indeed he was a spy or not and what he was up to. We wanted to unearth his intelligence networks. He was now our agent as confirmed with the SSA,” Mokotedi said.
In one of O’Sullivan’s emails to Mokotedi, dated 9 November 2017, O’Sullivan writes about the opportunity for NPA boss
Shaun Abrahams to stop the O’Sullivan cases.
“This gives Shaun the perfect opportunity to quietly pull the plug on the cases, thereby leaving me to drop all the retaliatory conduct and focus on working with your guys and cracking crime,” the email read.
Mokotedi alleges that part of the condition for working with O’Sullivan as a double-agent was that he reports his assignments from foreign intelligence agencies.
“He sent me an email after four weeks from the time he agreed to work for us.
“He forwarded me an email from the Joint Operations Committee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wanting to know if a particular person who was supposed to be imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay could be in South Africa. We now established that he was a spy,” Mokotedi said.
He said O’Sullivan sent another email in which he requested permission to search a plane.
The email, dated 17 February 2018 and seen by the M&G, contained information on the plane.
“Below are details as a follow-up on the plane in question. Aircraft tracking was disabled in December 2017,” it reads.
O’Sullivan vehemently denied all the allegations linking him with foreign intelligence agencies. He also denied having met with Mokotedi.
“Not once in my life. Again, this is the fictional work of the arch-criminal Mr Prince Mokotedi, who belongs in prison,” he said.
“Any person making that claim is either a criminal, a criminal accomplice or a member of the corrupt MK Party [uMkhonto weSizwe Party].
Mokotedi hit back, saying “Paul knows I am no Zuma supporter. They normally do that to discredit incorruptible people.
“I did not target him. I was merely doing my work. The thing is that he was portrayed as an anti-corruption activist because he dealt with Jackie Selebi. He created a legend around himself of being an Untouchable,” Mokotedi said.
He said O’Sullivan had started to change his attitude after the political shift when Cyril Ramaphosa took over the presidency from Jacob Zuma, who had resigned earlier in 2018.