Political crooks double down, freeze assets of unbowed attorneys investigating Fort Hare fraud

Early this morning, dozens of uniformed police were sent to the homes of attorneys Bradley Conradie and Sarah Burger to freeze their assets, including bank accounts and credit cards. The duo have uncovered deeply embedded fraud at Fort Hare University. Apart from the theft of millions in university funds, they exposed academic fraud by many politicians who "bought" qualifications from Fort Hare, among them 51 year old Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane who paid a professor to award him a Masters degree and a Doctorate. Despite the ratcheting up of State-sponsored intimidation – which has included half a dozen court appearances and an Easter weekend incarceration – the attorneys have refused to bend. They spoke to BizNews editor Alec Hogg about how the political crooks doubled down today..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here..If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Alec Hogg (00:05.857)My colleague Chris Steyn has been following the story of the Fort Hair duo, as we've been calling them—two lawyers who were brought into Fort Hair to investigate corruption and then found themselves being targeted because they didn't want to doctor the report. Well, I don't know. We'll talk about that in a moment, but they did not have the outcomes that were intended by those who brought them in in the first place. We're going to find out from Bradley Conradie and Sarah Berger what the heck happened this morning. Dozens of police arrived at their homes, and there's another twist in the saga..Bradley Conradie (00:44.612)Thanks, Alec, once again for the opportunity..Alec Hogg (00:48.043)So, let's just pick this up, Sarah. If we can start with you, you guys have been in East London in court. Just help us understand why you were there in the first place..Sarah Burger (01:00.046)Well, the prosecuting authority requested several postponements in our criminal matter, and this was one of five postponements—in fact, six for Bradley because his bail was opposed initially. So this was our fifth appearance. What we discovered again is that the prosecuting authority is once again requesting another postponement in the matter. All of the accused, but we'll focus on ourselves, applied and requested that, in the interests of justice, trial fairness, and our constitutional rights, the matter be struck off the roll. Judgment has been reserved for Friday, so we now have to return again to the Eastern Cape for a sixth appearance to find out whether or not the matter will be struck off the roll. It was quite evident from proceedings yesterday and all the arguments provided by the various advocates and attorneys that despite the prosecuting authorities saying their investigation was completed on 12 September, the evidence showed that the matter had not been completely investigated and that unreasonable delays were present. This is highly prejudicial, especially to ourselves as attorneys who are practising and being dragged into this matter for 12 months..The main crux for the last postponement was that the prosecuting authority was looking for a racketeering certificate. We discovered that, when we appeared on 12 September, the prosecuting authority only submitted that request in January this year. They are now seeking a three-week postponement. But in reality, what they don't say is that they had a racketeering certificate in March 2024, after our arrests and our 2 April appearance. It's 12 months later, and we haven't moved forward, and we are highly prejudiced by this..Alec Hogg (03:03.137)We're going to get into the reasons why in just a moment. But before we go there, because I think there are many people who have been following your story and would have gotten what you said a moment ago, there are, however, many others who might be a bit confused by all this legal jargon. But what happened today, Bradley? What exactly occurred at your home today?.Bradley Conradie (03:25.284)What happened today is that a curator arrived at my house at 7 a.m. to serve a court order on me in which they restrained my assets, as well as the assets of all the other accused in the case. I have no issue with the curator—he did his job, very professionally and amicably. No problem at all. What I do have a big problem with is the public nature of it, particularly for people watching the business, that we have called out the police for their behaviour in this matter. A year ago, they sent SWAT teams to my office and to Sarah's office with balaclavas and R5 rifles, put us on a jet, etc. We've reported them to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Police, and they've acknowledged receipt. The police are aware of this, and those involved in this case. And what did we get this morning? At 7 a.m., between, from what I'm told by my family, 16 and 20 police officers in seven cars arrived at my house in front of my children to serve a court order that doesn't require any policing whatsoever..I raised the question, I think it was last week or the week before: where are the police when serious crimes are taking place? They're nowhere to be found. But yet, once again, it was on the instruction of the police—whoever that is—and the people we are calling out include the police commissioner, the head of crime intelligence, and the former police minister. So, you can't get a police officer—I've seen this myself at police stations—to go and attend to a gender-based violence complaint. They don't have a van, they don't have staff. What's the problem? I've heard this when I've had to report when I still had bail conditions. But you send 20 police people, seven vehicles, and they follow that up by sending 15 people to my office. They traumatised the entire building. The same thing they did last year—people went home. So, this is just heavy-handedness on the part of the state. They've never, ever questioned Sarah or me, not once, prior to arresting us. And that was raised in court yesterday..The normal procedure is you investigate, you interview people you suspect of doing something wrong, you form a view, and you give that to the prosecution. The prosecutor then decides whether it's something that is prosecutable or if more work needs to be done. None of that happened. They simply threw us in jail and brought this ridiculous racketeering charge, which pulls us into a mess with people we've largely never met before. And now they've restrained our assets, so we can't sell anything, dissipate anything, or manage our own financial affairs. We will oppose this in the strongest terms on the day it's due, or even before that. But this is the response we've received, and we believe it's a direct response to us calling out these powerful people just a week ago..Alec Hogg (07:23.657)Anybody listening to this for the first time would be thinking, "Whoa, these guys have got to be serious criminals." I mean, 20 police arriving at the house to make sure that—what, I don't know—that you don't run? But you weren't even there in the first place. It reminds me, a little, and I'm going to get back to the beginning of the story in a moment, of what happened with Paul O'Sullivan and Sarah Jane Trent. When they arrested the two of them, they threw Sarah Jane into a cell that was crawling with rats and all kinds of other crazy things over the long weekend. They arrested her, put her in, and it was just intimidation. There was no rhyme or reason for them doing it except to say, "You better back off," which, of course, O'Sullivan and her did not do. But in your case, are there parallels? In other words, where did this all begin? How did you get into this situation in the first place? Maybe Sarah, you can take us through it..Sarah Burger (08:21.358)Yeah, I mean, there is a beginning. And that beginning is when we were assisting the University of Fort Hare with many investigations..Alec Hogg (08:30.783)The university?.Sarah Burger (08:32.234)Of Fort Hare. And as a result of all of our investigations, we realised very early on that we weren't able to access people's bank records, etc. We assisted the University of Fort Hare in drafting papers to get the SIU—a proclamation to have the SIU come into the university and do the more….Alec Hogg (08:51.681)SRU?.Sarah Burger (08:53.31)Special Investigations Unit, to come and do the more heavy-handed subpoenaing of bank records and things like that, which we can't do. As a result of those investigations, the SIU came in, and we supported them. We provided them with many investigative packs and evidence, and we had several open workshops with the university and the Special Investigations Unit, including the political killings task team, which is now being disbanded. We assisted them with one of the murder accused on corruption allegations. We've been assisting the Hawks for six years, and we continue to support them. To give you an indication of how entrenched we were at the university, since we were released on bail in April 2024, we've conducted two investigations for the Special Investigations Unit for Fort Hare. We've conducted one full investigation for the Commercial Crimes Unit, NPA, in East London, and we've continued to support the Hawks and various other prosecutors at the Commercial Crimes Unit in East London. In fact, Horizon Forensics was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in a matter now on 2 April, which has just been postponed for the University of Fort Hare..That's how it all started. One day on 28 March 2024, one year ago, we were arrested on fraud and corruption allegations. And we sat back and thought, "How could this ever be the case?" Well, what people don't know—and it's always about timelines—is that in the year before, in late 2023, Oscar Mabayane, the premier of the Eastern Cape, was challenging the Special Investigations Unit's proclamation, citing the president as a respondent, to overturn their investigations in their entirety at the university on the basis that there was a report that said the university had been compromised by the SIU and should not be investigated. And that was an attempt to shut everything down..We didn't know that until after the arrests, when it came out. But that is what's going on behind the scenes..Alec Hogg (10:25.147)We could talk for ages about the implications of all of this. There are so many layers, and I think people are going to be hearing a lot more about this story. But just to wrap this up for now—because I've seen you both going into a lot of detail—I'm glad you've had the opportunity to explain it as thoroughly as you have. Bradley, Sarah, thank you for joining us..Read also:.BN Briefing: DA holds no-VAT line; Hersov on targeted sanctions; Banks on Trump; RIP Willem vd MerweBudget Impasse – Dr Mark Burke on not negotiables, why DA holding no-VAT lineGabriel Crouse on BEE Premiums: DA's opportunity to end R150bn annual gift to ANC-loved elites

Political crooks double down, freeze assets of unbowed attorneys investigating Fort Hare fraud

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