JOHANNESBURG — The Asset Forfeiture Unit‘s decision this week to go after McKinsey and Trillian and recoup R50bn in stolen funds has been lauded as the beginning of a shakedown of the Saxonwold Shebeen. The Zuptas, for the first time, are looking vulnerable, and they could appear in a courtroom soon. Of course, it’s still early days though and forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan tells BizNews editor and publisher Alec Hogg that Shaun the Sheep has to be sheered out of the NPA soonest for any meaningful justice to take place. – Gareth van Zyl
It’s a warm welcome to Paul O’Sullivan. It’s good to be talking to you as always, Paul. You sent an interesting letter to a man who you once lectured. Remember, the last time we spoke, the president in waiting, Cyril Ramaphosa was, some years ago, one of your students as a police reservist.
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Yes, that’s correct. In fact, it was more than 20 years ago now, Alec. I’ve met him a few times since then. As you know, he’s been a businessman for the last 20 years and I’ve met him in various roles during those 20 years, and I’ve met him once or twice at Wandies Place in Soweto where, and I don’t know if people know this, but Wandie is a great stockist of good quality wines so, if you really want to have a nice supper with good, quality wine Wandies restaurant in Soweto is a worthwhile visit.
Well, enough of the free advertising there, but moving onto the letter that you spoke about, Paul, and it’s all to do with the NPA, isn’t it? Just explain.
Yes, and in fact, the title is ‘The Rot at the NPA,’ and I’ve made no secret of it for several years now that the NPA has been captured and it’s been captured by criminals. In order for this country to succeed and the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the leaders of the ANC, the historical leaders of the ANC. In order for that legacy to be successful we have to have a proper operating criminal justice system in this country and quite clearly, the criminal justice system for the last 2 or 3 years, has been not functioning correctly at all. We can trace all of that back to corruption and the appointment of people who are, I suppose, you could call them flexible. In other words, they’re prepared to do things that another person might not do.
Well, Shaun Abrahams is just one of them. I think the people of SA were battling to understand whether Torie Pretorius was the man behind the charges against Gordhan or whether it was Shaun Abrahams. So, in the first media conference regarding the charging of Gordhan, Shaun Abrahams appeared to be taking the lead, but in the second media conference, a week or so later, to announce that the charges had been withdrawn. Shaun Abrahams seemed to be blaming everything on Torie Pretorius. he hasn’t stepped-up and dis-acknowledged the blame. I have evidence that Torie Pretorius himself is compromised.
Who is Torie Pretorius, Paul?
Torie Pretorius is the acting-head of the PCLU (Priority Crimes Litigation Unit), which was set up by presidential proclamation in 2003 by Thabo Mbeki. Now, when that unit was set up it was envisaged that the functioning of the unit, the sole purpose of bringing the unit into life was to deal with Rome Statute matters, crimes involving overseas individuals or crimes that were of, let’s say, of political nature or terrorist nature. You might call them transnational crimes. The sort of cases they looked into, for example, were involving mercenaries that travelled from SA to other countries to wreak havoc, or we had the situation with Mark Thatcher, the son of the late prime minister of the UK, where he was involved in some hanky-panky, which coincidentally also involved mercenaries. Then the PCLU were also utilised for some of the apartheid investigations. Investigations, which resulted in possible trials or judiciary review of some of the conduct of the apartheid regime. Now, after Shaun Abrahams became the national director of Public Prosecutions, Torie Pretorius became the acting-head of the PCLU. Now, PCLU, I’ve renamed it – Political Crimes Litigation Unit because they’ve been captured, and for the last couple of years they’ve only been going after South Africans. Nothing to do with the Rome Statute at all, and in each and every one of these cases Shaun Abrahams has given them the direction to go after these people.
Now, Nomgcobo Jiba, she used to be an advocate. She was dismissed as an advocate by the General Council of the Bar last year. Now, she and Mrwebi were pretty much controlling this so-called PCLU, but before Shaun Abrahams became the national director of Public Prosecutions he was in fact, running the PCLU. So, you can say he worked closely with those people, and when it became the NDPP he decided okay, well I need people that can do my dirty work for me, and he chose the PCLU. Now, what’s interesting about the PCLU is that they make prosecutorial decisions without involving the jurisdictional managers of the NPA. So, you end up with this invidious situation where one employee of the PCLU can make prosecutorial decisions about alleged crimes that took place in Durban, CT, PE, Johannesburg, or Pretoria. When in fact, those decisions should be getting made by the Director of Public Prosecutions of Gauteng North, in the case of Pretoria, Gauteng South, in the case of Johannesburg and then these people are being kept out of the picture, and the decisions that have been made have not gone through the normal mill of being reviewed by somebody in that jurisdictional area.
As a result, you’ve seen people like Pravin Gordhan, Anwar Dramat, Shadrack Sibiya, Glynis Breytenbach, Robert McBride, and of course, myself, being subjected to unlawful and malicious prosecutions by the PCLU. Now, it wasn’t an accident. That didn’t happen by accident. That was planned and it was part of a conspiracy, and in my email to president in waiting, Cyril Ramaphosa, I’ve pointed out to him quite categorically that they’ve acted unlawfully. Now, in the case of Shaun Abrahams, I’ve suggested to the deputy president that everyday that he remains in office is a day too long. The High Court have ruled that his appointment was unlawful in the first place. Well, if his appointment was unlawful in the first place so too, were all the decisions he’s made since he was the national director of Public Prosecutions. It’s no good trying to fix the cancer until you’ve actually cut out the cancer that’s there, and I’m saying that that man is not a fit and proper person to even be a prosecutor at low rank now. He must be suspended until an enquiry is convened and his fitness to hold office is properly investigated.
You also say that every, single decision taken by him, in this letter that you wrote to Cyril Ramaphosa, that every single decision needs to be looked at and overturned, if necessary. Isn’t that a bit of an overkill?
It’s not an overkill. He’s appointed individuals into senior positions, him, and Michael Hulley, who is president Zuma’s legal advisor. Now, I’ve gone on record a number of times to say, it was Michael Hulley that appointed Shaun Abrahams and not Jacob Zuma. Jacob Zuma just signed on the dotted line. Hulley was the one that pre-interviewed Shaun Abrahams for that appointment and Shaun Abrahams doesn’t do a thing without checking with Michael Hulley first. In one of my previous emails to him, which was a bit tongue in cheek, I suggested to him that he go and buy Jacques Pauw’s book. I said to him that it’s justifiable that he should go and get the money from petty cash to buy the book, if he couldn’t afford one himself. Then tongue in cheek, I told him, ‘ask Michael Hulley for permission to get the money from petty cash.’ Michael Hulley has been controlling the NPA through his marionette, called Shaun Abrahams, and that’s been going on now for far too long and it’s got to stop.
Shaun Abrahams is well known amongst the SA public as ‘Shaun the Sheep’, which is a very derogatory approach, but from what you’re saying it’s well deserved, but where does he come from? Was he plucked from obscurity, as has happened with a number of the powerful cabinet ministers in the Zuma administration, or did he work his way up to this position?
No, he definitely didn’t work his way up for this position. You don’t go from being a deputy director to being the national director in one jump. Well, you do, and he’s the proof of it. He obviously, was a person that was prepared to sell his soul to the devil, and once that had been acknowledged by Hulley, the appointment took place. In return for that appointment, look at what he’s done. First of all, he closed off the criminal dockets against Jiba and Mrwebi. Now, I opened those dockets in 2012, and I put an enormous amount of work into those dockets, and for this man to just suddenly come on the scene and say, okay, we’re closing off those dockets now. There’s no need to do anything else. Jiba and Mrwebi were both hammered by the previous management of the NPA for their conduct in trying to protect Jackie Selebi. That conduct included making false, sworn statements.
Mrwebi, at that stage, was the head of the Scorpions in, what was then called, KZN or Natal. Now, he ran the Scorpions in KZN, and what he did was he made false sworn statements, which were used in the Jackie Selebi trial and the Jackie Selebi High Court cases, because Selebi brought an application to stop the Scorpions from charging him. Jiba, on the other hand, she went even a step further and she withdrew criminal charges against Richard Nduli, in fact, Mrwebi assisted her with that so, I opened a docket in 2012, and that docket was investigated and Jiba, and I think they chose not to charge Mrwebi, but they chose to charge Jiba. The first thing Shaun Abrahams did was withdraw the charges against her.
Gupta ministers are shitting bricks this morning. Eskom executives are shitting bricks this morning. Ace Magashule is shitting bricks this morning. Shaun Abrahams has already wet his bed. Things are rough
— Public Protester (@Pasco_e) January 16, 2018
I’m saying that’s not only unlawful, I’m saying it’s criminal that he’s protected that woman and what he also did was he appointed her as the head of the NPA. So, if you ask me, she was the chief operating office of the NPA, according to Shaun Abrahams, and the head of the Prosecution Service. He was actually reporting to somebody that reported to him but she had the ear of Zuma and, of course, Michael Hulley. If you ask me, she consulted with Michael Hulley about who should be appointed as the head of the NPA because she could not be appointed because of her history. The Civil Rights organisations and NGOs in SA would have quickly jumped into the High Court and said she was not fit and proper so, they bypass her and appointed Shaun Abrahams. He was just a puppet. Jiba was actually running the NPA.
This is a really compelling argument that you’ve put forward. The confusion though that exists, in the public arena, now that, if you like, the good guys have come into power at the ANC, and are poised to sweep out all of the corruption, including the deputy president that you wrote this letter to. Where are we in all of this? One day you’ll get a statement to say or some news report to say that the Asset Forfeiture Unit are freezing the assets of the Guptas. The next day you’ll hear that Peter Hain is raising arguments that Hogan Lovells, one of the biggest law firms in the world (14 in the world), should be closed down because of what they’ve been doing at the SA Revenue Services. It seems as though the tide is turning but how are you reading it? How long will it take for the public in SA to see action?
Well, I think we’ll see action soon. I went on record last year saying, there would have been arrests before Christmas. Now, in my opinion, there would have been arrests before Christmas if the NPA wasn’t captured. It’s known for a fact that in early December a team of prosecutors went to see Shaun Abrahams and they were looking to proceed with arrests. He threw a cadenza, kicked them out of his office, told them to leave the dockets there and nothing has been done since. Shaun Abrahams has to be removed from office. Now, I’m adamant that Shaun Abrahams belongs in jail and I’m going to keep pushing this until he at least, gets a day in a criminal court to explain his conduct. He’s making decisions, which are unlawful and they’ve got to stop. The decisions that he’s made where it’s resulted in appointments in the NPA – those decisions need to be changed, they need to be rescinded, and if the taxpayer has to put money on the table to clear out the rubbish that Shaun Abrahams has brought in then so be it. That’s the cost of cleaning up. We cannot have these captured prosecutors in office so, we either have to bring disciplinary charges against them and remove them that way. Bring criminal charges against them, and remove them that way or get the cheque book out and pay them off and get rid of them so that the NPA can be cleaned up and go back to the way it used to be before Zuma came into office.
How many honest people remain in the NPA? Is this rot just at the top or does it go a long way down?
Well, the capturing rot is just at the top. At the lower-end of the NPA, I would say that 99% of all the prosecutors are hardworking, decent, honest people that comply with both the Constitution and with the NPA Act. I once used the expression when I talked about the leadership of the police. When I said, ‘they’re lions being led by donkeys.’ Now, you have this situation where these lions are being undermined by senior officials who aren’t even qualified to be in the positions they’re in. One case in point, there’s a member of the Political Crimes Litigation Unit, a chap by the name of JJ Mlotshwa. Now, he’s been masquerading for the last few years as an advocate. In November 2016, I supplied two lever arch files, a formal complaint against Advocate Mlotshwa with the General Council of the Bar.
After six or seven months I pestered them to say, ‘listen, where are you with this investigation?’ They gave me a one-liner and they said, ‘we can’t investigate this man, he’s not an advocate. So, I immediately filed a formal complaint with a real advocate, Advocate Mzinyathi. Now, Advocate Mzinyathi was also on the list of people that were included in the previous application by the General Council of the Bar. They wanted Mzinyathi, Jiba, and Mrwebi struck off the role of advocates. Now, Mzinyathi somehow managed to have survived, and today Advocate Mzinyathi, he is the person responsible for ethics at the NPA. Now, that’s a joke because he, himself, has ethical issues so, you have the situation where the mice are now guarding the cheese and it needs to be cleaned up. I think that at the end of the day, the 99% of good, decent, hardworking prosecutors out there, who are, for the most part, doing a fabulous job and work overtime without being paid, they need to get proper leadership and that needs to happen sooner rather than later. The process that’s already commenced in the police needs to happen now, at the NPA. Then the next area that we need to look at is the Intelligence Services, because that’s also been captured. When it’s all finished, done and dusted, we’ll have a South African criminal justice system, and an Intelligence Service that functions properly, the way it should do.
Paul, we’ve seen what happened in Brazil, with Operation Car Wash, where leading business people and politicians are serving time in jail. Is it your thought that something similar could happen in SA, if you have a clean NPA?
Well, it has to happen, Alec, and if it doesn’t happen then I’m afraid the future of this country doesn’t look good at all. The right sort of noises are coming out from the new leadership of the ANC. It’s shocking that you’ve got people in the NPA, indirectly reporting, and being controlled by politicians – that’s got to stop. The constitution is crystal clear that there has to be a separation of the police and the prosecuting authority, and the executive. Now, in some of the cases that I’ve been witnessing, for example, myself and Sarah-Jane Trent, were unlawfully arrested or kidnapped or whatever you want to call it, in February last year. I had to stand in court and watch a crooked cop giving instructions to a member of the NPA. In total breach of both the Constitution and the NPA Act, and I challenge that prosecutor. I wrote to him and I told him that he’s not fit for purpose and he needs to be gone.
Now, Forensics for Justice have identified a number of these prosecutors and I’ve sent their names. I’ve given a list of their names to the deputy president and I’m just hoping that the process, when it starts – I shouldn’t have to do all these things, it shouldn’t be my function to do, but somebody at some point in time needs to take that list and start working through these people and either getting them out of the NPA, or getting them into a position where they can be managed.
It looks very much like the tide has turned. How do you see things developing from here?
Obviously, I’d like to see people getting arrested. They’ve been very quick to go after people like myself and Gordhan, McBride, and others, but that same sort of speed needs to be applied now. I use my passport to travel back into SA from overseas. I use my Irish passport in late 2015, and I did that because of the corruption between Radovan Krejcir and certain dirty police, and immigration officers at the airport in Johannesburg. The dirty cops used that to drag me off a plane bound to London, and torture me for four days in horrendous conditions, and eventually they dragged that case through court. Deliberately delaying it, lying to the court, and withholding my passport so that I could not travel overseas. At the end of the day the case got dismissed and thrown out of court.
Read also: Paul O’Sullivan on war with Phahlane: ‘I’ll expose these criminals with badges’
Those people, everybody involved in that, they should be going to prison. I’ve sued the state now for an amount of R190m, which is previous earnings, future earnings, and the costs of the damages I’ve suffered, and so on, and so forth. Of course, I doubt if I’ll get anything like that in way of a settlement but I’ve never heard of anybody suing for R5m and getting R10m so, you have to start high. Now, at the end of the day, all those costs against the state and the taxpayer it’s only happening because of criminals in the criminal justice system. The clean-up, in my opinion, has started.
Last week the previous acting-head of Criminal Intelligence in the police was arrested and charged. Today, a crooked captain in Crime Intelligence was arrested and charged. Now, this same captain stole millions of Rands, together with generals, I should add, from the Crime Intelligence slush fund. Some of that money was used for these people to have an improvement in their lifestyles, and some of it was used to hire criminals to spy on people like myself and Robert McBride, and put fake cases together against us. Now, the taxpayer’s money goes into this so-called slush fund. That slush fund needs to be cleaned up and the people that manage it needs to be held accountable and its books needs to be properly audited.
How much of this is believed by the Ramaphosa team, if you like, or the new team SA?
Well, I don’t think I’m the only one that’s communicating with him. I’m pretty certain that he’s got good advisors. I know some of the people that are advising him and I’m pretty certain that he’ll take council. Unlike the current state president, who doesn’t take council at all, I believe my knowledge of Cyril in the years I’ve known him. He is the sort of person that will take council and won’t make arrogant autocratic decisions. So, at the end of the day, I believe the country is in safe hands.
But there are those who say that the ANC is striving for unity. It wants to sweep things under the carpet, perhaps, in the name of preserving what unity there is in the party. If that were to happen what would Forensics for Justice do?
I’ve already said what would happen. I think I said this last year. The ANC are facing a general election next year, in less than 18 months. Now, they would want to win that general election because they’re the only political party that’s been in control of the parliament since democracy. They would want to win that general election, but they’re in the invidious position now, of facing the reality of losing that general election. So, they have to get a balancing act between having unity or losing the general election. Now, if they want to be in a position to run this country, in their words, until the return of Jesus, then they need to get their act together because the people of this country will not vote for a corrupt party so, they have precisely 15 or 16 months left, in which to clean-up the ANC. Clean-up the government, remove all these people, and demonstrate that prison is available for all these people that have stolen the country. Once those people start going to jail the stature of the ANC will go back to what it used to be in the 1990s, which was probably one of the top political parties in the world.
So, there really is no compromise and no softer, easier way, but Paul, just to close off with. What happens to a cop? What happens to a Shaun Abrahams when they do go to jail and when they do get put behind bars, and spend time extensively, with people who were previously on the other side?
Police officials and prosecutors who end up in prison are kept in, there’s a rule, and I can’ remember the rule number, but there’s a rule. They’re kept in the same circumstances, as child molesters and that sort of thing because people that molest children, when they go to prison, they normally get attacked by the prison community. The same applies to police officials so, when they go to prison they normally get attacked and targeted by the prison community so, they have to be held in cells where you can have, I imagine at the end of the day, we’ll probably have enough to fill a small prison – with all the dirty cops and the dirty prosecutors, or a prison wing, and hopefully they’ll put them altogether. They certainly, could not be kept in the normal prison population because if they did, they would either get killed or attacked.
So, there’s a lot at stake for them, as there indeed would be for others, who’ve corrupted or committed corrupt acts over the past few years.
Yes, but at the end of the day, they were hired initially, and they pledged their allegiance to the country, and all of them, all the police officials in SA were forced, and I think that process started years ago. Every police official had to sign a Code of Conduct, and the same applies to the NPA. You have a thing called the NPA Act, and you have another thing called the Prosecution Guidelines and Policy. Now, all these people who have deliberately breached that, they knew or ought reasonably to have known that if they were caught doing with what they’ve been caught doing – the possibility exists that they’re going to go to prison. If they think there’s going to be any leniency then they’re banking with the wrong back because I can tell you that I’m not going to relax until all the dirty prosecutors and all the dirty cops that have punished me for exposing corruption – they have been to court and they get whatever sentence they’re due to get.
So, no mercy from Paul O’Sullivan.
It’s not a case of mercy. It’s a case of setting the record straight and making sure that justice is done. At the end of the day, Alec, if justice is not done, it’s going to happen again. You know, after the Second World War they had trials in Nuremberg and the purpose of those trials was to punish the leaders, the people who caused what happened. We need to have a Nuremberg now. We had a Nuremburg for apartheid, it’s all been done and dusted. We now need a Nuremberg for the capture of this country, by these heinous people, and those that have facilitated that capture by protecting these criminals. I’m talking about people like Michael Hulley, Shaun Abrahams, and all these other prosecutors and dirty cops – Ntlemeza, [Munu? 0:28:49.6]. There’s a whole list. They all need to be punished. Justice needs to be seen to be done because if it’s not done we’ll have a repeat of this in 5 or 10-years’ time.
So, the Brazilians called it Operation Car Wash – what are the South Africans going to call it, the Saxonwold Shebeen Meltdown?
I don’t know. I suppose at the end of the day, I’m now past the point. I used to make jokes about this but I’m past that now, and I’m sick and tired of it, and I’m sure the people of SA are sick and tired of this entrenched corruption, which has seen the country being robbed. I sat and worked out, I think it was on Saturday, and I came up with the following. That if we could get back all the money stolen by corrupt politicians, cops, and government officials, and state-owned enterprise officials over the last 10 to 15-years we could build 50 hospitals, 500 schools, and over a million homes. That means this corruption is affecting the poorest of the poor. It’s the poor people in this country, which are suffering the most by this corruption. If it carried on, I have got absolutely no doubt that if carried on the way it was carrying on, and we can already see the tide turning now. It would have brought this country to its knees and it would have probably brought on a Civil War.
