O’Sullivan on fight against corruption: We’re ‘far too soft’ on Myeni, Magashule & friends

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Paul O’Sullivan is an Irish-born crime fighter with the corrupt and the captured in his line of sight, refusing to rest until he sees them behind bars. Recently, he released an open letter to former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni – who has featured prominently at the Zondo commission into state capture, warning her of his intentions, with one line of the statement reading ‘prison awaits you!’ The country has been looted, with corrupt government officials and business people leaving little behind. In a positive development, a spate of arrests has been made showing, hopefully, that the country is heading in the right direction. One example is the arrest of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule. Still, O’Sullivan reckons we have a long way to go. Listen to the full interview with BizNews founder Alec Hogg, from the Rational Radio webinar this week. – Jarryd Neves

Paul O’Sullivan on Ace Magashule:

He’s out on bail. So if he starts stirring the pot and arranging for people to go toy-toying at his court cases, they should withdraw his bail and keep him in prison behind bars – where he can’t be involved in any further unrest. It’s clear that what he’s doing will lead to unrest. There’s plenty of cases – previous, historical cases – where there’s a legal justification for withdrawing bail. I would have no hesitation at his next appearance at telling him, ‘listen here, you come with any more of these people to court, we are going to withdraw your bail. Don’t tell us that you didn’t arrange it, because that’s not acceptable. You tell your supporters that if they want to see you sitting in jail waiting for trial, then they must come toy-toy outside the court.’

On the fight against corruption:

We’ve still got a lot more to do – and we’re busy doing it. Every area has its role to play. I’ll give you a classic example: We opened a case at Brooklyn police station – Forensics for Justice did – in September 2015. That’s over five years ago now, against Lucky Montana. After we opened our criminal docket, I put the board of Prasa on terms not to pay any more money to Siyangena Technologies – they were about to pay them R300-million. I appointed lawyers and we launched an urgent application. The money wasn’t paid, so we saved Prasa R300-million. Prasa then had all the contracts set aside. After they had the contracts set aside, Prasa – Papa Molefe in particular – wrote to Ntlemeza, the unlawfully appointed corrupt head of the DPCI, and put him on terms to take steps to not only bring Lucky Montana and his accomplices to book, but also to start freezing some of the monies that had been stolen. Coincidentally, I wrote to Shamila Batohi over the weekend and I said, two and a half years ago I wrote to Shaun Abrahams and said to him ‘why are the asset forfeiture unit not attaching the proceeds of crime that they know is out there?’ Now, to this date, not a single rand of all the money that’s been swiped from Prasa – the money that Lucky Montana swiped, together with his accomplices – not a single rand of it has been attached. We’re talking a serious amount of money.

On Dudu Myeni:

I lost count. I counted more than 100 times, her saying ‘I won’t answer that question, in case I incriminate myself.’ On day two, I think of her giving evidence. She commits a criminal offence. She names three, four or five times, she names Mr. X. There were police officers sitting inside the Zondo Commission while this was going on. They watch her commit an offence. They should have put the handcuffs on her right there and then. My approach is that we are being far too soft with these criminals. We are giving them far too much leeway.

On the criminal justice system:

We have a very good criminal justice system in South Africa, that was captured years ago. Probably in the region of 10 years ago – around the time that Selebi was being sentenced. We had criminals and people with low ethics moving into senior positions in the National Prosecuting Authority. Ditto the police service.

On South African judges:

I’ve seen some of these judges. Some of them are very thick-skinned. I look at the judge [that presided over the] Radovan Krejčíř [trial.] Now, Radovan Krejčíř is probably far more dangerous than Ace Magashule, Jacob Zuma or any of them. I’ve got a schedule of all the people he bumped off. I think it’s 13 or 14 people in South Africa and half a dozen overseas. That guy was a real nasty piece of work. He’s sitting in jail now. We’ve not heard from him since – I doubt if we will hear much more from him now. He can’t even make a phone call. He’s kept in a prison in KZN, where cell phone signals don’t work inside the prison. He’s pretty much had his arms and legs cut off, so that’s the last we hear of him. Now, that judge that sit on his trial had no hesitation whatsoever, in dealing with him every time he stepped out of line. I think the High Court judges and the Supreme Court of Appeal judges, they’ve been doing it for a long time. They know what they’re up against. But if there are security assessments carried out – and they decide that their life may be at risk – they can get protection. I’ve yet to see judge which would renege on his constitutional duty, because he feels his or her life is in danger.

On Shepherd Bushiri:

What you have to remember is, the Bushiris are not South African citizens. In fact – depending on which version of events is correct – they may not even have the right to be in the country legally in the first place. On the other side of the coin – I don’t know if anybody sat and watched that 28 minute video – but this gentleman lobbed some fairly harsh allegations at the investigating team that investigated him. Obviously, I had no knowledge who these people are or whether the allegations are true or not. But, it wouldn’t be the first time in South Africa where cops have asked for money and if you don’t pay, you get arrested.

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