Exploding+diary+in+boot+of+car+-+not,+by+3+new+journalists,+S+Times

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 12 November, 2006
=Selebi named in explosive diary=


 * Simphiwe Piliso, Jocelyn Maker and Jessica Bezuidenhout**

Underworld heavy recorded coffee dates with commissioner

The Scorpions have seized a diary that reveals that South Africa’s most senior policeman has much more than a casual friendship with the man dubbed the “landlord” of a huge smuggling syndicate.

Glenn Agliotti’s diary, seized from the boot of his car, contains dates and times of regular meetings he had with National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

The Sunday Times has established that the diary contains other explosive information on Agliotti’s international operations.

The Scorpions seized the diary when they raided Agliotti’s home in September as part of a criminal investigation into a R250-million drug bust, racketeering, money-laundering and corruption.

For months Selebi has cried foul, saying Agliotti is just a friend, and that there is nothing sinister about their relationship.

But the diary shows that the two men were in constant contact, setting up appointments to have “tea, coffee and breakfasts”.

The contents of the diary shed more light on the inappropriate relationship that Selebi, president of Interpol, has with Agliotti, a known underworld character.

Agliotti’s involvement with contraband is detailed in a 144-page dossier detailing a smuggling organisation, which forms part of a Scorpions investigation.

Details of the seizure of Agliotti’s diary come in a week in which controversy has raged over the release of the dossier of affidavits and statements from witnesses and informers inside the smuggling network.

Selebi repeated his dismissal of the dossier as a massive smear campaign against him and named its compiler, Paul O’Sullivan, dismissed head of security for the Airports Company of South Africa.

The dossier reveals how Agliotti boasted about his connection to Selebi. Affidavits in the dossier make claims about Selebi, Agliotti and Clint Nassif, owner of the security company employed by mining magnate Brett Kebble. Nassif was arrested by the Scorpions and appeared in court on a R500000 fraud charge two weeks ago.

Attached to Nassif’s docket was an annexure that states there is an investigation into the offences of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and corruption. It does not state whose murder.

Agliotti’s diary was removed from a briefcase taken out of the boot of his car by the Scorpions during an early-morning raid on his Johannesburg home.

A court order, obtained by the Sunday Times from the Johannesburg High Court, authorised the Scorpions to seize from various premises, including Agliotti’s:


 * Any documents showing any communication with the SA Police Service or “individuals of the SAPS”; and


 * Any item that may show a link with SAPS activities — specifically any document indicating links with police officials mentioned in the application.

“There is reason to suspect that the offences of crimes of corruption, defeating the ends of justice, drug trafficking, fraud, racketeering and money- laundering are being committed by those listed,” the warrant read.

Agliotti’s name is second on the list, which also includes the names of former and current policemen.

On Friday Agliotti said: “A diary is just a diary ... Selebi is my friend ... We had tea, coffee and breakfasts together.”

But Selebi, when asked during an interview on Friday afternoon about his appointments with Agliotti, said: “I’m not aware of that ... but for argument’s sake, say that he [Agliotti] wrote down that I was visiting, what does that prove? ... So does that mean anyone who has an appointment with him is a criminal?”

He said his visits and telephone calls to Agliotti did not prove a thing.

But National Deputy Commissioner Andre Pruis interrupted Selebi and demanded to know where the Sunday Times had seen this diary.

“I want to know from you, where did you see this appointment book? How did the appointment book get to you?”

Selebi said: “I have never had breakfast with Glenn ... never. I may have had lunch with him but never breakfast. I do not know if he kept an appointment book ... and if he did I do not know what it says.

“When I meet him it is at his office at [Maverick] Masupatsela,’’ he said.

This company, of which Agliotti was a director, was also listed on the search- and-seizure warrant obtained by the Scorpions.

Maverick Masupatsela, a company where Agliotti was a director, had established a partnership with Masupatsela Investment Holdings, a BEE company controlled by the late Brett Kebble’s Consolidated Mining Management Services (CMMS).

Selebi said: “Where I have time and Agliotti has time we meet and talk about social things. I have never been in discussion with him about criminality. I do not know if he is involved.

“He would never be involved in any sort of crime in my presence. ”

This week Agliotti — who for months has not spoken publicly about the allegations surrounding him — said it was unfair that he had been labelled as a “landlord” and “mafia boss”.

“I was on my way to gym just before 6am when the Scorpions stopped me and told me they had a warrant to search my home.

“Jackie is purely my friend and I met him years ago. This is all just about revenge and is a smear campaign.”

But in a sworn statement to the Scorpions, a state witness claims that Agliotti paid him to move stolen goods.

Although his claims have not been tested in court as yet, this witness, whose name is known to the Sunday Times, details how he received calls from Agliotti to move stolen unbranded clothing, cigarettes, cigars, drugs and a wide range of liquor from bonded warehouses to buyers.

The witness also claims that while doing jobs for Agliotti he met a number of policemen who claimed that they had come from Selebi’s office.

These policemen, he said, would illegally seize goods from warehouses and then sell them. Some of the policemen’s names in his statement also appear on the search-and-seizure order obtained by the Scorpions to raid Agliotti and 16 others.


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=316074**

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