NPA may take SAPS to court over Selebi documents

This emerged during Selebi's failed attempt last week to strike his case off the roll of the Randburg Magistrates' Court, says a Mail & Guardian Online report. Magistrate Lalitha Chetty dismissed Selebi's argument that his trial was being unreasonably delayed and referred the matter to the Johannesburg High Court for trial from 14 April to 19 June 2009. From correspondence presented to the court between the acting heads of the police and NPA it is clear that the SAPS is refusing to furnish the Scorpions with the bulk of the requested documents because they are classified. The recent request for documents is, according to Advocate Jaap Cilliers, who is acting for Selebi, a clear indication that the case against Selebi is not complete. 'I find it astonishing that they would apply for a warrant of arrest for the Commissioner of Police when, on their own version, they still need almost all the relevant documentation,' Cilliers said. The trial date of 14 April was decided on by both parties to make provision for pre-trial applications. In one of these, Cilliers predicted, the NPA would take the SAPS to court to obtain the disputed documents. The Mail & Guardian has established that the NPA is indeed considering this option after numerous failed requests for assistance from the police. Full Mail & Guardian Online report

The documents in question relate to a UK operation on British nationals involved in drug-trafficking, according to a City Press report. Britain's southern Africa co-ordinator for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), Tony Tenger, wrote a secret letter to Scorpions' investigator Andrew Leask, who is in charge of the Selebi investigation, saying the five UK intelligence letters that Selebi allegedly showed to his friend, Glenn Agliotti, were 'for intelligence purposes only'. Agliotti's link to the drug-trafficking allegations in the letters was what is termed 'an offshoot' whose movements the British were interested in. It is alleged that Selebi alerted Agliotti to the surveillance in return for R1.2 million in kickbacks. Regarding its request for the documents, the police told the NPA that they operated on a basis of trust within the international intelligence community, and that they would not risk ruining this important relationship by providing intelligence files to be used as evidence against Selebi. 'If we are given useful information by other intelligence agencies and expressly told not to use the information in court, as Tenger did, how will anyone trust their information with us in the future?' said the police. Full City Press report