Categories

Chikane unhappy with Vlok ruling

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2008-05-08 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Jan

By Carol Hills and Jenni O’Grady

Revelations about tension between a top presidential official and prosecuting authorities marked the first day of public hearings on the suspension of chief prosecutor Vusi Pikoli.

Director-general in the presidency Frank Chikane told the Ginwala hearing into Pikoli’s fitness to hold office that he had been misrepresented when the authority reached a plea bargain agreement with apartheid-era law and order minister Adrian Vlok for trying to murder him.

Last August, Vlok and apartheid police chief Johan van der Merwe were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, suspended for five years for attempting to kill Chikane in 1989 by lacing his clothes with poison.

The other three accused – Major General Christoffel Smith and colonels Gert Otto and Johannes Van Staden – were sentenced to five years, similarly suspended.

Before the sentencing, Vlok washed Chikane’s feet as an act of penance.

Chikane said that when the matter was being finalised in court, he was surprised to hear that he agreed to the terms of the plea bargain agreement and was not given a chance in court to respond.

“I would not have agreed that we make the arrangement that people be given suspended sentences,” he said.

Chikane said that not only had he not been shown the plea bargain agreement, but there were factual errors in their submission and he was concerned that no attempt was made to find out what had happened to the others on the two lists of people targeted for attacks.

He said that in the time leading up to the final court case, he discovered that his case had become part of a dispute over guidelines on how to handle sensitive post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission prosecutions and he believed that other officials were refusing to be bound by them.

He became drawn into the dispute when State prosecutor Anton Ackerman at one point asked him to sign a letter that could be used against officials opposed to the way the NDPP was handling the case, but he refused.

After that, Ackerman threatened him with a larceny charge for not revealing the content of a conversation with Vlok, as well as a Section 205 notice which could have compelled him to reveal the information.

“He said he was going to use Section 205 to force me to tell them what Vlok said to me,” he told the hearing.

He said that after the Pretoria High Court case, he wrote to the Minister of Justice to complain about the way his case was handled.

“You get into court, the people who consult you about the case are insensitive and threaten to charge you and engage in power games using you as a victim,” said Chikane.

He said he had not raised the matter publicly before because of his position as the head of President Thabo Mbeki’s office.

The experience was “hostile, painful and degrading”, he told the Commission.

In other testimony, Chikane told the commission it was “far from the truth” that Pikoli was suspended for arresting national police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

The problem was “the way in which it was going to be done”.

Pikoli simply arrived in the office of President Thabo Mbeki with the warrants in a black bag.

His attitude appeared to be one of: “It doesn’t matter what process you set up, I’m going to do it my way”, even though it was pointed out to him that Mbeki would have to make certain arrangements first — including identifying an acting police commissioner.

Chikane also expressed concern at the NDPP’s apparent lack of consideration of the need to security-vet the operatives who conducted search and seizures at the Union Buildings and Tuynhuys.

These had involved top secret documents which could have fallen into the hands of other intelligence agencies.

“I do not know up to now if the information was compromised and that concerns me greatly,” he testified.

The Commission will rule on Thursday whether a letter from Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla to Mbeki, and which she claims is privileged, should form part of the public record. – Sapa

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20080507182402297C134785