Agliotti cross-examination continues
2009-10-16 08:08
Johannesburg - As the second week in the corruption trial of former top cop Jackie Selebi draws to a close, the first witness - convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti - still remains on the stand.
On Friday, defence lawyer Jaap Cilliers will resume his cross-examination of Agliotti in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg - but Judge Meyer Joffee has already warned he wants him to get a move on.
"I'm really urging you, you must make serious progress in the matter," he said at the close of proceedings on Thursday.
Video recording
On day eight of the trial, the court viewed a video recording of the once-friend of Selebi talking about an alleged conspiracy theory against them.
"The whole thing is to bring down Selebi and it's a politically-driven thing.
The approximately hour-long recording, made in a Sandton hotel room on January 7, 2008, films a meeting between Agliotti, police commissioner Mulangi Mphego and the National Intelligence Agency's Arthur Fraser discussing the investigation into Selebi.
Joffe has accepted it as provisional evidence.
In the recording Agliotti alleges the Scorpions drove an "obsessed" plot to bring down the former police head to ensure the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) - or Scorpions - would not be incorporated into the SA Police Service.
"They are so obsessed in discrediting Selebi and discrediting Saps [SA Police Service]" he says in the video.
Threatened, intimidated
He also says he was intimidated with "mental torture" into doing a deal with the Scorpions.
"They threatened me in saying 'do a deal because if not you are going to jail."
Agliotti has made a deal with the State in the Selebi case and will receive indemnity from prosecution on charges including corruption, money laundering, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice if he testifies "frankly and honestly".
Selebi is facing two counts of corruption and defeating the ends of justice related to payments of at least R1.2m he allegedly received from Agliotti, slain mining magnate Brett Kebble and ex-Hyundai boss Billy Rautenbach.
While his suits and ties have remained stylish, Agliotti himself appears to have grown more weary as the trial proceeds.
At first he seemed comfortable when Cilliers portrayed him as a "kind-hearted" man involved in charitable acts, along with Selebi.
Kebble murder
At one point he even became tearful when admitting he did not want to have to testify against his former friend.
However his relationship with Cilliers has grown more terse after the bespectacled lawyer called him a liar, and detailed criminal allegations against him.
Agliotti made a plea bargain after his conviction in a 2006 drug bust involving hashish with an estimated street value of R200 million. He was also arrested for Brett Kebble's 2005 murder in November 2006 and is set to go on trial in that case next year.
However Agliotti maintains he played "no role' in the "assisted suicide" of the mining magnate.
- SAPA