Johannesburg - Paul O’Sullivan’s defence team have claimed the reason for his arrest for a relatively minor charge was to give police an opportunity to interrogate him on other serious investigations against him.
But a Hawks officer has explained that the reason for the swift arrest was because of an email sent by O’Sullivan claiming he was planning to flee the country.
The forensic consultant was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport in April for breaching the Citizenship Act of 1995. This was after using his foreign passports to travel outside the country despite the fact that he is also a South African citizen.
On Tuesday, his lawyer, advocate Barry Roux SC, tried to establish during the testimony of former investigating officer Thembikhaya Mangqalaza that police were out to “nail” his client.
According to Roux, more than a dozen Hawks officers arrested O’Sullivan at the airport, subjecting him to a three-day detainment at two police stations, and conducting an interrogation that barely focused on the Citizenship Act infringement.
Despite Mangqalaza’s denial of such claims, Roux insisted that the real reason for the arrest was to interrogate O’Sullivan on other cases opened against him.
It was also to prevent him from conducting a corruption press conference in London, where he was allegedly set to out corrupt police officials in South Africa, Roux said.
Firstly, O’Sullivan was questioned on a probe into alleged fraud against South African Airways, and secondly, his interception of the phone calls of the then head of detectives, General Vineshkumar Moonoo.
While Mangqalaza insisted that the interrogation two days after O’Sullivan’s arrest was spurred by the consultant’s attorneys, Roux argued it was actually called for by the head of the Gauteng Hawks, Lieutenant-General Prince Mokotedi.
Roux told the court that O’Sullivan was then promised lenient bail conditions and that the case would go away if he co-operated by elaborating on the recordings of Moonoo’s phone calls.
His trial got under way in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. While he admits to the infraction, he has pleaded not guilty on all six charges of contravening the act over the past 18 months.
A Hawks investigator, Colonel Amod Hoosen, testified for the State that the arrest on the Citizenship Act breach was because O’Sullivan had been labelled an urgent flight risk.
He said that shortly before the arrest, O’Sullivan had sent an email to numerous politicians, media and police officials claiming he was going into “exile”.
The email accused top police officials of improper conduct, and implied he was going to use “unorthodox methods” to fight SAPS corruption. The message he received from the email was “Catch me if you can”, Hoosen told the court.
It was after the email that the warrant for O’Sullivan’s arrest was requested.
Roux argued that nowhere in the email did O’Sullivan ask for police to “catch” him, though he did write “Stop me if you can”.
The trial continues.
The Star