Johannesburg - David Sheer and Gareth de Nysschen, of Dave Sheer Guns, met The Star last week to give their side of the story.
De Nysschen denied any knowledge of illegal activities and denied ever bribing Brigadier Mathapelo Miriam Mangwani.
He said they were involved in three lawsuits against the brigadier. The litigation was for administrative and procedural inefficiencies in processing applications.
“Why would we be suing the same person we are supposed to have bribed?” De Nysschen asked.
The men said Susie had to be booked off work because she had a bipolar disorder, and that if any illegal activities were happening, it was of her own accord.
De Nysschen said they fired Susie after allegedly discovering she was duplicating serial numbers of many weapons, and making so many mistakes that she would please clients by giving them weapons far more expensive than the ones they had ordered.
He said they did an audit to try to see what Susie had done, and it was “a huge mess”.
He said she double-sold guns and duplicated serial numbers – “and we are not talking of one firearm, we are talking 50 at a time”.
De Nysschen said many of Susie’s claims were impossible, particularly the fabrication of serial numbers. He said the police’s computer system would simply reject an unknown serial number.
He also said the export of weapons had to go through the national conventional arms control committee, and they would not be able to obtain export permits by bribing police officers.
They accused Susie of launching a vicious corporate espionage attack against them.
The Star