Cape Town - Prosecutions boss Shaun Abrahams must have swallowed hard as he listened to the chairperson of Parliament's justice oversight committee Mathole Motshekga setting the scene for their televised meeting on Friday.
Here was Motshekga, among President Jacob Zuma's most zealous defenders in Parliament - Nkandla ad hoc committee hitman and dogged critic of former public protector Thuli Madonsela - tabulating the ignominious history of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) as though building up to an indictment of Abrahams himself.
Gone were the kid gloves and supine posture as Motshekga listed among the NPA's outrages: the infamous announcement by then national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka that he had a prima facie, but unwinnable, case against Zuma, followed by the machinations of Nomgcobo Jiba and Lawrence Mrwebi to protect crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli and, lately, the aborted prosecutions of Robert McBride and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
“The committee is concerned about this turn of events because the independence and credibility of the office of the director of public prosecutions lies at the heart of the criminal justice system in our democracy,” Motshekga said.
“Our concern with your office, advocate Shaun Abrahams, rises from the suggestions that your office has also been captured to fight factional battles within the ruling party and in struggles for the control of the National Treasury.”
These concerns had been exacerbated by the release of Madonsela's “State of Capture” report this week, and the revelations that Abrahams had attended a meeting with Zuma and Justice Minister Michael Masutha shortly before announcing the decision to charge Gordhan, Motshekga said.
“Those who claim that your office has been captured for factional battles are doubting your independence in dealing with these matters as they believe you are also captured.”
If Abrahams took this introduction as a sign he was in for a rough ride, he would have been right - for the first time in months.
He was clearly taken aback by the directness of the questions MPs were permitted by Motshekga to aim at him - an unfamiliar experience for officials other than Madonsela in this committee - remarking that he had not come prepared to be “interrogated”.
But this has been a remarkable week, in remarkable times, and for those, like Abrahams, caught on the wrong side of shifting loyalties in the governing party, it must all be a little bewildering.
The SACP has already called for a parliamentary inquiry into Abrahams's fitness to hold office and NGOs Freedom Under Law and the Helen Suzman Foundation have written to President Jacob Zuma, asking him to suspend Abrahams, North Gauteng's director of public prosecutions Sibongile Mzinyathi and head of the priority crimes litigation unit Torie Pretorius pending such an inquiry, but that may be the least of his concerns.
The EFF and ANC heavyweight Matthews Phosa have approached the General Council of the Bar in a bid to have Abrahams struck off the roll of advocates and he has the discouraging precedent of Jiba and Mrwebi - booted from the legal profession in similar circumstances - as a reminder that his “distinguished” career could abruptly come to an end.
He claims to have in his back pocket the evidence that convinced him in the first place that there was a case of fraud for Gordhan and former SARS officials Oupa Magashula and Ivan Pillay to answer.
He said the comprehensive summary of evidence, which he offered to share with Parliament, would “deal” with the question of intent.
But this evidence would have to show the three deliberately set out to deceive the SA Revenue Service (Sars) into believing, wrongly, that it should pay the penalty for Pillay's early retirement.
On the face of it, there are at least two problems with this.
In the first place, it has been shown - among others in the representations that supposedly convinced Abrahams to drop the charges - that this was common practice in the public service and within the rules of the government pension scheme.
In the second, if the three had sought legal advice and been assured of the lawfulness of their actions, why would they have tried to trick Sars into making a payment which it was entirely legitimate for them to authorise?
For the moment, Abrahams has been lent respite by the Zuma loyalists on the committee.
MP Bongani Bongo declared himself happy, after listening to Abrahams, that he had acted in good faith, while Chana Pilane-Majake launched a furious attack on those seeking to sow “confusion” among the people.
“We have commission after commission,” she fumed, in apparent reference to the commission of inquiry into the issue of state capture which Madonsela has directed must now be instituted, “a lot of money being used on a daily basis to be interrogating each other as to how we behave and carry ourselves in office, when in actual fact the money could be used, or the time we've got could be used to develop the people of South Africa.
“Do we all have the same vision or are we in the same country with different types of vision that are bringing about confusion, and if that confusion is playing itself out among the leadership of South Africa, what do you think is going to happen to the ordinary man in the street?”
She assured Abrahams it was entirely in order for him to have met Zuma and Masutha at Luthuli House because, “working for the NPA and being in government means you are rolling out the mandate of the ANC as the ruling party”.
This must have felt more like the treatment to which Abrahams has become accustomed in Parliament, but he'd better not get too comfortable.
The political stars are all out of kilter and things are moving at a dizzying pace.
His nickname “pikkewyntjie” (little penguin) would not suit a man broiling in hot water.
Political Bureau