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By Mirah Langer
Slain mining magnate Brett Kebble had dry runs to practise his assisted suicide, convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti alleges in a video recording before court yesterday.
"It was an assisted suicide... Now we know Brett got into such financial trouble, he could not see the way out ... He then ... planned it with (security operative Clinton) Nassif and they planned it, they prayed about it, they had dry runs," says Agliotti.
The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg is currently viewing a video recording in which Agliotti talks to police and National Intelligence Agency representatives about the investigation into former top cop Jackie Selebi.
The video has provisionally been admitted as evidence in Selebi's corruption trial.
Kebble was shot dead in his car in Melrose, Johannesburg, on the night of September 27, 2005.
Nassif, who was head of Kebble's security, allegedly ordered that Kebble's car be removed from police custody before the investigation was complete.
Agliotti said the Scorpions eventually arrested Nassif on insurance fraud charges and put him in "Sun City" prison.
"They locked him up and he said he will give everything on the Kebble murder and everything else he knows.
"He wanted 204 (indemnity) on tax, fraud, murder, drugs, the whole thing ... He then told the Scorpions who had murdered Brett and why."
Nassif was arrested for insurance fraud on October 26, 2006 and was released the next day on bail of R300 000. At the time of his arrest, he had reportedly sold his assets and was planning to leave the country.
In 2008, the charges of insurance fraud against Nassif were withdrawn in the Randburg Magistrate's Court.
He subsequently made a deal with the Scorpions and received indemnity for the Kebble murder, agreeing to be a State witness in the Selebi case.
Agliotti alleges once Nassif made a deal with the Scorpions, he then told them Agliotti paid for the murder - something Agliotti vehemently denies.
"I had no role to play for it."
Instead, he said the Scorpions then arrested him for the murder to get to Selebi.
Agliotti was arrested for Kebble's murder in November 2006. He is set to go on trial in that case next year.
Agliotti said he provided the Scorpions with the "paper trail" of Nassif's two accomplices, who were paid as hitmen in the incident.
The court heard that Agliotti said in the video recording that Nassif lied to the Scorpions as a witness.
Agliotti said he told the Scorpions: "This Nassif is a piece of s**t. He's lying to you. How can you give him 204 - indemnity - and he keeps lying and keeps lying and keeps lying."
Agliotti said it was "clear" to him the Scorpions had no interest in the Kebble murder.
"They did not give a damn about the Kebble murder because they said Kebble was a rotten piece of rubbish ... The whole thing is to bring down Selebi and it's politically-driven."
The recording was made in a hotel room in Sandton, Johannesburg, on January 7, 2008.
Agliotti said he agreed to the filming on the basis it was off the record and purely for intelligence-gathering purposes.
Selebi is facing two counts of corruption and defeating the ends of justice related to payments of at least R1,2 million that he allegedly received from Agliotti, Kebble and former Hyundai boss Billy Rautenbach.