The Great Selebi Farce

I share Junior’s sentiments over at Ibhubezi: “Quite honestly I am getting tired of the Selebi saga now.”

It’s surprising to see the date on which the impending arrest of Jackie Selebi, South Africa’s police commissioner and chairman of Interpol, on charges of corruption and worse, was first mooted. It was more than three months ago. Days later, troubling signs of presidential interference designed to protect Selebi began to surface.

As his arrest neared, the chief of the investigation in the case was dramatically arrested, but all charges were later dropped, prompting renewed fears of political interference to protect Selebi, whether by agents in the turf war between the regular police and the special investigations force (the Scorpions), by intelligence agents who appear to have little to do other than serve as political attack dogs in this country, or by the president himself.

Selebi has now finally stepped down, and has resigned (to use the official term) as chairman of Interpol, while the prosecution appears set to go ahead.

Ibhubezi continues:

Quite honestly I am getting tired of the Selebi saga now. Every-time one opens a newspaper you find something new that the man is alleged to have done.

We now know that he has been granted extended leave from his position as head of police and he has quit Interpol. A question that jumps to my mind is why this man was not fired? Jacob Zuma was sacked as Deputy President before he was found guilty of anything, in fact he has still not been found guilty of anything.

Jackie Selebi faces charges of corruption, fraud, racketeering and defeating the course of justice.

I know one is presumed innocent until a court finds you guilty, but for a man in Selebi’s position, this is a disgrace. When he was appointed to head Interpol it was a massive honour for the country as a whole. That honour has now turned into a disgrace.

One cannot help wondering if political appointments in such high positions within the SAPS is the way to go. Whatever happened to working yourself up from constable to Commissioner. This country needs a real cop heading up the police services.

The crime situation is getting worse, the cops are leaderless, the criminals are the only ones laughing.

Quite so. Selebi should have done the right thing months ago: request leave from the president to stand aside, and ask him to institute an investigation to promptly clear up a matter that taints the commissioner, the police and the reputation of the country. That he hasn’t done so suggests that such an investigation would have found at least some of the allegations against him to be painfully true.