Top South African police battle over graft charges

"We live in a fragile democracy where state institutions are in the process of firming up. We are far away from comfort zone of proper democracy. The current situation is not just worrying, it's dangerous."

Peter Gastrow, crime analyst

South Africa's top cops are gunning for each other in a bruising battle that raises concerns about the fight against crime in a country with more than 50 murders each day -- and even about the future of the fledgling democracy.

The National Prosecuting Authority said on Friday it planned to charge national police commissioner Jackie Selebi on two counts of corruption and defeating the administration of justice over his links with a convicted drug smuggler.

Selebi, who also holds the largely ceremonial post of president of Interpol, filed a court application in Pretoria's High Court to try to block the move, but the judge dismissed it. Selebi, who long been rumored to have links with the underworld, has consistently protested his innocence.

The Pretoria High Court hearing came at the end of an extraordinary week for the prosecuting authority, which is the equivalent of the FBI.

On Monday, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) accused prosecutors of using "Hollywood style" tactics against ANC President Jacob Zuma, who is due to stand trial in August on charges of fraud, money laundering, corruption and racketeering in connection with a multibillion dollar arms deal.

In true Hollywood style, armed police on Tuesday arrested Johannesburg's top prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, who led the probe into Selebi, and hauled him away in handcuffs. Nel is due in court tomorrow on charges of defeating the ends of justice -- charges which the prosecuting authority says are without foundation.

Peter Gastrow, a crime analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town, said the ANC's opposition to the prosecuting authority and the war between the two law enforcement agencies poses the greatest threat to their independence and integrity since the advent of multiracial democracy in 1994.

"We live in a fragile democracy where state institutions are in the process of firming up," he said. "We are far away from comfort zone of proper democracy. The current situation is not just worrying, it's dangerous."

Gastrow the police and prosecuting authority were devoting so much time and resources to fighting each other that the public was right to question the violence that plagues South Africans on an hourly basis.

Naeelah Scott, a 33-year-old beauty therapist in a sprawling Cape Town suburb infested with gangs and drugs, said the latest developments deepened her disgust with the police and justice system.

"Who can we trust? We are at the bottom. We try to fight. But we are not just fighting the criminals and gangsters, we are fighting the police," Scott said, complaining about corruption at her local police station in Mitchells Plain.

The suburb is gripped by an epidemic of methamphetamine -- or "tik" -- addiction that has seen drug-related crimes soar from 621 in 2001 and 2002 to more than 3,000 in 2005 and 2006.

Police released last month said that, nationwide, there were 8,925 murders and 23,507 reported rapes between April and September last year -- both down slightly from 2006. Truck hijackings soared 53 percent and robberies at businesses were up 29 percent.

The government insists it is serious about tackling crime. But government ministers have stayed silent about the fracas between police and prosecutors.

South African President Thabo Mbeki summarily suspended chief prosecutor Vusi Pikoli last September after he issued a warrant for the arrest of Selebi -- who is seen as a close Mbeki ally. Acting prosecuting chief Mokotedi Mpshe withdrew the warrant and ordered an independent investigation of the case against Selebi.

In Friday's court papers, the prosecuting authority said the charges related to Selebi's "generally corrupt relationship" with Glen Agliotti, a convicted drug trafficker who is accused of the 2005 murder of a mining magnate, Brett Kebble.

Agliotti Selebi cash handouts when he was short of cash "as and when he requested," and bought clothes for him and his family and even gave him 30,000 rands (US$4,400) to fund a dinner in Paris when he was elected president of Interpol in 2004. The payments totaled at least 1.2 million rands between 2000-2005, the prosecuting authority said.

The prosecuting authority accused Selebi of defeating the administration of justice by turning a blind eye to Agliotti's involvement in transporting large quantities of illegal drugs. He also informed his friend that British intelligence authorities were investigating him, the prosecuting authority said.

The prosecuting authority is fighting desperately for the survival of its elite crime-busting unit known as the Scorpions. Last month's ANC congress, which elected Zuma as party president despite corruption charges, passed a resolution that the unit should be dissolved as quickly as possible. Anger that prosecutors filed new charges against Zuma within a week of his election is likely to move the scrapping of the Scorpions high up the political agenda.

Gastrow the Scorpions hit problems once they closed in on South Africa's political and business elite, and that power struggles in South Africa were sending out worrying signals internationally.

"There are some anxious analysts out there watching this strange squabble game being played out in a society which has to be very careful it doesn't lose its balance," Gastrow said.