Explosive testimony against Selebi

JOHANNESBURG – A witness gave explosive testimony of payments and gifts given to former police head Jackie Selebi when she testified in his corruption trial yesterday.

Dianne Muller, the ex-fiancee of convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti, testified that Agliotti began to believe his friendship with Selebi placed him above the law.’Agliotti started to believe that he was larger than life. That he was bigger than anyone. That he could do anything. That the law could not touch him because he was friends with the accused,’ the slender blonde told the High Court in Johannesburg.Earlier Muller told how she had packed R110 000 in cash for Selebi at offices in Midrand which Agliotti also used.’I counted R110 000 and put it in a white bank bag. I took it down to the boardroom and put the bag in front of Agliotti. He put his hands on the bag and slid it across to Jackie Selebi and said, ‘Here you go, my China’.’About 20 or 30 minutes later Glenn shouted Selebi is leaving. I waved goodbye and he [Selebi] had the bank bag in his possession.’During cross-examination, Muller reiterated she saw Selebi leaving with the bank bag.’He left with the bank bag in his hand.’Muller said she confronted Agliotti about the payment.’I had a discussion with Agliotti and I said that I felt it was not really the way for things to happen, that the national police commissioner was to be paid off by Glenn Agliotti.’Asked by prosecutor Gerrie Nel if she had taken any steps to report the matter, Muller replied: ‘How do you report something to the police when their boss is the person [implicated]?’Muller said Agliotti would place payments allegedly destined for Selebi in envelopes marked with the initials JS.Asked how she knew the JS stood for Jackie Selebi, she said: ‘When Glenn Agliotti had written on the envelopes that said JS, they would leave with Jackie Selebi.’However, later she said she never actually saw the envelopes in his hand.Muller said on average, Selebi came twice a month to the offices that she moved her business into in 2004, always ‘dressed in full uniform’.Muller said one time Agliotti had received a call on his car phone.’Selebi asked Glenn can he please lend him R10 000 for his son’s birthday party.’Agliotti agreed but said he did not have the money on him and he would have to come and collect it another time.’Glenn then turned to me and said ‘lend my ass, I’ll never see that money again’.’The next morning Selebi arrived at the office.’Glenn told me he handed over the money.’On another occasion, she confronted Agliotti about the ‘exorbitant’ amounts of money he was spending on clothes accounts.’He said it was not for him, that he was buying clothes for Mr Selebi.’She mentioned a time Agliotti had bought a Gucci handbag for Selebi’s wife on a trip to the UK, and another time he bought his sons clothing from the Fubu shop in Sandton, Johannesburg.Muller described the relationship between Agliotti and Selebi as a ‘friendship of gain’.’I think they used each other for what they could gain from the friendship.’Muller said she did not take ‘anything’ Agliotti told her as fact, and this characteristic eventually ended their decade-long relationship.’I moved him out of my house because of his inability to tell me the truth. The more he thought he was untouchable and above the law the more of a handful he became.’Muller – who admitted to being nervous at the beginning of her testimony – more than held her mettle against defence lawyer Jaap Cilliers’ badgering style of questioning.Making eye contact with him, she refuted claims about inconsistencies in her statements or untoward influences shaping her testimony.At one point she adamantly told him: ‘It’s the truth, Mr Cilliers. That is what happened.’Muller was warned that, like Agliotti, she would receive Section 204 indemnity from prosecution on various charges if she was found to have testified ‘frankly and honestly’.According to Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act, a person guilty of criminal conduct may testify on behalf of the State in exchange for indemnity from prosecution.Court will resume today to allow the defence time to consult the record of Muller’s evidence.Selebi is facing a charge of corruption and another of defeating the ends of justice in connection with at least R1.2 million he allegedly received from Agliotti and others in return for favours.- Sapa