Catapulted into limelight
THE murder trial against Oscar Pistorius for the death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp might have been the case which catapulted Gerrie Nel to worldwide stardom or infamy, but it was his involvement in the prosecution of Chris Hani’s murderers that gave Nel his first taste of a high-profile case with international appeal.
Nel was a junior prosecutor when Janusz Walus and the late Clive Derby-Lewis were convicted for Hani’s murder in 1993. Hani was shot outside his Boksburg home by Walus with a gun that was supplied by Derby-Lewis. The murder grabbed world headlines because of the threat it posed to destabilise South Africa’s multiparty democracy negotiations.
The experience garnered from this case could have helped Nel deal with his other internationally known cases – most notably the successful prosecution of Pistorius and former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Selebi was also the president of the intergovernmental police organisation Interpol during his corruption trial, which began in 2008, having served the body from 2004 to 2008. Selebi was sentenced to a 15-year imprisonment in 2010 for accepting R166 000 worth of bribes from convicted drug dealer Glenn Agliotti in exchange for showing Agliotti confidential police reports.
However, the murder conviction which Nel secured last year against Pistorius after a three-year legal wrangle was, possibly, the case which will forever etch Nel’s name in the collective memory of South Africans and the world. –