Mbeki plot a bid to dump Mrwebi
EMBATTLED NPA top prosecutor Lawrence Mrwebi claims allegations that the Browse Mole Report – which alleged that former president Jacob Zuma and various other African heads of state wanted to topple Thabo Mbeki – was just a ploy to get rid of him in the National Prosecuting Authority.
Mrwebi has also denied allegations that he leaked sensitive Scorpions information to former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi in 2007 – while the latter was facing charges of corruption and fraud.
Mrwebi told the Mokgoro Inquiry that his troubles with his seniors, including Willie Hofmeyr, began in 2006, when he refused to obey an instruction to pay a NPA informant.
He said his refusal was based on the fact that the informant, despite being on the NPA’s payroll, continued his involvement in serious underworld activities. Mrwebi said in spite of his resistance, he was ordered to pay him.
He said his initial refusal led to senior managers threatening disciplinary action against him.
Mrwebi said his troubles worsened after publication of the Browse Mole Report, which claimed that Zuma, former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi and Eduardo dos Santos wanted to topple Mbeki. He said Mbeki then established a National Intelligence Task Team to probe the report’s origin.
“I was then approached by the investigators while I was still in Durban. They told me that the report had emerged from my office. I was shocked. I do not know if I turned white, pink or red because of their revelations,” Mrwebi said.
Mrwebi made these disclosures before the Mokgoro Inquiry in response to allegations that he had acted improperly in withdrawing criminal charges against former Crime Intelligence boss Richard Mdluli in December.
Earlier during the hearings of the inquiry – which is probing the fitness of Mrwebi and the national deputy director of public prosecutions, advocate Nomgcobo Jiba, to hold office in the NPA – advocate Glynnis Breytenbach, former head of the Special Commercial Crime Unit (SCCU) in Pretoria and now DA MP, told the inquiry about Mrwebi’s alleged role in the withdrawal of fraud and corruption charges against former Crime Intelligence boss Richard Mdluli in December 2011.
Mdluli was charged for the offences in July 2011, allegedly after purchasing two luxury vehicles using the Intelligence slush funds.
In the charge sheet, the state alleged that Mdluli made false representations that the two vehicles were for the use of Crime Intelligence operations, while allegedly knowing they were for his and his wife’s personal use.
Investigators told me that the (Browse Mole) report had emerged from my office Advocate Lawrence Mrwebi Top NPA prosecutor