Chasing Vicky Goswami was a roller-coaster ride
FOR more than 15 years I have been trying to pin down convicted drug dealer Vijaygiri “Vicky” Goswami for an interview in my quest to find out what really happened to Robert “Rocks” Dlamini, who disappeared almost 20 years ago.
The disappearance of the Soweto businessman is one of South Africa’s great unsolved crimes and I felt driven to get to the bottom of it.
When he vanished on April 6 1995, he was reportedly on his way to meet soccer boss Irvin Khoza, who was allegedly supposed to give him money owed to him by Goswami from an alleged drug deal that went sour. Khoza has always denied that drugs were involved.
Dlamini was never seen again, even though there is a R250 000 police reward for information about his whereabouts.
I flew almost 10 000km to Dubai and Kenya, and was even thrown out of a moving car in my attempt to get closer to the truth about Goswami.
When I finally came face to face with the man at the Mombasa High Court on Tuesday, he was spitting mad. He was shouting from the court gallery, calling me a dagga-smoking journalist writing “all the nonsense” about him. Goswami doesn’t know that I don’t smoke or drink.
Our meeting was odd. Goswami, who was released from a jail in Dubai on October 15 2012 after spending 16 years behind bars for drug dealing, was arrested again in Mombasa, Kenya, on November 9 on yet another drug dealing charge.
I was on the first available flight to Kenya for his next court appearance.
On Tuesday I parked my rented car in front of The Standard newspaper’s offices and took a matatu taxi to court so I wouldn’t be followed.
The court was packed with journalists as Goswami had been arrested with two sons of slain Kenyan drug baron Ibra-
You are writing that I am wanted in SA and Zambia. I am not wanted
him Akasha Abdalla. Akasha Adballa was shot dead in Amsterdam’s red light district in May 2000 while on the run from Kenyan authorities.
Like their father, Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha Abdalla are well known in Kenya for all the wrong reasons.
More than 40 armed policemen, among them US security agents, swooped on the brothers, Goswami and Pakistani Gulam Hussein at their heavily guarded residence in Nyali, east of Mombasa, on November 9.
The court will rule on December 4 whether to grant an extradition order to the US.
But what happened at Mombasa High Court on Tuesday was something you read about in novels or see in movies.
While the court was in session, the lights went off and I guess that gave Goswami, who had been eyeballing me from the gallery the whole time, an opportunity to verbally attack me.
“Are you the journalist from South Africa?” he asked as soon as I had switched on my cellphone. I confirmed that I was. “I want to put this on the record,” he said angrily, his face lit up by my cellphone display. “When you write you must write the truth, don’t write smoking mbanji [dagga] stories, please, because you are writing all the rubbish about me. Do you know the facts? Don’t write all this rubbish.
“You are writing that I am wanted in South Africa and Zambia. I am not wanted. Do you know the facts? You are playing with people’s lives. I have children too. Don’t smoke mbanji and write.”
Goswami was fuming as he was led into a dark holding cell.
As I walked out of the courtroom, waiting for the electricity to come back on, I was approached by two young men who refused to identify themselves.
“Are you the South African?” one of them asked.
“Because rumour has it that you are the South African ask- ing a lot of questions?”
“Yes, I am a South African and it is my job to ask a lot of questions because I am a journalist,” I responded.
“We need all the Vicky photos you have on your phone,” the young man continued.
“I am not giving you s***,” I said, getting irritated.
They left, only to return a few minutes later.
“Vicky wants to see you,” the same young man said.
“That’s the best thing you ever said. Where is he?” I asked.
After the case was postponed to Wednesday, Goswami said: “Someone will come and fetch you and bring you to me. I am giving you an interview.”
Two young men came to fetch me and I followed them to the court basement where Goswami was waiting for me, smiling from ear to ear.
After shaking my hand through the prison bars, Goswami said: “Mzilikazi, my brother. I am going to give you an interview. I never spoke to journalists in 20 years, but you have got balls bigger than the elephant.
“I would be happy if you can write my biography. I have a lot to say.
“I respect you because you are not afraid and you write the truth without fear.”
He was reluctant to talk about Dlamini and Khoza. In fact, he begged me not to ask him about the two men, but I asked him several questions about them, which sometimes irritated him.
For now, though, Goswami is washing his hands of the Dlamini matter.