The hero of Grootvlei prison could soon become the villain.

Tatolo Setlai has been widely praised for his actions in exposing the corrupt actions of about 22 prisoner warders under his control.

Setlai gave permission for five video cameras to be installed at various points around Grootvlei prison. Footage captured by these cameras shocked South Africa this week.

Warders were filmed and broadcast on national television selling dagga, mandrax and a stolen gun to prisoners. Other warders were captured selling chickens stolen from the prison kitchen to inmates. Another warder was seen selling a juvenile inmate for R25 to an older inmate for sex.

All this shocking footage was filmed with the permission of Setlai, after he was approached by four prisoners, who engaged in the act in an attempt to get their long-term sentences reduced.

However, it would seem that the manner in which Setlai went about his crusade to fight corruption among his staff could turn out to be his Achilles heel. Correctional services and the police are after his blood.

Information in possession of The Sunday Independent shows that on April 12, Setlai received information from the four prisoners that an arrangement had been made to bring a stolen gun into the prison. That afternoon, after the gun had been sold to a prisoner for R6 000 and its serial number recorded on video, the gun was handed to Setlai.

What has puzzled the police is why Setlai kept the gun for just over a month, without informing the police. On May 16, he called a senior Free State policeman, a Captain Gerber Radebe, and informed him that he had this gun and video footage.

The policeman contacted the provincial offices of the national directorate of public prosecutions, who advised that a copy of the video be obtained.

Our sources said the policeman arrived the following day to collect the gun and the video. He was handed a Luger pistol with 32 rounds of ammunition but was told that Judge Jali, who chairs the commission into prison corruption, had ordered that the video should not be given to anyone.

Until Friday, the office of the national commissioner of police, Jackie Selebi, had not received the copy and had to send a request to the commission. Police sources said the first time Selebi heard or saw the tape was when it was broadcast on the SABC's Special Assignment programme on Tuesday. A copy of the video would enable police to start investigations.

Sunday Independent sources said the police would find it difficult to probe the case of dagga and drugs that were seen being sold by warders to prisoners because the dagga and drugs were not recoverable. "They were not seized by correctional services officials because they had been consumed by the prisoners, maybe it was those who were filming," a source said.

While police would not be able to retrieve the drugs that exchanged hands on the video, they are keen to find the source of the illegal merchandise.

Police are also investigating the sale of the stolen gun by a warder to a prisoner. One of their problems is that because the gun had changed hands so many times and had been kept by Setlai for some time, it would be difficult to lift fingerprints. The prison head would have to explain why he kept a stolen gun, which was such valuable evidence, for such a long time.

Police are also questioning why the prison head did not involve police in setting the trap for warders.

Among the questions that Setlai would have to answer is the legality and morality of people committing crimes in order to prove a point, in this case that corruption was rife in the Grootvlei prison.

Did the head of the prison allow drugs to be peddled inside his institution so that he can prove a point? The prisoner who was filmed sodomising a youngster said he arranged the filming himself. Which begs the question: did the head of prison know and allow a juvenile prisoner to be taken from his section to a particular prison cell where he would be sodomised by an older inmate - so that it could be proved that corruption happens? If the juvenile prisoner lays a charge, the police would be able to start an investigation and perhaps make arrests.

In an interview with The Star on Friday, Setlai said he knew it would not be easy blowing the whistle on corrupt colleagues, but he knew it was something that had to be done. Despite being asked by his senior to destroy the tape that contains damning evidence, Setlai stood by his guns.

Setlai said that "sadly murderers, rapists, robbers and even right-wing militants are more trustworthy than some of the warders".

On why he took such drastic action Setlai said: "You can't fight a monster with gloves, you have to give all you have got. People want to fight corruption with words."

He sees his anti-corruption drive as a patriotic duty.

"During the apartheid era, if a prisoner was found with two grams of dagga it was like a terrorist action. It just never happened. Nowadays members are deeply involved in such activities."

"They [the warders] take democracy as a laissez-faire government. They think they can do as they wish, and some of them, when they take prisoners' rations, say they are eating their taxes. It is as if some black members don't fear black management as much as they feared white management. For the apartheid government I did a very good job. For this government, I feel I have to go an extra mile."

The warders have been suspended and the four prisoners who made the tape have been put under 24-hour protection.

Setlai, who has worked in prisons since 1972, told the Jali commission into prison corruption that for 30 years he had never even been reprimanded for the slightest misconduct.

Regarding the videotape, Setlai said: "The prisoners told me that they would help and when they reported the gun-smuggling incident on April 12 I could see they were really trustworthy."

The gun incident referred to a transaction between a prisoner and one of the four inmates who made the video, Samuel Skollie Grobelaar, and the warder who got paid R6 000 to get Grobelaar a loaded gun. Grobelaar, jailed for his part in the theft of arms from the Tempe military base, reported the transaction to Setlai.

Setlai told the Jali commission that the Free State commissioner for correctional services, Willem Damons, had asked him to destroy the controversial videotape.

Setlai told the commission that he refused to destroy the tape, after which Damons allegedly asked him to hand it to the National Intelligence Agency. Setlai also refused this request, he said, as he suspected the NIA would destroy the evidence.

With acknowledgements to Jovial Rantao and The Sunday Independent.