Kebble Off the Hook as Court Loses its Patience

It is always emotionally difficult and embarrassing to have to abandon long-held beliefs and it is understandable that Business Day, which swallowed the line that I was going to be found guilty of fraud, has been rather churlish in its coverage of the collapse of the allegations against me.

Perhaps if it had been you who was arrested and held in jail on a warrant obtained on false pretences by a crooked policeman, if it was you who had your private life turned upside down as a result of this and who then faced 16 court appearances in a 26-month battle to get to trial, you might be more generous to me and more critical of those who were the architects of my ordeal.

An argument can be made that Business Day has taken such a strong position on the matter that it is now unable to stop exhibiting bias. Certainly it has shown bias in the article about the courts striking the case from the roll, and in an editorial the following day, and even in an editorial on Monday January 24.

In fact, the bias is so determined that, to avoid exculpating me, you go into print to with the extraordinary editorial statement that it is "the job of the prosecuting authority to assess whether the accused is guilty as a matter of fact". This is so breathtaking in its disregard for the foundations of a constitutional democracy that it could only emanate from bias. It is the task of the courts to determine guilt or innocence, not the prosecuting authority.

Business Day makes its living by being a serious newspaper, and one thing a serious publication must do if it is to retain credibility is report fairly. Where is the fairness in the headline in Business Day on January 20: "Kebble off the hook as court loses patience"?

The inference in the headline is that I am guilty of a crime and got away with it. That is most certainly not what the courts found. Any cursory examination of the facts of this matter, which facts are readily available to journalists and have been for some time, would reveal that there could never have been a case against me. I was illegally arrested after certain policemen had been bribed to do so. From that point on it became important to justify the arrest because the consequences of losing the case would bring the consequences of the illegal actions boomeranging right back at those who broke the law in bringing a malicious prosecution against me.

A word much bandied about in this matter is "tardy". The magistrate found the state had been tardy; the editorial in Business Day took the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to task for its tardiness in bringing the case to court. Yet it cannot be said that the state has been tardy in its investigation; investigators took statements from more than 40 witnesses, collected and analysed several thousand documents contained in the police docket, employed one of SA's most senior advocates specialising in criminal law, and commissioned a detailed forensic investigation by independent international firm, Ernst & Young.

Generally, the state left no stone unturned in an attempt to justify the arrest. At the end of this process the prosecution's senior advocate advised that not a single witness supported the state's fanciful construction. Surely that was the moment for the state to admit it was wrong?

Instead, it tried to persist with an unwinnable case, attempting to seek a further postponement of the matter in order to keep a cloud over me that is what the court found unacceptable.

Why the editors and journalists who were so willing to believe my guilt are reluctant to face the fact that I have been the victim of massive abuse is open to conjecture. There is no doubt, however, that this is the case, as can easily be borne out. They should examine the facts and be prepared to admit that the propaganda from the NPA, which has a history of trial through the media, was wrong. The state's behaviour has been deliberately abusive; members of the public can judge the truth of this themselves by reading the information posted on the website www.marulelo.co.za.

The editorial comments in Business Day about my family's affiliation to the African National Congress (ANC) are designed to imply that we get favours as a result of our political connections. That is a considerable insult to the ANC and us. We, as members of the ANC, are vocal in support of the party's policy of transformation and in our support of democracy. What right has anybody to take us to task for those stances?

It is because we support our democracy and our constitution that we are outraged at the treatment of Deputy President Jacob Zuma. We support the view that Zuma's rights have been infringed and that he has suffered abuse by the state. We understood the political reasons behind the attacks against him, having had first-hand experience of the kind of abuse meted out by the NPA at that time. Our view was proved correct when the public protector ruled there had been abuse in the deputy president's case.

As to your point that we "have made no bones about (our) dislike of the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Bulelani Ngcuka, who included among his friends some of the Kebbles' old business rivals". I do not know Ngcuka at all but I do know he was prepared to use one of the most powerful offices in the country to service the needs of a few of his friends, who have political and/or commercial ambitions. Most assuredly Ngcuka was used by his close friend, Mzi Khumalo, to make our lives a misery for over four years as "big white fish that needed to be fried".

Very importantly, the state did not bungle the case against me; the case disintegrated for lack of evidence, an entirely different thing. I point out that an internal memorandum, leaked to us by someone in the NPA with some shred of a sense of fair play, pointed out in plain terms that there was no evidence to support the prosecution's construction of events and that the prospects of a successful prosecution were negligible. That the NPA, even after its own team effectively said "give this case up", tried to proceed with a prosecution would indicate in the strongest possible manner that personal motivations overrode proper procedures in this case.

You are usually fair in allowing varying opinions to be expressed in this newspaper and your publishing of this article is a clear indication of that principle. I confess I had hoped for even more from you: I had hoped that you would change your mindset in the face of the decision of the court. I remind you that those who do not change their views in the face of overwhelming evidence run the risk of associating themselves with those who abuse their offices.

Evidence of this can be gained from the editorial in Business Day of January 24, where it says, in seeking to defend the Scorpions in their conduct of my case, that " the Kebble case is a poor example. This case was not brought by the Scorpions, but was essentially a commercial crimes unit matter. In addition, the police were crucially let down by a change of heart of one of the key witnesses."

Really? This has never been said by any state representative that I know of and certainly not in any of the 16 court appearances I had to endure, and I have never read any such thing in the news columns of Business Day. No such thing ever appeared in any of the affidavits filed by the state or in its heads of argument. Who gave you this information? Why did you believe it? Who is this person? Where is the fairness in stating as fact an untested piece of propaganda to prove a point, emanating from who knows where?

If this is to be the nature of the game, then what about the following: when the state applied for yet another postponement of the case, it had a double agenda. If the postponement was granted, the cloud over my head lingered; if the postponement was not granted, then the case would be struck from the roll leaving the NPA free to "leak" information that I was not really innocent but got off on a technicality.

Either way they wriggled out of their responsibility to admit they had no case.

Suffice to say that while I am used to such tactics, I do not intend to put up with them. I will clear my name and I have a right to expect that a serious publication such as Business Day does not hinder that process by spreading disinformation.

Roger Kebble

The editor does not usually entertain letters of this length but felt this was in the public interest.

With acknowledgements to Roger Kebble and the Business Day.