Publication: Sunday Argus Issued: Date: 2006-03-05 Reporter: Christelle Terreblanche

Mbeki Assassination Plot: R10m Claim

 

Publication 

Sunday Argus
Date

2006-03-05

Reporter

 Christelle Terreblanche

Web Link

www.capeargus.co.za

 

State sued by former ANC operative after charges dropped in 2003

The man arrested in 2003 over a plot to assassinate President Thabo Mbeki has sued the state for over R10 million in damages.

Uranin (Hassan) Solomon, 43, also known as Bheki Jacobs, was flown by executive jet to Pretoria, where he was held for five days before the charges were dropped.

He now insists that he still does not know what the real charges were, as efforts to obtain a draft charge sheet were unsuccessful.

Solomon, a former Soviet-trained ANC intelligence operative, who runs a private security consultancy, is also still battling to retrieve some of his computer's hard-drives, seized by the police with a warrant which his summons against the state now claims was issued wrongfully.

A subsequent charge of fraud against Solomon, for allegedly possessing multiple IDs and passports under different names, was also withdrawn three months later.

On Friday, Cape High Court summonses were served on Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and his justice counterpart, Brigitte Mabandla.

Solomon is claiming R250 000 in legal expenses, R4m for loss of earnings and R6m for "hurt and insult" to his person and the effect on his dignity and reputation.

"The proceedings instituted against the plaintiff (Solomon) were malicious, in that they were instituted and set in motion without reasonable or probable cause and with malice," the court papers state.

It is also claimed that the arrest and detention was "wrongful", in that they flowed from malicious proceedings, while the search and seizure procedure was also "wrongful", as it was carried out "pursuant to an invalid warrant". It is alleged by Solomon that the regional court magistrate who signed the warrant was not empowered to do so under the Criminal Procedure Act.

The ministers still have 15 working days to decide whether to respond to the claim.

Solomon's arrest, on 22 November, 2003, came at the height of the stand-off between former deputy president Jacob Zuma's supporters and former National Prosecuting Authority boss Bulelani Ngcuka, which led to the Hefer Commission of Inquiry into allegations that Ngcuka had been an apartheid spy.

It followed the subsequent circulation of a "dossier" alleging a plot, by senior government ministers and officials, to kill Mbeki by tampering with his jet.

Speaking to Independent Newspapers in Cape Town this week, Solomon again claimed that he tipped off the Scorpions as soon as he heard of the "plot" in 2003, only to be arrested by the police.

The court challenge coincides with Mbeki's remarks that he is concerned about the the quality of intelligence he receives. In an interview last week, he said "manufactured intelligence" could be "very dangerous".

With acknowledgements to Christelle Terreblanche and Sunday Argus.