Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2008-09-09 Reporter: Deon de Lange

'Mbeki's Personal Secret Agent' Dies

 

Publication 

Independent Online
Date

2008-09-09

Reporter

Deon de Lange

Web Link

www.iol.co.za



One of South Africa's most colourful and controversial struggle spooks, Bheki Jacobs - also known as Uranin Vladimir, Hassan Solomon and Hassan Osman - has died at his mother's home in Lansdowne after a six-month battle with cancer.

It is understood he was between 46 and 49 years old.

Jacobs fell out with the political and intelligence establishment when it became known he was behind an explosive document alleging corruption in the country's multibillion-rand arms purchase.

It is understood he was between 46 and 49 years old

His information formed the basis of the dossier in which Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lille accused former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni - and 21 other officials - of having accepted bribes from successful arms deal bidders.

Jacobs became a household name in South Africa in 2001 when Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy broke a confidentiality agreement and identified him as President Thabo Mbeki's "personal secret agent".

In 2003 he was arrested - and later exonerated - for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mbeki. *1

The charge of conspiring to commit murder was watered down and finally dropped.

At the time, Jacobs believed his one-time comrade and later nemesis, Mo Shaik, to be behind his surprise arrest. They had both been involved in the ANC's intelligence structures in the province in the early 1980s.

Shaik vouched for him to facilitate his re-entry into the country

Soon afterwards, Jacobs was in exile, and in 1986, operating as Hassan Solomon, Jacobs was jailed in the ANC's Camp Quatro in Angola on what he later described as "trumped-up" charges based on "disinformation" by Shaik.

Between 1990 and 1994, Jacobs underwent intensive spy training at Moscow University's Institute for Asian and African Studies.

When he returned to South Africa in November 1994, his multiple identities raised red flags at Home Affairs. Shaik vouched for him to facilitate his re-entry into the country.

Jacobs then went to work for Mbeki in the ANC's Department of International Affairs, based at its Shell House headquarters.

Jacobs claimed to have been a paid agent of the South African Secret Service in the early 1990s under the name Hassan Osman.

In 1995, Jacobs established Congress Consultants as a private company and was believed to have acted as a "deniable asset" for then deputy president Mbeki and his close friend Essop Pahad. In 1999, he also took a job with the Africa Institute.

Jacobs was buried on Monday afternoon in accordance with Muslim practice.

Additional source: The Rise and Fall of South Africa's Secret Service by James Sanders.

* This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Times on September 09, 2008

With acknowledgements to Deon de Lange and Independent Online.


*1       This was one of the biggest loads of nonsense ever perpetrated in the new South Africa,

Bheki was flown from Ysterplaat Air Force Base to Pretoria at 02:00 AM in a chartered jet, a jet chartered by Jackie Selebi's SAPS and possibly owned by Brett Kebble.

Bheki was convinced that his arrest had been arranged by Raymond Lalla, Assistant Commissioner in the SAPS responsible for police intelligence, an Operation Vula operative and close colleague of Mac Maharaj and Moe Shaik.

Bheki spent the next week or two in a prison holding cell somewhere in Pretoria North. The prison cell housed a number of prisoners including some blacks and some white Afrikaners. Some of the blacks threatened to kill him and the white Afrikaners then took protection of him.

Bheki said his time in prison was not too bad. But he had spent length periods of time in MK incarceration in Angola and in prison in Swaziland - so he was used to it.

But Bheki loved coffee and said it was a bit humiliating drinking one's prison allocation of "coffee" out of a plate placed on the floor like one would do for a dog.

Although originally accused of something serious like "conspiracy to commit assassination" (possibly there might even not have been formal charges of this nature), eventually the only residual charges were those involving multiple passports. I don't think even that was ever prosecuted. One thing I do know is that for very many years afterwoods, the hard drive(s) of his computer(s) had never been returned by the SAPS.

Bheki's arrest was surely orchestrated to try to put fear into him and others close to him in order to prevent them from making further headway into the Arms Deal investigation and Bulelani Ngcuka "apartheid spy" allegation investigation.