The South Gauteng High Court yesterday imposed a 15-year jail term on former police commissioner Jackie Selebi, the most senior police official yet to be convicted of corruption.

Selebi is out on bail as his legal team prepares to apply for leave to appeal against the conviction and sentence. He was found guilty of receiving money from Glenn Agliotti, a convicted drug dealer, between 2004 and 2006. In return, Agliotti received benefits from Selebi, including the attendance of meetings that Agliotti organised.

Legislation prescribes minimum sentences of 15 years in jail for corruption by a public official, unless there are substantial and compelling reasons for a lesser penalty.

Judge Meyer Joffe yesterday found there were no substantial and compelling circumstances to justify granting a lesser sentence to Selebi. “Fifteen years is an appropriate sentence. It is not disproportionate to the crime,” Judge Joffe said.

He said that at no stage had Selebi shown remorse . Instead, he had lied and fabricated evidence before the court.

“It is inconceivable that the person who occupied the office of the national commissioner of police could have been such a stranger to the truth. At no stage during the trial did the accused display any remorse.”

Judge Joffe also told Selebi that when he took over as police commissioner in 2000, those under him looked up to him with respect and they sought leadership from him in the fight against crime.

The judge said Selebi must have been an embarrassment to the people who had appointed him, to police members who served under him, and to the court.

Judge Joffe said it was beyond understanding why Selebi thought the court could accept mendacious and fabricated evidence. He also said the seriousness of corruption could not be overemphasised.

He had looked to previous judgments for guidance on the appropriate sentence.

Judge Joffe quoted the North Gauteng High Court judgment of ANC former chief whip Tony Yengeni, which stated that courts had repeatedly warned that so-called “white-collar” crimes were to be regarded as seriously as crimes of violence in every respect, and that they should be visited by the same penal sanction .

Judge Joffe also quoted a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal in the case of businessman Schabir Shaik , in which the court dismissed Shaik’s appeal against a 15-year jail term for corruption. The appeal court stated that the seriousness of the offence of corruption could not be overemphasised.

“It offends against the rule of law and the principles of good governance. It lowers the moral tone of a nation and negatively affects development and the promotion of human rights.

“As a country we have travelled a long and tortuous road to achieve democracy.”

That judgment stated that courts had to send out an unequivocal message that corruption would not be tolerated and that punishment would be appropriately severe.

When Shaik was convicted in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court for corruption, Judge Hilary Squires ­ whose judgment was also quoted by Judge Joffe ­ likened corruption to a cancer. If it were not checked, it became systemic, he said.

With acknowledgements to Ernest Mabuza and Business Day.

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Most or much of the credit for this felon's demise from the high life goes to Paul O'Sullivan.

He must be dancing an Irish jig a jig jig.

But some far more serious felons abound.

Like Jacob Zuma, president, whose known on the charge sheet crimes dwarf those of Selebi.

What Zuma did to protect Thomson-CSF from Project Sitron Arms Deal investigations and his permanent support of their projects can only boggle the mind, although the NPA and SAPF have never cared for their simple minds to be boggled in this regard.

And like Thabo Mbeki former president, whose crimes whose proper investigation by the Scorpions and their French counterparts he thwarted, dwarf those of Zuma.

In the meantime, the other two low-level felons Judge Joffe quotes, Tony Yengeni and Schabir Shaik, are long out of prison, each having served just a fraction of the time to which they were sentenced, those in power being ever fearful of what they knew and could and would be used against them should they linger and malinger much longer on the prison sanatoriums (that's indeed where both spent most of their time).

Mbeki should even have been charged with defeating the ends of justice when he tried to protect Selebi when NDPP Vusi Pikoli wanted him arrested.

At the same time DNDPP Leonard McCarthy should have been charged with defeating the ends of justice when he successfully protected Jacob Zuma and was awarded a cushy post in New York as part compensation.

In the meantime, where most of the corruption started is meant to be back on SCOPA's agenda after nine long years.

SCOPA has new and compelling evidence about the Arms Deal and especially how the chief criminals made more criminals out of the Chapter 9 watchdogs Shauket Fakie, Selby Baqwa and Bulelani Ngcuka in covering up the biggest crime the country has even seen.

Ironically the country spent several dozens of millions of Rands doing an investigation of over 50 clear crimes in the Arms Deal only for this to be snatched away from the investigators at the final hour and cynically transmogrified not into an investigation report, but a concrete cap of South Africa's own corruption Chernobyl..

But as has become usual, the proper investigations are left to outside agencies and private individuals and it comes leaking out.

But SCOPA is clearly currently not taking things that seriously, so who knows.

Neither of course are the SAPF or the NPA.

Zuma's point man in covering his back, Menzi Simelane is doing a great job this far.

If we can at least in the meantime get Shauket Fakie and Selby Baqwa into the chookie with Selebi. They were Mbeki men stooges so Zuma won't bat that hard for them.

Meanwhile, we await Ranchod.

Out with it Rancod.