Bosasa prosecutor tells of leaks in NPA investigation

So wide was their network that executives at the facilities management company Bosasa had no difficulty laying their hands on any confidential document at the troubled National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, heard yesterday.

NPA senior deputy national director of public prosecutions Marijke de Kock was cross-examined by commission senior counsel Veruschka September to authenticate information in her bundle of documents.

De Kock conceded that the bulk of the papers in front of her had found their way into the hands of Bosasa’s former chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi as early as 2013.

This was before Agrizzi approached the commission to testify about the corruption, money laundering, malfeasance and state capture at Bosasa, involving boss Gavin Watson, senior government officials and high-ranking politicians.

Among the trove of documents that Agrizzi used during his testimony in January and last month included the provisional charge sheet to prosecute 27 individuals and Bosasa entities.

Those on the provisional charge sheet included Watson, Agrizzi, chief financial officer Andries van Tonder, staffer Frans Vorster, former department of correctional services national commissioner Linda Mti and former department of correctional services CFO Patrick Gillingham.

Other confidential documents included e-mails, memoranda and recommendations prepared by De Kock, who served as lead NPA prosecutor in the Bosasa matter, from 2010 to 2016.

Said De Kock: “I have expressed my concern to investigators on the security of documents because investigations were still in progress.

“I was being warned some time back by my investigating officer that documents we were preparing were being leaked.

“Nobody claimed responsibility for the document leaks. This was becoming very detrimental to the prosecution progress.

“I did not know who was leaking our documents and we could not do anything about this. We could not point to anyone within the NPA.”

Added De Kock: “Most of the documents were provisional or extracts. It was work in progress. They were all confidential because the NPA’s work is confidential.

“Just a list of possible suspects could have harmed the investigation.

“It is the first time I saw these documents, as they were shown to me by the commission.

“When I wanted to tighten security around documents, people in the office thought I was crazy and paranoid.”

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