Fresh accusations fly between O’Sullivan, Hawks, and private investigators

A “special project” alleged to be run by the SA Police Service’s Gauteng division of the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) and several private investigators to “take down” forensic consultant Paul O’Sullivan has been made by “vile” disbarred attorney, Petrus “Peet” Viljoen.

In a statement seen by The Citizen in a defeating the ends of justice charge laid by Viljoen on 31 January at the Sandton Police Station, he accused a host of individuals of orchestrating “an attempt or attempts” to “induce me to become part of a special project aimed at adducing false evidence against Paul O’Sullivan for the purpose of criminally charging him”.

The list of accused includes Gauteng Hawks head Lieutenant General Prince Mokotedi, Hawks detective Warrant Officer Kobus Vlok and private investigators Chad Thomas, Glenda Paul, Mike Bolhuis, Hugo Wolmarans, and Lance Epstein (apparently representing National Director of Public Prosecutions Shawn Abrahams, according to Viljoen), as well as another police general, a brigadier and a “blonde, skinny” colonel with “bright fingernails” whose names were unknown to Viljoen.

It was about mid-November 2016, Viljoen said, that Vlok had called him to say a project was authorised to “specifically target Paul O’Sullivan and others involved with O’Sullivan”.

Also read: Hawks confirm ‘treason’ case against McBride, Sibiya, O’Sullivan

Viljoen claimed he was given the impression by Vlok that charges against him had been withdrawn in order to secure his assistance in taking action “against O’Sullivan as he was ‘destabilising’ the country. All present were in agreement with what Vlok was saying.”

The meeting Viljoen is referring to took place at a guest house in Pretoria on 5 December after being changed from the Hawks’ head office in Silverton.

“Vlok reported to the whole meeting I was to be his star witness against O’Sullivan and others (involved with O’Sullivan) and that a letter had been issued stopping the prosecution against me. I took this to mean there was a quid pro quo in so far as I would help them with O’Sullivan matters and the cases against me were already gone; the generals present were clearly in agreement with this,” Viljoen said.

However, said Viljoen, an argument between himself, Thomas and another investigator broke out and he left, as it was “clear they did not want me present”.

“I should mention … it was clear to me the ONLY (his emphasis) purpose of the meeting was to seek possible ways of ‘taking down Paul O’Sullivan’. I can honestly say I have never seen such desperation as I saw that day, to target and nail one person,” Viljoen claimed in his sworn statement.

Also read: Paul O’Sullivan provided ‘credible’ information to Ipid – McBride

Thomas admitted to The Citizen on Saturday seven private investigators had met with Mokotedi and other police officers, but for reasons very different to what Viljoen was claiming. He categorically denied Viljoen’s allegations.

“Peet Viljoen is well known to me. He is in all probability the vilest person I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” Thomas said.

“He is a divisive individual with a personal agenda of trying the old game of divide and conquer in an effort to deflect the prima facie case of fraud for which he is currently standing trial,” Thomas said.

“The meeting had nothing to do with trying to find anything to discredit O’Sullivan. In fact, the opposite,” said Thomas.

“Present at the meeting were seven of South Africas most well-known high-profile investigators. The crux of the meeting was the lack of co-operation between the SAPS, Hawks and private investigators as a result of a supposed standing order that had been issued to all police stations stating the SAPS did not have to co-operate with private investigators,” Thomas said.

“We – the seven private investigators – felt this unfair standing order had been issued as a result of O’Sullivan’s actions against senior police officials which resulted in a collective punishment. Private investigators cannot function without being able to work together with police.”

Thomas stated he had registered a criminal case of crimen injuria against Viljoen, and he was currently on trial for a R114 million fraud.

“There were 20 cases laid against him at the Law Society of the Northern Provinces,” Thomas said.

O’Sullivan, for his part, has opened a charge of racketeering and defeating the ends of justice against everyone mentioned in Viljoen’s statement, claiming national Hawks boss Lieutenant General Berning Ntlemeza was present at the meeting as well, and included him in the charges.

“I should mention I am in possession of six telephone call tape recordings made in 2016 that corroborate Viljoen’s statement,” O’Sullivan said in his statement to Sandton police on Saturday.

“These have been sent for transcription, whereafter they will be handed over to Ipid [the Independent Police Investigative Police Directorate], together with the transcriptions.”

Also read: Paul O’Sullivan has invaded my privacy – Phahlane

He claimed further Mokotedi had released his December statement that charged O’Sullivan with treason to Thomas, who had subsequently released it to news media in breach of the police service act.

“He did this with the willful and premeditated intention that Thomas would cause same to be published, with its sole intention to discredit myself and others for the purpose of defeating the ends of justice,” O’Sullivan said.

“It is common cause that the statement was published by Thomas as consummation of his undertaking to Vlok and Mokotedi.”

Thomas did not respond to a query about the allegation.

Mokotedi also confirmed to The Citizen on Sunday the meeting had occurred.

He further confirmed Thomas’ version of the meeting, and disputed Viljoen’s claim he was promised his charges would be dropped.

“In that particular meeting, we did not even get to discuss that which was meant to be discussed because I had to ask him to recuse himself. Some of the private investigators who were there, they were not comfortable with his presence and they raised a number of issues and I then said he needed to give them their space,” Mokotedi said.

“In the legal process there is no way investigators can of their own offer that kind of a deal. Actually, it shows why he is a former lawyer, it’s not possible, I don’t even know what charges are against him.

“The purpose of the meeting, Vlok had arranged for it and he said there were private investigators who were very worried the police, and especially ourselves, were keeping them at bay with a number of investigations. The claim there is a project to discredit O’Sullivan is not true,” Mokotedi said.

“There was an instruction that if there was a need for police officials to co-operate with private investigators, they must get authorisation from senior officials. They [the private investigators] were were saying they were very worried because the manner in which O’Sullivan was conducting his investigations is tarnishing the image of private investigators,” said Mokotedi.

Mokotedi said it was not a standing order, but rather an instruction from the Hawks to caution members when interacting with private investigators.

“I asked the head of Gauteng Crime Intelligence to be at the meeting,” said Mokotedi, disputing O’Sullivan’s claim Ntlemeza was present.

Mokotedi confirmed he had given his unsigned statement against O’Sullivan to Thomas for him “just to look over”, saying he worked with Thomas occasionally.

He said people often called the Hawks with information.

“On 23 January we met with Radovan Krejcir, there were things he wanted to say to us. We interviewed him for five hours  and I was leading the team that went to interview him in Pretoria Central, so I’m just saying we do listen to people, and we are very cautious about the information we receive, but we cannot ignore when people come forward with information.”

He hoped the relationship with private investigators would be smoothed over and said they had to work within the police systems.

Mokotedi noted O’Sullivan was facing 13 criminal cases and one inquiry.

“Four of those cases are already in court, five of those cases have been taken for decision to prosecute, so we really cannot ask people to bring things to us,” Mokotedi said, in a reference to Viljoen’s claim he had been asked to help fabricate evidence against O’Sullivan.

“People bring things regarding Mr O’Sullivan every day and we go through those things, we comb through them; we are quite circumspect when evaluating information.”