Mahlobo slams ‘political animals’ who said he got spy money

Continuing with his testimony to the judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture after a short lunch break on Friday, former state security minister David Mahlobo denied claims he received money from the State Security Agency (SSA) during his tenure from 2014 to 2017.

This is after an anonymous witness, known as Ms K – an active agent working for the SSA – claimed during her testimony at the commission in January that the deep rot, maladministration and abuse of the agency at an executive level happened under the political leadership of Mahlobo and other state security ministers.

Ms K claimed that Mahlobo, who is now Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, was at one stage given a sum of R21.8 million to “deal with judges” for then president Jacob Zuma.

Her allegations echoed the words of former chairperson of the High-Level Review Panel into SSA Dr Sydney Mufamadi, who told commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo a special operation – dubbed “Project Justice” – was launched in an effort to bribe judges to counter any legal judgments against Zuma.

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Mufamadi also highlighted an allegation that Zuma received R2.5 million a month in 2015-16 and R4.5 million a month in 2016-17 via Mahlobo.

During his testimony, Mahlobo argued, without mentioning any names, the evidence was based on hearsay as attested by the witnesses.

“The things that have been said to implicate me by all these individuals they are incorrect. They don’t even have a shred of evidence, chair. They have to demonstrate that. All of them that appeared here… they told you. chair. It’s hearsay.

“At the end when they concluded they told you they don’t have evidence and they are on record. After they have spoken for the whole day they told you they don’t have evidence.

“I deal with facts not fiction. They never gave you evidence. They said I took money as an example. You have it on record here… if someone must take money there’s a paper trail and you don’t have my signature there, but there is no evidence,” he said.

The former minister described the individuals who implicated him as “political animals”.

“Unfortunately in the intelligence they use a particular platform to get a particular narrative… here you are sitting with political animals. You know political animals have their own issues.

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“I’ll demonstrate with the matter of judges, where one of theses witnesses he lied. In his affidavit he claims that I introduced judges to him, but he doesn’t remember the judges I introduced to him,” he said.

“In this affidavit before the end I can tell you this character is the one working on a false alert to implicate a judge. As if judges are being bought.

“As I sit here I know that they are trying to frame a judge when a judge has never received money. I want to place it on record that I was never given any instruction that a judge must be bought.”

He further said there was an affidavit by “Dorothy” that exonerates him.

However, evidence leader Paul Pretorius said the commission did not have the affidavit.

Pretorius added that the commission spoke to “Dorothy” on Friday morning and she denied submitting such an affidavit.

“The commission wouldn’t conceal any info,” he said.