Ramaphosa wants prosecution of ’email hackers’

In a report on Sunday, it was revealed that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has opened a case following the alleged hacking of his emails in August.

City Press has revealed that Ramaphosa laid criminal charges on Thursday, alleging illegal interception of his private emails.

Two people are reportedly mentioned in the docket, and they will be asked how they obtained the emails.

Both Sunday Independent editor Steve Motale and Weekly Xposé owner Kenny Kunene came into possession of the emails and published articles based on them. They have not revealed their source or sources.

The numerous emails from Ramaphosa’s private email accounts appeared to link him to as many as eight different women.

Questions Motale posed to Ramaphosa asked him about alleged extramarital affairs with the eight women, one of them allegedly a doctor who was also treating him medically.

Ramaphosa then filed an urgent application to stop Motale from publishing a story based on questions that were leaked on social media, though that was unsuccessful.

The deputy president later only admitted to one affair with a medical doctor eight years ago. He said he had told his wife about it and they were still happily married despite his indiscretion.

Weekly Xposé went on to publish blurred sexual videos of a young woman Ramaphosa was allegedly still in an affair with, though Ramaphosa does not appear in the videos.

The High Court in Johannesburg subsequently ruled that Kunene should take them down from his website, following the woman’s application to the court.

Ramaphosa said at the time that the media smear campaign against him represented an escalation of a dirty war against those working to restore the values, principles, and integrity of the ANC and society, and it was likely state agencies and resources were being abused to promote factional political agendas.

In his statement, acting spokesperson Tyrone Seale appeared to verify that the emails were Ramaphosa’s “personal email correspondence” and they were not lawfully obtained.

“There is no doubt that these messages have been circulated as part of a deliberate campaign to smear the person of the deputy president. They are a transparent attempt to distort personal email correspondence that could only have been obtained through criminal means,” said Seale.

Seale told City Press this week that “the deputy president trusts that the matter will be investigated and that the law will take its course”.