JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – South Africa’s former police chief warned a drug smuggler that British police were on his tail and asked him to buy shoes as a gift for the president, a court was told yesterday.
The trial of one-time Interpol president Jackie Selebi, who has pleaded not guilty to corruption, has shone a light on rivalries and sleaze at the highest levels of South Africa’s establishment.
Glenn Agliotti, a convicted drugs trafficker and one of the main prosecution witnesses, testified that Selebi had shown him a report in 2006 indicating that he had been under British police surveillance during a visit to the country.
“It bore a coat of arms. To the best of my knowledge it either had HMS or Her Majesty’s Customs,” he said.
“The accused asked me if I knew these people and said I was being investigated, or my movements were being investigated, by authorities in the UK,” said Agliotti, who himself faces trial for the murder of a mining tycoon.
