Controversial private forensic investigator and AfriForum member Paul O’Sullivan says he is not a foreign spy despite his mysterious history and past as an operative of the British military intelligence.
This after the ANC’s Xola Nqola, a member of parliament’s Ad Hoc committee probing corruption and political interference in the criminal justice system, suggested that if one moves like a spy and operates like one, they are most probably a spy.
Powerful person with questionable past
Nqola said this during the grilling of O’Sullivan on Wednesday about his alleged capture of particularly the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) and his unexplained role in the entire criminal justice system that has made him an elusive person of influence who can send powerful police officers to jail with one move.
According to Nqola, it was inexcusable not to believe that O’Sullivan is a foreign spy, given all the mystery around the man. Starting with his arrival in South Africa to owning a bogus so-called NGO. A blueprint for the infiltration of third-world countries by imperialist countries.
Claims of O’Sullivan being a plant to South Africa by British MI6, the foreign branch of that country’s intelligence, are not new. And as expected, he has always denied the same.
Nxola pressed him with the new facts of his arrival and activities in the country since the 1980s.
“So, you are a property developer in the UK in 1985. And you suddenly become a tourist in South Africa and Africa at large. You identify an interest in property development as a former military agent. Then you enter the public service by being a police reservist,” Nqola opined.
Entry into SA, hastily acquired citizenship
“All this when you have actually acquired citizenship within a very short space of time. In 1995, you were given citizenship. In 1997, you were training people as police reservists when you entered the country through some unexplained ways.
“You’re getting into the country; you open a forensic investigation company. You also set up an NGO, which is one of the features actually that foreign intelligence uses to infiltrate foreign countries. So, with this explanation of your history and your trajectory in South Africa, would you blame anyone who accuses you of being a foreign spy?”
O’Sullivan, a champion of unsubstantiated claims against his enemies, said this narrative was unproven claims by his enemies and should be dismissed.
He admitted that this claim has been in the public domain for at least two decades. This started from the time of his beef with the late former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Narrative aimed at discrediting his work
“That’s the narrative of the corrupt generals in crime intelligence and the police service. And it’s not a new narrative. It was first started by the late Jackie Selebi. It was peddled again by General Khomotso Phahlane.
“And it’s been peddled recently again by General Phahlane and by Cedric Nkabinde. And it was peddled again in this house by General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. So there’s this strategy to discredit the good work I’ve done in this country over the last 36 years,” said O’Sullivan.
Nqola said there were still many unexplained things about O’Sullivan, including the speedy boom of his so-called property development business, which he claims he directly funded.
“Before I came to live here, I’d made property investments here. And those property investments were made with cash from the UK. Because I was busy with property developments there, and I made a profit,” O’Sullivan said.
Explanation devoid of facts
O’Sullivan does not help his case because on Tuesday he admitted to having started the forensic investigation company without a qualification.
He further conceded to training police reservists without a security clearance. While he claimed to be a pilot but failed to produce a certificate confirming that he is qualified for the job.
After his spy dispute exchange with Nqola, he went on to fail to authenticate his claims at the committee that MKP, EFF and Action SA members were working with crime intelligence officers to malign his name.
Instead, he said this information, together with most of the claims contained in his affidavit, was provided to him by “confidential sources”, whose identities he could not divulge to the committee, saying they will get killed should their identities be revealed.
One of his most startling and unsubstantiated claims was that former president Jacob Zuma had an affair with late ex-SAA board chair Dudu Myeni. And that out of that affair the resultant outcome was a baby — Myeni’s son Thalente Myeni.
According to O’Sullivan, this information was “common knowledge”. However, he personally has no evidence in the form of a DNA test result backing this claim, other than to say that Thalente once stayed at Zuma’s house in Forest Town, Johannesburg.
