Sowetan, Monday November 06, 2006 06:12 - (SA)
McKeed Kotlolo
National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi yesterday declared: "I'm not a crook."
Instead, Selebi and his deputy, commissioner Andre Pruis, fingered Paul O'Sullivan as the man behind a smear campaign, started in 2003, to force him out .
He repeatedly said: "I do not do crime. I'm not corrupt. I have never beaten up my wife and you can check that.
"If my brother or son were to get involved in crime I would have them investigated too."
He said O'Sullivan was head of security at OR Tambo Airport, then Johannesburg International, and claimed to be a police reservist.
Selebi was responding to a Sunday Times article yesterday in which it was claimed that:
he was linked to criminal activities and alleged criminals such as Glen Agliotti and Clint Nassif;
Nassif gave him an envelope containing R50000 in Sandton, Johannesburg;
he condoned claims that senior police were involved in criminal activities "because they are simply not true"; and
owned a security company that operated at the OR Tambo International Airport.
He said he knew the people mentioned only as "persons" and not as criminals and not one of them " would do crime in my presence".
Selebi and Pruis said they knew long before yesterday's publication that O'Sullivan was behind the 144-page dossier quoted in the paper.
To call his bluff, Pruis said he personally invited O'Sullivan to a conference or debate yesterday on SABC television to once and for all settle the allegations, "but he refused".
Selebi said: "I do not know Glen Agliotti. The only thing I did with him was when he came out here to promote the special Olympics.
"I did not meet him to connive to commit a crime."
About his alleged involvement with Nassif, owner of the security firm employed by the late Brett Kebble, Selebi said he met him after a child went missing in Eldorado.
"The only time I met with Nassif was after the missing child was found," he said.
Referring to allegations that he had received R50000, Selebi said: "I would rather accept a plate of food ... the person would have to explain what I have done [for him] to deserve it."
Selebi welcomed an investigation of his financial records, even without his permission.
"The only envelope