Agliotti is cleared of Kebble’s killing
Judge Frans Kgomo acquitted Agliotti on charges of murder and conspiracy to murder, saying the state had failed to prove its case against him.
“I’m angry and relieved at the same time, it’s been a long long time and I just want to be with my family,” Agliotti said afterwards.
Asked if he planned to take legal action against the National Prosecuting Authority, he said: “We haven’t discussed that, this is still too fresh, but we will be discussing it. I’m angry for what they put me through.”
Kebble, a mining magnate, was shot dead while driving to a dinner meeting in Melrose in 2005.
The three men who killed him – Nigel McGurk, Faizel Smith and Michael Schultz – and later turned state witnesses, all testified that the killing was an assisted suicide.
They said Kebble wanted to die because he was in trouble with the law.
The judge described their testimonies as “a rendition from the Mafia, only this was real life”.
Agliotti’s defence had throughout the trial maintained his innocence, saying he was being used to secure a conviction against former police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Asked how he felt about the outcome, Selebi declined to comment. But his lawyer Wynanda Coetzee said they had expected the outcome.
Judge Kgomo made a dramatic statement that the trial was about corrupt civil servants and politicians who wined and dined with devils under cover of darkness.
He then accepted the evidence of McGurk, Smith and Schultz, granting them indemnity against prosecution for their parts in the murder.
However, he said he was not satisfied with the mastermind and Kebble’s former security head Clinton Nassif’s evidence.
NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga said they had noted the judgment and would reflect on issues raised by the judge.
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