Charges against me and assistant are 'trumped up' - O'Sullivan
Pretoria – Forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan says the charges against him and his assistant have been trumped up.
"The charges against Sarah Jane Trent are being trumped up, as are the charges against me," O’Sullivan said on Tuesday.
"If they think we are going to be scared of [Major General Ntebo "Jan" Mabula], who is nothing more than a sidekick of [acting police commissioner Khomotso] Phahlane, they've got another thing coming," he said.
O’Sullivan was speaking following Trent’s appearance in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.
Her case was postponed to May 19 for further investigation.
Trent was arrested on Friday afternoon. She was released from custody on R5 000 following an urgent application in the High Court in Pretoria on Sunday night.
She was charged with pretending to be an IPID official in its investigation into Phahlane.
"I am hopeful that in the very near future, Phahlane himself will be arraigned in this court. I absolutely expect to be arrested on a regular basis by these thugs in the police," O'Sullivan said.
"I am going to stand firm, the people are behind me, the public in this country are behind me – I am getting messages of support from Toronto, London, Canada, Australia [and] all over the world."
O’Sullivan said they would open a case of abduction, defeating the ends of justice, and racketeering this week against the police.
"We say they are guilty of racketeering because they are unlawfully and intentionally doing what they are doing to us to disrupt investigation into the corrupt chief of police."
O’Sullivan said that the weight of evidence that he had would be able to send Phahlane to prison.
He believed that Phahlane was behind his arrest because they were both held at Kameeldrift police station, which is "less than 3km from his unlawful[ly] acquired mansion".
"Their modus operandi is to arrest people on a Friday evening... so that they can keep them as long as they want in jail."
O'Sullivan was released from custody by order of the High Court in Pretoria late on Monday night.
Judge Francis Legodi ordered that the matter be struck off the roll. He reserved judgment on who would pay costs.
O’Sullivan was arrested outside AfriForum’s offices in Pretoria earlier, and taken to the Kameeldrift police station, where he was charged with offences including fraud, intimidation and extortion.
His lawyers then went to the High Court to seek an urgent order for police to release him, and to comply with an earlier order that, should they want to detain him, he be given 48 hours to present himself to a police station.
Legodi rejected prosecutor David Mtsweni’s request to amend the order to state that police could arrest O’Sullivan.
Quintus Pelser, for O’Sullivan, said that police were in contempt of the order by arresting his client.
O'Sullivan was released around 23:30.
During O'Sullivan's arrest, AfriForum legal adviser Willie Spies read out a High Court order to the arresting officer, controversial senior policeman Major General Mabula.
Spies said police were violating the order not to arrest O'Sullivan, but to grant him 48 hours’ notice to present himself at a police station.
Spies presented a copy of the High Court order to Mabula.
Earlier on Monday, News24 reported that Mabula had taken the lead in Phahlane’s fight back against police watchdog IPID, which is investigating him. O’Sullivan is also investigating Phahlane for alleged corruption.
Mabula has a history of being involved in politically-motivated arrests. He was a close ally of former police commissioner Jackie Selebi and former police crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli.
