Convicted former police commissioner Jackie Selebi was granted medical parole on Friday, but it was up to his doctors to decide when he would be ready to leave the hospital, an official said.

Chairman of the medical parole advisory board, Victor Ramathesele, told reporters in Pretoria that Selebi would remain at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital until a decision on his health had been made by doctors attending to him.

“He has been released on medical parole, but has not been discharged just yet. Doctors who have been looking after him have ensured that there is going to be continuation of proper medication like any other South African.

“When the doctors feel he has to leave the hospital, they will exercise that clinical judgement at that point,” he said.

Correctional Services Minister Sbu Ndebele said the medical parole advisory board convened in Pretoria on June 20 and deliberated on the fate of 12 applications by offenders, including Selebi.

“Six offenders were recommended for medical parole. Of these, two of the offenders were respectively released on the 9th and 12

of July 2012.

“Three offenders' applications were turned down. Mr Jackie Selebi will be released today and another offender is expected to be released next week. Three offenders died whilst the documentation was being processed.”

Selebi was president of Interpol at the time of the investigation into claims that he received money from convicted drug trafficker and police informer Glenn Agliotti.

He was convicted of corruption on July 2, 2010, and handed a 15-year jail sentence.

Selebi appealed against the corruption conviction in the Supreme Court of Appeal. In December 2011 he collapsed at home in Waterkloof, Pretoria, while watching the appeal judgment on television. His appeal was denied.

This meant he had to begin his 15-year jail sentence for corruption. It was decided he would stay in Pretoria Central Prison's medical wing indefinitely.

At the time he had not instructed his medical team to apply for medical parole. Selebi had also been trained to administer his own treatment.

He suffers from diabetes and kidney disease. - - SAPA

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Convicted former police chief Jackie Selebi was released on medical parole on Friday, but will remain in the Steve Biko Academic Hospital until he is well enough to be discharged.

Selebi, who has served less than a year of his 15-year jail term, has been diagnosed with “end-stage” renal failure and is receiving dialysis three times a day.

The announcement on Friday by Correctional Services Minister S’bu Ndebele came after Selebi’s wife applied for medical parole on his behalf earlier this year.

Selebi, who has been in and out of hospital since starting his 15-year jail term on December 5 has spent the past three-and-a-half months in the nephrology unit of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital after he was admitted there in February this year.

Selebi was the president of Interpol until 2009 and national police commissioner between January 2000 and January 2008. He was convicted of corruption on July 2, 2010, for accepting money and favours from convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti.

In return, he provided Agliotti with benefits, including confidential information. Selebi appealed against his sentence and last year his appeal was turned down by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Ndebele said Selebi’s medical condition had reached an irreversible state and he “more than qualifies” for medical parole.

Steve Biko Academic Hospital chief executive Dr Ernest Kenoshi confirmed that Selebi was still in hospital. Although he would be released from the correctional facility, he would not be discharged from hospital yet.

He said Selebi wasn’t receiving any special treatment, adding that, to date, the department had taken care of his medical costs. But once Selebi had been released, he would be responsible for his own medical costs. “He will have to pay like any other state patient and it will be his choice should he wish to return to the hospital or go to another facility,” Kenoshi said.

Deputy Commissioner of Correctional Services James Smalberger said once Selebi was released from hospital, he would be transferred to a community corrections centre where the conditions of his parole would be discussed.

“At this stage we cannot say what those conditions are. We need to discuss them with him (Selebi) and he needs to agree to those conditions,” he said.

Ndebele explained that all offenders and detainees had a right to adequate health care services and in terms of the Correctional Services Act, the Department of Correctional Services had to provide primary healthcare services and refer patients to external health care facilities for secondary and tertiary levels of health care.

Ndebele said a medical parole advisory board of 11 medical practitioners provided the department with independent medical reports.

Chairman of the medical parole advisory board, Dr Victor Ramathesele, said 12 offenders had applied for medical parole this year.

“Three offenders died while the applications were being processed, three were denied medical parole while six others were granted parole. Two of the offenders were released on July 9 and 12, while Jackie Selebi will be released today and another offender is expected to be released next week,” he said.

The offenders, who had been granted medical parole all suffered from medical conditions which were terminal, chronic and had reached an irreversible stage.

Earlier this year, a group calling itself the “Friends of Jackie Selebi” requested that Selebi be released on medical parole. Their request was turned down by the department.

Selebi’s legal representative, Wynanda Coetzee, did not want to comment.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that

Selebi could be forced to cough up the R17 million in legal fees he incurred during his trial in 2010.

The Ministry of Police said last night that it could not comment on its bid to recover legal fees owed to the state by Selebi, but spokesman Zweli Mnisi said the matter was being discussed.

Another Selebi lawyer, Fanus Coetzee, said he couldn’t anticipate the outcome over his client’s pending debt.

“The issue still has to be discussed. Let’s just see where it’s going. Let’s take it one step at a time and not try to solve all the problems at one time,” he said.

SELEBI’S HOSPITAL HISTORY

* December 2 last year – Admitted to the Netcare Jakaranda Hospital after collapsing at his Waterkloof home while watching his failed appeal on TV. It was claimed that he had suffered a partial stroke.

* December 5 – Discharged from Netcare Jakaranda Hospital and wheeled into Pretoria Central Prison where he was due to start his 15-year jail term.

* December 13 – Admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital for high blood sugar levels, as well as precautionary observation.

* December 19 – Admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital again. Selebi spent Christmas in hospital under armed guard.

* February 25 – Admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital for dialysis.

* July 20 – Selebi, who has not been discharged from hospital since February, is released on medical parole but will remain in hospital until well enough to be discharged.

- Pretoria News

A commissioner for incarceration and corrections says former police head Jackie Selebi must abide a long list of conditions while in "home" detention.

"From Monday to Friday, he has two hours' free time a day," said James Smalberger, chief deputy commissioner for incarceration and corrections.

On Saturday and Sunday this would go up to six hours.

Selebi could use this time to go out and buy a newspaper, go to church or meet a friend for coffee.

Selebi had to stay in his current residence at Waterkloof. Should he want to change residence, he needed prior approval from correctional services.

He was not allowed to go to the Pretoria magisterial district without permission and may not use drugs or abuse alcohol.

Correctional services officials were allowed to take blood tests to monitor his use of alcohol above a limit of 0.05 grams per 100ml.

Unannounced visits
The department would visit him at least once a week, unannounced. They would phone him on his landline to check that he was home.

"There will be other interactions by community corrections staff for dedicated sessions to see if everything is fine and in order," said Smalberger.

He said Selebi's doctor allowed him to be discharged on Saturday to interact with his family.

"He has been released, but under our supervision."

Smalberger said he could not elaborate on whether Selebi would be based at home, travelling to the hospital for his dialysis, or whether he would stay in hospital.

Chief executive of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, Ernest Kenoshi, would be best placed to clarify that, he said.

Dialysis for life
Neither Kenoshi nor Selebi's attorney were immediately available.

The department was still finalising the smaller details, such as when Selebi would take his two hours and his six hours.

Medical treatment for his kidney condition and going to hospital was not counted as free time.

"If he needs to be at the hospital for the whole day, we can't interfere with that at all."

Last week a senior registrar from the hospital said Selebi would be responsible for his own medical costs.

Dr Anil Kurian explained that Selebi had end-stage renal disease which meant he had irreversible kidney damage and must have dialysis for life.

Compared to Shaik
The Sunday Independent reported that in June Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said he was receiving the normal Polmed (police medical aid) benefits applicable to a pensioner.

Selebi was convicted of corruption in 2010 after charges were first laid in 2007. He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum because of his job as a police officer.

His appeal failed, which meant he had to start serving his sentence, and while watching this on television, he collapsed and was taken to hospital.

His parole has been compared with that of Schabir Schaik, President Jacob Zuma' former financial adviser, also jailed for corruption.

Shaik has been spotted playing golf, although terminally ill from an irreversible disease.

Selebi has been an ambassador, an ANC Youth League leader, a government official and was a head of Interpol. - SAPA

Glenn Agliotti is still an angry man. He is bitter that he was arrested, threatened and charged with killing mining magnate Brett Kebble and made a virtual prisoner for years while the men who shot Kebble got away scot-free.

“I want to show the public how destructive the justice system can be in the wrong hands,” he told The Star on Thursday night ahead of the release of his memoirs.

“I should never have been arrested; the judge said so. In fact, when the Scorpions took me in the foyer of my own house, the officer said ‘I’m arresting (you) for the murder of Brett Kebble’ and then said ‘but if you give up (then top cop Jackie) Selebi, we’ll give you a section 204 (immunity)’. I asked ‘if I do, who are you going to arrest for killing Kebble then?’.”

“That’s how obvious the whole plot was. It was never about me, it was never about Kebble, it was about a feud between one law enforcement agency wanting to bring down the most powerful policeman in Africa.”

Even though many other books have been written on the saga, he wants to have his story told.

“No one lived what I lived. No one endured what my family and I did. (The now disbanded Scorpions) abused their office, and my family and I went through hell.

“I ask you with tears in my eyes, where’s the free and fair justice system in this country? People ask me do I trust the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority), and I say no, I trust the people of this country, that’s who.”

He is angry, too, that South Africans were quick to equate disgraced national commissioner Selebi’s medical parole with that of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik.

Even though it was Agliotti’s testimony that helped convict Selebi, Agliotti says the former top cop was seriously ill and deserved to be released from jail - where he was serving a 15-year sentence for taking Agliotti’s bribes.

This is just one of the revelations in Glenn Agliotti, A Biography, written by Peter Piegl and Sean Newman.



Agliotti admits, though, that he felt no remorse for turning on his former friend, who he treated to gifts from Sandton boutiques and cash payments.

“There’s no excuse for betraying a friend, but we all have choices to make, and the net had closed in on both of us.”



He remains amazed, too, that not only was there an issue with him giving Selebi “gifts”, but that he was taxed on them.

Giving gifts, he told Piegl and Newman, “happens all the time. Ministers are constantly getting gifts in response for a favourable response. (Scorpions officer) Piet Jonker was even given a motorbike from (Kebble’s confessed killer) Mikey Schultz.”

Sars, he says, targeted him on purpose.

“I’ve always found it interesting that I was taxed on the money I used to bribe Jackie Selebi, but Sars never did the same with Kebble or Jackie.

“And as for Clinton Nassif, who by his own admission stated that the Kebbles paid him money so that he could bribe various people, which he kept for himself… seems there are different sets of rules for different people.”

Agliotti believes his relationship with Selebi was both a blessing and a curse. Had he not known Selebi, Agliotti claims he would never have been charged with Kebble’s murder.

He remains incensed at what happened to the actual killers.

“We’re the only country in the world that allows confessed killers to walk away scot-free - no diminished sentence, just absolute freedom.”



These days, Agliotti is determined to get on with his own life.



“I’ve always been a hustler. For someone who lacked education, my talent for convincing people has been my meal ticket, even though it also contributed to situations I’ve found myself in. I’ve blurred the lines and found myself on the wrong side of the law, but I’ve paid for my transgressions.”

He is now involved in joint ventures in gold and iron ore mining in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.



“To the South African public, I’ll always be Glenn Agliotti - convicted drug dealer. I don’t waste time wallowing in regret. I’m a survivor.”

* See The Star for an extract from Glenn Agliotti, A Biography

- The Star