Scorpions haven't a Ghost of a Chance as Zuma and Supt Jugoo Return to Haunt Us Again [Sunday Independent, 2005-11-06]

Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2005-11-06 Reporter: Karen Bliksem

Scorpions haven't a Ghost of a Chance as Zuma and Supt Jugoo Return to Haunt Us Again

Publication	Sunday Independent
Date	2005-11-06
Reporter	Karen Bliksem
Web Link	www.sundayindependent.co.za

Jugoo is back, my friends, Jugoo is back, and I believe it is a very grave matter indeed.

Not only is it a grave matter but it strongly suggests that a ghost hangs over the state's case against Jacob Zuma, former deputy president and fighter for our new revolution.

Let me explain by starting, like a lawyer, by asking a question. Have you ever sallied forth, or even fifth, to Mauritius, and even if you have not, have you ever met Superintendent Dharmendra Jugoo?

Let me tell you, for free, that I have journeyed a time or three to that gorgeous isle of white beaches and blue water, but I have never met Jugoo. And the thing is that, even if I were to fly to Mauritius immediately and take a cab in the balmy weather - under the fleecy clouds and in the bright sunshine - to Tancrel Road in the Mauritian suburb or village of Montagne Blanche, I would still stand scant chance of happening upon the Mauritian policeman.

I do not want to keep you in suspense, with your spoon hanging, as it were, in mid-air over your cornflakes while on the floor nearby your brats bang away louder than Charlie Watts and your husband flexes his pectorals and picks his proboscis.

The point is this: the aforementioned Jugoo is dead. He has passed on. He is deceased. He has shuffled off not only his smartly ironed uniform but his mortal coil as well. He has gone to the giant charge office in the sky.

He has hung up his pistol, cap, boots and bandolier. Please understand: I mean no disrespect either to the man or his loved ones. Nor am I intent on provoking a diplomatic incident between our fair country and our gorgeous neighbour in the Indian ocean. I dare say Jugoo was a man of great skills, probity and affection.

What frustrates me is that, notwithstanding his demise, Jugoo keeps reappearing on witness lists. First he appeared some years ago on the list attached to the indictment in the matter of the state versus Schabir Shaik, the Durban entrepreneur.

It was soon after this that it was pointed out to the esteemed gentlemen and ladies in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that Jugoo was not going to be able to make it to the witness box at the Durban high court - not, at any rate, in a form that would be pleasing to, or accepted by, Judge Hilary Squires and his two learned assessors.

Squires, after all, is a pernickety sort of fellow. He even criticised the Latin translation of the learned Billy Downer, SC, the state prosecutor and a former Rhodes scholar. (And one does not lightly pick on former Rhodes scholars, now does one?) And it was also explained - in short sentences of one-syllable, non-Latinate words - to the NPA that even if Jugoo did make it to the witness stand, his evidence was likely to be a bit muffled.

Of course there was a small possibility that the judge might have ordered a seance; that all of those in the courtroom would have sat around the bench holding hands while a single candle guttered in the gloom, and that Jugoo would thereby have been summoned from that place from which no traveller generally returns.

But would Judge Squires, clearly an eminently rational man of an empiricist bent, have accepted evidence given by a shade? I think not, even though Judge Squires has, in his time, had to listen to many shady people. (Goodness, Squires was once even a cabinet minister in a government of shady people - but no names, no pack drill, as I always say.)

But ja well, no fine, mistakes do happen. People have the temerity to die without consulting the Scorpions and so on - we all understand this. We are not unkind or unreasonable, we South Africans.

Yet blow me down with the proverbial feather, shtunk me on my poodle, bump me on my noodle and whack me on my doodle, look what has happened now! Jugoo has appeared yet again - this time on the witness list appended to the provisional indictment served on Zuma and delivered to his various lawyers on Friday.

What is this: a double resurrection by the wily Mauritian policeman? Never mind that one of our cricketers - I forget which - has beaten the record of Shane Warne, or some other fat Australian; Jugoo is seriously contending with our saviour.

Or could it simply be that the guys and gals in the NPA have not been burning the proverbial midnight oil? That, notwithstanding all the time they have had at their disposal at the taxpayers' expense, they have been lazy, and instead of drawing up a new indictment and witness list for Zuma, they have merely copied the Shaik documents?

Come to think of it, there appears to be very little difference between the two indictments. I, of course, do not actually have the Zuma indictment - we of the Fourth Estate have been denied that questionable pleasure. But, luckily, a former lover of mine now works at the NPA. He let me have a quick look at the indictment and witness list.*1 And, as I was saying, the two indictments seem almost identical.

Oh, yikes, do we have a case of plagiarism here? I had best be going. And no one will be able to find me, hee hee, because I am going off for sushi and vodka with Superintendent Jugoo.

With acknowledgements to Karen Bliksem and Sunday Independent.

*1 Even Mo Shaik, who may have heard of the term counter-intelligence, could do better than this. It is plainly obvious that certain journalists from the Independent group have been given copies or unfettered access to the indictment.

If the NPA were forgetful in rememvering Inspector Jugoo's demise, why would they not remove his name from the witness list, but instead crow about their error to the press.

It is the defence team who have tipped off the NPA's grave oversight to the press.

Blaming it on the NPA is as disingenious, albeit puerile, as it gets. May Her Ladyship Sisi Khampepe should take judicial notice.

More seriously, Inspector Jugoo, of the Economic Crimes Office of the Mauritius Police, died in October 2004 (just before he could have been called to give evidence in the ongoing trial).

He was the 11th person linked to Thomson-CSF and its dirty deals in Taiwan and elsewhere to have died in mysterious circumstances in recent times.

Taiwanese Navy Captain Yin Ching-feng, project officer of the La Fayette frigate acquisition by the Taiwan Navy from Thomson-CSF and French Naval shipyard DCN, was killed on 8 December 1993 and his body found floating in Taipai's harbour.
Jacques Morisson, a former French Thomson-CSF representative in Taipei, fell out of the window of his apartment 4 June 2001. According to The Taipei Times, Morisson was the fifth French person involved in the La Fayette case who has died in an odd fashion.
Last October, Thierry Imbot, the son of a former French intelligence chief who was in Taipei from 1989-94 as a "special officer" of the French Institute in Taipei, died after he fell from a building in South Africa.
In March 2001, Thomson-CSF Japan's general manager Jean-Claude Albessard also passed away under mysterious circumstances, as he died from a "sudden cancer."
According to Christine Deviers-Joncour, ex-mistress to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, two other parties responsible for money laundering in the La Fayette case were killed in a mysterious car accident in South Africa.
Inspector Jugoo, of the Economic Crimes Office of the Mauritius Police, died in October 2004 (just before he could have been called to give evidence in the ongoing trial).