Fourteen days, and a Minister on copy
Legal commentary
On day 152 the Commission was shown an email dated "the 5th of January 2025", sent by Mr Paul O'Sullivan. The evidence leader read its particulars into the record: it was "addressed to ... Ms Mokwele" — a serving Brigadier — and "copied in that is General Sibiya", "copied in that is ... Advocate Johnson", and "Minister Mcunu is also copied." The email was described as "indicating a couple of questions that he had" and "demanding a response from her by a particular date." Adv Baloyi SC characterised the demand as "within 14 days", with "he wants her to do all of those things, one, two, three." Mr Raphesu confirmed the email was among the material Mr O'Sullivan brought to his attention, and that he passed it to the investigating team. Mr O'Sullivan holds no office in the State. His own evidence on day 128 is that "my career in the police came to a rapid end when I was dismissed by then-Commissioner of Police Jackie Selebi", that he is "a one-man band", that he "instructed my attorneys in November 2026 to issue a subpoena to IDAC", and that on the substance of certain arrests "IDAC would be best placed to explain why they were arrested and charged rather than myself." The significance of the copy list is therefore structural rather than evidential: a private party's demand that a serving officer act within a stated period was placed simultaneously before her senior officer, the head of the prosecuting directorate then investigating the matter, and the responsible Minister. That is a channel operating outside the ordinary reporting and referral lines, and no part of the extracted record explains on what authority it was used. A question of consistency arises but must be stated narrowly. Advocate Johnson, one of the copied recipients, testified on day 144 "I am unaware of any referral with regards this matter from Mr O'Sullivan", adding "I cannot recall Mr O'Sullivan being involved in this specific matter" and "I am not aware of Mr O'Sullivan's referral." On day 149 Commissioner Khumalo SC put to her a broadcast statement — made on Newsroom Africa on 27 June 2025, not to this Commission — in which Mr O'Sullivan said "I have met with IDAC several times and I have given them documents." Her answer was that she "cannot recall the interview", and that she would ask Mr Sesoko "to find out if Mr O'Sullivan engaged with anyone in IDAC." She set the limit herself: if he "spoke to IDAC investigators purporting to give them information", that "would have been the only basis on which he would have had to engage." These accounts are not necessarily inconsistent, and the distinction matters. Being copied on correspondence is not a referral, and a witness may truthfully be unaware of a referral while having received an email. What the record does establish is narrower and still unresolved: a private investigator's demand reached the head of IDAC and the Minister on the same day it reached its subject; IDAC's own investigator was later "tasked ... to go to Mr O'Sullivan to find out if he had opened a case"; and the head of IDAC did not know, without asking her Head of Operations, whether he had engaged with her investigators at all. Nothing extracted here establishes impropriety by any person named, and none is alleged. The Commission has recorded that "what remains is a consultation with Mr O'Sullivan"; the questions of what those meetings were, who attended and what was handed over are answerable by the people who were in them.
In plain terms
On 5 January 2025 a private investigator sent an email to a serving police Brigadier. He asked her questions and wanted answers by a set date — within 14 days, the Commission was told, with a list of things he wanted done: one, two, three. Paul O'Sullivan holds no rank, no warrant and no public office. He told the Commission himself that his police career ended when Jackie Selebi dismissed him, and that he is "a one-man band." He has no power to require anything of anybody. The striking part is not the email. It is who else got it. Copied in were General Sibiya, Advocate Andrea Johnson — then the head of IDAC, the body investigating the matter — and the Minister of Police. A private citizen's ultimatum to a serving officer landed on the desks of her senior officer, her investigators and the Minister, all at once. Nothing in the record explains on what authority that was done. It then travelled further. Investigator Mantsha Raphesu told the Commission the email was among the material O'Sullivan brought to him, and that he handed it to the investigating team. IDAC later sent Raphesu back to O'Sullivan to find out whether he had opened a case. Here is where it gets awkward. Advocate Johnson — one of the people copied — told the Commission in July that she was "unaware of any referral" from O'Sullivan and could not recall him being involved in the matter. Shown his televised claim that he had "met with IDAC several times" and given them documents, she said she could not recall the interview and would have to ask her Head of Operations whether O'Sullivan had dealt with anyone at IDAC at all. That is not necessarily a contradiction, and it should not be reported as one. Being copied on an email is not the same as receiving a formal referral, and a person can truthfully be unaware of the second while having received the first. But it does leave a plain question sitting on the record: how does the head of an investigating directorate not know whether a private investigator has been meeting her own investigators? The Commission has said a consultation with Mr O'Sullivan is still to come. Several people know exactly what was in those meetings.
Cited claims
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