Doubt cast on reason for O’Sullivan’s arrest
An immigration lawyer does not believe Paul O'Sullivan was arrested for making use of his Irish passport to leave SA.
|||Johannesburg - An immigration lawyer is convinced the Hawks must have arrested forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan earlier this month for some reason other than the use of his Irish passport to leave the country.
O’Sullivan was arrested in front of his two children by 15 Hawks officers on a plane about to leave for London. He was charged for contravening the Citizenship Act.
Section 26B of the act makes it a criminal offence for a South African citizen to enter or leave South Africa on a foreign passport.
Before his arrest, O’Sullivan had sent out numerous emails to police officials threatening to expose alleged corrupt activities by President Jacob Zuma and top police officials.
He said he would expose this in a media conference in London.
Over the past few months, O’Sullivan had lodged complaints with police of corruption, perjury and defeating the ends of justice against Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza, acting police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane and head of detectives Vinesh Moonoo.
The police officials have all, at various points, denied the allegations O‘Sullivan raised.
O’Sullivan’s lawyers said at the time of his arrest that they believed he had been targeted for trying to expose the “criminalisation of the police”.
According to Gary Eisenberg, immigration lawyer at Eisenberg & Associates, the act which O’Sullivan has been charged with is a criminal offence where you can be incarcerated for up to 12 months or made to pay a fine. But there appears to be selective enforcement of the law by the South African authorities.
He has never in his experience, since the act came into law 10 years ago, heard of a South African being arrested on these charges.
“To prosecute a South African citizen, and release him on bail of R20 000 bail for violating this law, is unheard of and ludicrous. This may be the first case in the country’s history.”
Home Affairs spokesperson Thabo Mokgola explained the law, saying that any citizen who enters or departs from the country “making use of the passport of another country, or, while in the Republic, makes use of his or her citizenship or nationality of another country to gain an advantage or avoid a responsibility or duty, is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 12 months”.
But Mokgola said Home Affairs was not able to say how many people had been charged under this act. “We do not have figures at this stage. However, whenever we were confronted with this type of transgression, we had to apply the law to the letter.”
Eisenberg, however, said that generally, Home Affairs authorities give South African citizens entering or leaving on the incorrect passport only a warning for contravening the act.
angelique.serrao@inl.co.za
The Star