THICK END OF THE WEDGE
PETER BRUCE: Why go to jail for defending the Guptas?
Victory isn’t always sweet. I’ve just won an important court battle and I feel bad for the guy who lost. Nico Smith, a former policeman with an impeccable record, moved to the private sector and quickly found himself on the wrong side of the law. The case has taught me important lessons. Him too, I hope. I was secretly followed and photographed for about a week in September 2016. The Gupta story was hot and Bell Pottinger was running defence for them. I was the target of much of Bell Pottinger’s work. After Pravin Gordhan and Thuli Madonsela, it turns out, the third-most tweets produced by the Twitter army the Guptas employed were directed at me. Nothing was done with the secret surveillance until June last year, when photographs, ID numbers and telephone numbers of myself, my wife, my children, my former wife and friends were produced on a scurrilous website called WMC Leaks, which is funded by the Guptas. The surveillance was embedded into a fake story about me having an affair.Bu...
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