RANJENI MUNUSAMY: Day of intrigue as story of how Gupta emails were leaked is told to commission
'Currin revealed the long, risky journey that led to the original hard drive and a clone finally being placed in the hands of the commission’s head investigator, Terrence Nombembe'
EXTRACT
Currin told Zondo about the arduous process to preserve the information on the delicate data storage devices, the original of which had been damaged, and safely move them to different parts of the world. The commission also heard about the fear and disruption to the lives of two anonymous whistleblowers who took possession of the original hard drive belonging to Gupta-owned Sahara Computers.
The two people known as “Stan” and John” and their families fled SA in fear and have been living at an undisclosed location since July 2017. They have undertaken to return to the country and give evidence at the commission in July 2019.
As SA’s criminal justice system remains unable to prosecute perpetrators of grand corruption in SA, it has emerged that the Zondo commission is not the only investigation under way to break the back of state capture. On Thursday, human rights lawyer Brian Currin testified that US law enforcement authorities are also in pursuit of the Guptas and have obtained a clone of the hard drive from a whistleblower who exposed the Gupta e-mails. The commission’s investigators and legal team have asked Judge Raymond Zondo to admit the original hard drive and its clone containing the Gupta e-mails into evidence, not only for use in evidence at the inquiry but also to ensure the integrity of the data should there be future prosecutions and civil action. The legal team is to make further arguments on this matter on Friday as Zondo is unsure whether all the information on the storage disks, particularly those that have still not been analysed, are relevant to the commission’s work. It was a day of ...
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