DIS raids Dignia in Israel
Staff Writer | Friday January 31, 2020 15:31
The search was to establish whether or not the contract the spy agency had with the company was properly executed.
It was also meant to ascertain if the former spy chief, Isaac Kgosi, had been paid any bribes by Dignia officials.
Botswana government, on behalf of DIS and the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), requested mutual assistance from the Israeli government to search Dignia premises and the home of its chief executive officer (CEO), Itzik Tzadick.
“They wanted to establish whether the contract with Dignia had been properly executed and whether Kgosi had been paid any inducements. They found nothing of the sort and to their embarrassment, found that the contract that the DCEC and DIS had been trying so hard to deny and to conceal from courts had in fact been properly executed,” a source close to the two directorates alleged.
“They also established that no bribes had been paid to Kgosi and that he had no secret accounts in Israel.”
The raid in Israel came after DIS director general, Peter Magosi had assured Dignia that their lawsuit would be settled.
“The guys in Israel were therefore surprised by the lack of good faith and honesty by Magosi.
He is hell-bent on finding something to incriminate Kgosi and so far nothing sticks.”
Contacted for comment, Tzadick did not want to deny nor confirmed the raid. “I don’t want to comment about the information you have since there is a court case between ourselves and DIS,” Tzadick could only say.
Dignia Systems is currently demanding P118 million from the DIS being the balance of amounts owed from a military equipment and training contract.
The deal was financed from the P250 million the intelligence agency diverted from the National Petroleum Fund (NPF) in 2017. The Israeli firm argues it delivered on its end of the bargain and is tired of waiting for issues in Botswana to be resolved while its balance is pending.
Dignia has already made deliveries on the contract such as weapons (pistols, rifles, machine guns, ammunitions), VIP training in Israel, site survey for special forces and a team of Dignia employees came several times to conduct screening. This includes testing personnel and teaching personnel that will go to Israel.
End war certificate was made to meet the requirements of the Israeli Ministry of Defence.
The government through the Attorney General (AG) has acknowledged the existence of a contract between the Office of the President (OP) and the Israeli arms firm.
Besides alluding to internal processes, the AG is not disputing the legality of the contract nor its existence.
Again the AG has not recommended any suspension nor cancellation of the contract.
The DIS, through Khulaco, paid Dignia Systems $11.2 million on November 9, 2017 and had delivered most of the military equipment the DIS had bought through the contract.
Businessperson Bakang Seretse, Kenneth Kerekang and others are facing money-laundering charges in relation to this contract.
The government has received the equipment yet Seretse and his co-accused remain charged.
In a related case, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) suffered an embarrassing defeat at the Court of Appeal (CoA) when it was ruled that there was no corruption and that the DPP had been wrong to elevate a commercial dispute into a criminal matter.
In arriving at the conclusion, the CoA used a lower standard of proof that is the balance of probability. In a criminal matter, the standard used is beyond a reasonable doubt, a higher standard to be proved.
Nonetheless, the DPP went ahead to charge Kgori Capital and its directors with corruption in NPA matter, provoking prominent legal hawks to accuse the government of malicious prosecution.
There has been speculation that the prosecution unit will add Kgosi to the list of the NPF accused persons in the near future.
Last year the DPP through their answer for further particulars requested by the defence in the NPF saga, confirmed that asset manager, Seretse through Briscoe Attorneys donated some money to the then Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
The donation was in the sum of P2 million. The prosecuting authority also confirmed in the charge sheet that Seretse made yet another P300,010 donation to Masisi through the same law firm.
Still last year, Masisi denied reports that he intended to waive his presidential immunity on the judicial process of the NPF looting.
“This thing ya gore I am going to lift my presidential immunity to testify in court, I read about.
Nna I have pledged my innocence with respect to taking any money from NPF, or any such allegation,” Masisi said at a press conference at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. Masisi was presenting to the media his wrap-up of his AU Summit trip just after landing at the Gaborone airport from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Mmegi has reported extensively on the money-trail evidence before the DCEC, which linked President Masisi to funds allegedly donated for his Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) chairmanship campaign in 2017 by the now embattled businessman, Seretse, who is the Number One accused in the multimillion pula NPF saga.
Contacted for comment the DIS spokesperson Edward Robert said: “As you may be aware, the issues you are raising in your questions are in relation to a matter that is currently before the courts of law. And that deprives me with the liberty to proffer any comment as sought by your organisation”.
Mmegi wanted to establish if the DIS had doubted the contract and if it had not received the goods and training in terms of that contract. It also wanted to find out if it was an attempt by Magosi to find something to justify his unlawful and unilateral cancellation of the contract and to avoid liability.
It also sought to establish why the spy agency is acting against advice from the AG that the contract was lawful and their defence to the multi-million lawsuit by the Israeli security firm.