Quick take: How ‘Idac got into plea agreement’ with ‘Cat’ Matlala

Alleged underworld figure Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala told the Madlanga commission on Monday that he was pressured into signing a plea agreement with the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac).

The contents of the agreement were laid bare at the commission, and in it, Matlala claims that Idac investigators threatened to add more charges against him if he refused to co-operate.

Matlala withdrew from the agreement in July after rejecting a 12-year direct imprisonment sentence proposed by the court instead of the eight years he had agreed to with the state. The plea agreement was subsequently declared null and void.

The agreement related to charges Matlala faced over his company, Medicare 24 Tshwane District, and allegations that members of the SAPS tender bid evaluation committee and senior officials colluded to bypass proper National Treasury regulations to award him the contract.

Here are five things you need to know about the contents of the agreement:

• According to Matlala, two Idac investigators took him to the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria, where he met suspended chief investigator Dylan Perumal. He alleges Perumal asked him to provide evidence implicating national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and crime intelligence head Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo.
• He further states that he was coerced into entering a plea agreement with Idac and that investigators promised that he would be accommodated at a witness protection house after sentencing but that they threatened to add more charges against him if he failed to co-operate.
• Matlala also says all this was done in the absence of his lawyers.
• Some of the contents of the affidavit were added without his consent, and he signed the agreement without reading it, he alleges.
• According to Matlala, just before he could appear before parliament’s ad hoc committee, former deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya threatened his wife, Tsakane, warning that Matlala should not disclose anything about him or her family would be placed in harm’s way.

Sowetan