The spokesperson for South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has said that “state security agents” hacked his phone and stole a sexually explicit video.
His spokesman said people then tried to blackmail Mr Gigaba.
“Several started demanding from around April an amount of 10m rand ($690,000, £540,000) in cash.
“When it became clear that he was really not interested in entertaining these blackmail demands the call now began to demand that he intervenes in various state entities,” Vuyo Mkhize is quoted by the public broadcaster SABC as saying.
A tape with sexually explicit material from Mr Gigaba’s phone was leaked over the weekend.
The home affairs minister responded by saying that the video was meant for him and his wife only:
Malusi Gigaba@mgigabaMy wife and I have learned, with regret and sadness, that a video containing material of a sexual nature, meant for our eyes only, which was stolen when my communication got illegally intercepted/my phone got hacked, in 2016/17, is circulating among certain political figures…
He also issued an apology for the embarrassment that it caused:
Social embed from twitter
Malusi Gigaba@mgigabaThese blackmail/extortion attempts as well as the illegal interception of my communication/hacking of my phone have all been reported to the relevant law enforcement/intelligence agencies and I am advised that the resultant investigations are still continuing…
Malusi Gigaba@mgigabaI take this opportunity to publicly apologise, in advance, to the rest of my family – especially my kids, my mom and my in-laws – and the South African public for the pain and embarrassment the likely wider distribution of this private material will cause…
But the minister has said this was a privacy issue:
Social embed from twitter
Malusi Gigaba@mgigabI take this opportunity to publicly apologise, in advance, to the rest of my family – especially my kids, my mom and my in-laws – and the South African public for the pain and embarrassment the likely wider distribution of this private material will cause…
Malusi Gigaba@mgigabaI hope our nation will, someday, constructively engage with the question of whether it is correct to condone and promote the gross invasion of the privacy of others by distributing such material, more especially in the clear absence of a public interest justification…
A position that was backed up by the country’s former anti-corruption tsar Thuli Madonsela who tweeted that “what [the minister’s] does in private without harming anyone or the dignity of his office is nobody’s business”:
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Stephen Grootes@StephenGrootes
Prof Thuli Madonsela
✔@ThuliMadonsela3
Let’s be fair. Minister @mgigaba should be held accountable for his work and conduct. What he does in private without harming anyone or the dignity of his office is nobody’s business. The person to resign and face other consequences is the one that distributed the video
Source: BBC
