The spokesperson for South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has said that “state security agents” hacked his phone and tried to blackmail him over the sexually explicit material that they found.
“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:
My 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…
— Malusi Gigaba (@mgigaba) October 28, 2018
He also issued an apology for the embarrassment that it caused:
My 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…
— Malusi Gigaba (@mgigaba) October 28, 2018
These 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 (@mgigaba) October 28, 2018
But the minister has said this was a privacy issue:
I 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 (@mgigaba) October 28, 2018
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”:
There are people who support Malusi Gigaba and people who oppose him. Has what happened over the weekend with the “private material” changed your view on him? Should he stay in office or resign even though “it’s private”….? #SAfmSunrise @SAfmRadio
— Stephen Grootes (@StephenGrootes) October 29, 2018
Source: BBC