Karyn Maughan | High stakes in the NPA's case against Mapisa-Nqakula: Why failure is not an option

The Investigating Directorate insists it can show that Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula is guilty of corruption. But, after suffering humiliating losses in other trials, Karyn Maughan writes, the ID simply cannot afford to lose its case against the former speaker.

Four months after then-president Thabo Mbeki suspended prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli from office in September 2007, national police commissioner Jackie Selebi launched urgent legal action aimed at blocking the State from prosecuting him for corruption – and invalidating any warrant issued for his arrest.

Arguing that the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) case against him was "motivated by their fight for the survival of the Scorpions", and not based on any wrongdoing on his part, Selebi told the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that his arrest would be detrimental to law enforcement and damaging to perceptions of South Africa.