Since SA is so good at being crooked, why not crook the Guptas into prison in SA?

Hoorah! There is finally appetite among political circles with influence to charge the Guptas with some crimes! It certainly took them long enough! I can say that with confidence, seeing as it may have taken too long and if Sunday’s Vavi tweet is anything to go by, they’re getting off free.

Fortunately, Vavi’s tweet is not entirely accurate in its conclusion, but its body, in which he explains that the UAE doesn’t extradite people in instances where their alleged crimes were alleged to have been committed more than five years prior is true.

The UAE has even been stalling their internal ratification of our extradition treaty signed in 2018 (which we ratified later that same year). Why? Well why not? Who, of influence on the international stage, would fault them for not caving to a request from the international joke that is South Africa? In 2016, the UAE even rejected extradition requests from the UK on the strength of the five-year timeline issue for one of the biggest money laundering cases the country has ever seen, and nobody even batted an eyelid.

Similarly, countries have gone to war despite no approval from the Security Council, avoided terms of international agreements and snubbed anything snubbable because they simply can. See, in a domestic setting, if you breach an agreement, the other party takes you to court and the court makes a finding which you must obey or face some harsh penalty like a fine or prison.

In the international world, sure there may be a court or tribunal here and there but even they struggle to determine which legal rules to play by and, when they eventually do come to a conclusion, what’s going to stop a powerful country from just disregarding it? The answer is nothing! International law is probably one of the weakest kinds of law because it is so unenforceable.

Even in instances where it is enforceable, who has the political will to spend resources enforcing agreements when there are more important things going on domestically?

South Africa clearly knows this! We sent a delegation to the UAE late last year to find out exactly what is happening with their stalling of implementing the treaty and, well, I’m yet to see a report from that expedition.

The truth seems to be that we’re just increasingly becoming a joke of a country that gets picked last for any team, bullied on the playground and can’t get a date because our sores are not only evident but protruding.

Why we have not been able to play this to our advantage, though, is beyond me. So the UAE won’t send the Guptas our way to stand trial … but who would stop us if we just took them?

It’s not like the UAE would send its military to protect the Guptas or even declare war on us. It’s not like the countries we should be frightened of have any interest in the matter. It’s not like we couldn’t get away with it without so much as a scratch.

So here’s my suggestion to South African officials … since bribery is such a fun game they  love to play … throw some money at a Gupta private pilot and have them brought to a more friendly country, like Egypt, when they think they’re going on holiday and have some large ballie from the SAPS waiting there in his blue uniform on the Cairo tarmac ready to escort them on to an SAA plane where a detective and prosecutor will be ready to ask them all the questions live on the SABC so that when they land in the airline they helped sink, the public can be waiting in the arrivals ready to cheer the arrest of some who shanked the South African economy, but not the South African spirit.

Richard Anthony Chemaly.

Richard Chemaly is an entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer of communication ethics

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