Selebi's guilt is a triumph of greed over honour

The Times Editorial: Embarrasment and guilt - those are the two words that echo from yesterday's sentencing of Jackie Selebi.

Sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for corruption, Selebi's fortunes have changed dramatically - from top cop to convicted criminal.

The words uttered by Judge Meyer Joffe, spoken in the Johannesburg High Court, will find resonance across the nation.

Selebi has indeed embarrassed the police he had been appointed to lead, those who appointed him to such a senior position and, most important, those whom he was meant to protect.

He is also guilty of subverting the trust that had been placed in him to lead thousands of officers in serving the citizens of this country with integrity. For his guilt is born of a certain arrogance - that led him to believe that he did not have to adhere to the rules of propriety, honesty and integrity.

In sentencing him, Judge Joffe stripped the struggle stalwart of all his remarkable achievements - his role in the anti-apartheid fight, his admirable work at the UN and his ascent to the highest office in the South African Police Service.

As he sat in the dock, listening to words that must have struck like poisoned arrows, Selebi was the ultimate symbol of a hero's terrible fall from grace.

And that fall from grace is tragic on many levels - on the personal level, that a successful man has plummeted so far into dishonour.

But the public tragedy is so much greater. Selebi's guilt is a triumph of greed and vanity over exemplary service to this nation.

For that is precisely the role that Selebi was meant to honour and uphold - that of a servant to the citizens of South Africa, with the responsibility of building a safe country for all who live in it.