Five key quotes from Guptas' scathing statement

On Wednesday night‚ the Gupta family – through BDK Attorneys director Rudi Krause – issued a scathing statement about the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks over their handling of the various cases against them.

Here are five key quotes from the statement:

1. “The Gupta family and its companies have been the subject matter of much public scorn and insult and egregious invasions of‚ and damage to‚ their reputation. Some examples will suffice to make the point.”

2. “Not only have the Gupta companies and the Guptas been attacked by incompetents in the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks‚ but it is blandly stated by a Minister of State [former police minister Fikile Mbalula]‚ by Senior Prosecutors and Senior Police Officers that‚ for example‚ Mr Ajay Gupta is a fugitive from justice. The reality is that it is said that a warrant of arrest has been issued for Mr Ajay Gupta. We‚ the authorised legal representatives of Mr Ajay Gupta‚ have called for a copy of the so-called warrant. The Hawks have declined to provide either a copy thereof or the affidavit on the basis of which it might be said to have been obtained … The National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks are challenged to produce the actual warrant for Mr Ajay Gupta that is said to exist and the affidavit upon which that warrant was issued.”

3. “At the time that the much publicised raid by the Hawks took place at the Saxonwold home of the Guptas‚ the brothers‚ Ajay‚ Atul and Rajesh were not at home‚ although other family members were. The brothers were overseas on business. They remain so overseas on business.”

4. “They [the Gupta brothers] look across the world at South Africa and are appalled as to how a democratic State should have fallen into such disrepair that a senior and essential part of the justice system – the NPA – so completely fails in its duty to provide a copy of an arrest warrant to someone whom they publicise as a fugitive from justice. And at the same time those very incompetents bring an ultimately unsuccessful application to our courts based on a sheer failure to understand commerce‚ banking and the world of business.”

5. “I am authorised to make this statement to indicate to the South African public that although they may be feasting on a media frenzy of anti-Gupta negative sentiment‚ the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks are failing in the exercise of their functions in an objective manner. They are jointly‚ for political reasons related to recent political developments of this country been motivated‚ in the view of the Guptas‚ to set about a witch hunt of the Guptas.”