{"id":11124,"date":"2012-06-05T22:53:43","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/update-2-s-africa-police-probe-mtn-iran-graft-allegations\/"},"modified":"2012-06-05T22:53:43","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:53:43","slug":"update-2-s-africa-police-probe-mtn-iran-graft-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-s-africa-police-probe-mtn-iran-graft-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-S.Africa police probe MTN Iran graft allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* S.Africa detectives open investigation into MTN<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mobile giant accused of corruption in Iran<\/p>\n<p> (Adds background)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, June 5 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s elite Hawks<br \/>\npolice unit has opened an investigation into allegations of<br \/>\ncorruption at mobile phone giant MTN relating to its<br \/>\npurchase of a cellular licence in Iran, a police spokesman said<br \/>\non Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The police probe follows a $4.2 billion U.S. civil claim<br \/>\nfiled in March by Turkish operator Turkcell accusing<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s largest mobile firm of bribing Iranian officials with<br \/>\ncash and promises of weapons to secure the licence, which was<br \/>\noriginally awarded to Turkcell.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are allegations of corruption. That&#8217;s exactly what<br \/>\nwe&#8217;re investigating,&#8221; Hawks spokesman MacIntosh Polela said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN executives were also accused in the U.S. court papers of<br \/>\npromising to get Pretoria to vote favourably about Tehran&#8217;s<br \/>\nnuclear programme at international forums trying to curb Iran&#8217;s<br \/>\nsuspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN officials have denied any wrongdoing and described the<br \/>\nTurkcell case, which is backed by a collection of alleged MTN<br \/>\ninternal documents including emails, invoices, memos and<br \/>\npresentations, as without legal merit.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pretoria has also denied that its diplomacy is for sale.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* S.Africa detectives open investigation into MTN * Mobile giant accused of corruption in Iran (Adds background) By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, June 5 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s elite Hawks police unit has opened an investigation into allegations of corruption at mobile phone giant MTN relating to its purchase of a cellular licence in Iran, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}