{"id":14532,"date":"2012-06-05T13:51:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T11:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=14532"},"modified":"2012-06-05T16:24:44","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T14:24:44","slug":"hawks-swoop-in-on-mtn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/14532\/hawks-swoop-in-on-mtn\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks swoop in on MTN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elite crime-fighting unit the Hawks are set to investigate mobile operators, MTN<\/a>, on allegations of corruption relating to its license in Iran.<\/p>\n

Hawks spokesperson McIntosh Polela<\/a> told BusinessTech: \u201cWe have received information regarding allegations of corruption at MTN. We conducted an enquiry phase, to test these allegations, and have decided to conduct an investigation.”<\/p>\n

Polela said that the Hawks have not been in touch with MTN. “We are not obliged to discuss our case with the firm we are investigating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Turkish mobile operator Turkcell<\/a> has launched a $4.2 billion lawsuit in a US court accusing MTN of bribing its way to the Iranian licence and alleging human rights abuses. MTN denies the charges.<\/p>\n

MTN owns 49% of Irancell, the group that was awarded the 2nd Iranian GSM licence.<\/p>\n

On the weekend, The City Press newspaper reported that a former MTN executive, Chris Kilowan<\/a>, admitted to bribing South Africa\u2019s former ambassador to Iran \u201cto thank him for assisting the mobile giant\u201d.<\/p>\n

The paper said it had a transcript of Kilowan\u2019s evidence before a US court a month ago. In this transcript \u201che implicates himself and top MTN executives in underhanded dealings to acquire a multibillion-dollar mobile licence in the pariah state\u201d.<\/p>\n

MTN strongly denied any suggestion that MTN, or its representatives, intimidated Kilowan. The group said that Kilowan\u2019s testimony showed that he was not a reliable witness, but rather a disgruntled former employee, who had admitted that he had been paid by Turkcell for his role in the claims against MTN. \u201cIn his recent deposition, his evidence was discredited in a number of major respects,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN denies intimidating former employee<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkcell will struggle to bring MTN case in US<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN, The Fish, and Project Snooker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN\/Turkcell talks break down amid extortion claims<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN, TurkCell in talks over bribery lawsuit<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elite crime-fighting unit the Hawks are set to investigate mobile operators, MTN on allegations of corruption relating to its license in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3033,26,1361,3034,28,1292],"class_list":["post-14532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-hawks","tag-headline","tag-irancell","tag-mcintosh-polela","tag-mtn","tag-turkcell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14532"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14535,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14532\/revisions\/14535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}