{"id":7181,"date":"2013-07-15T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7181"},"modified":"2013-07-15T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T10:30:11","slug":"vavi-iranians-tried-to-poison-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7181","title":{"rendered":"Vavi: Iranians tried to poison me"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"alt_content_blurb\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_7182\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7182\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/vavipoison.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7182\" alt=\"Vavi scared\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/vavipoison.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7182\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vavi scared<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi fears for his life and has increased security to protect himself, he has told Eyewitness News.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Cosatu secretary general said during the interview: &#8220;I am scared. This matter came to the public sphere three years ago, and it seems people who issued the threats then are still on a mission to attain that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Vavi told the radio station he started receiving death threats in 2010, when he received information that he would &#8220;go down&#8221; the same way as the former deputy minister of health, Dr Molefi Sefularo.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sefularo died in a car accident in Pretoria in 2010.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Vavi reportedly said the accident was presumed to have been &#8220;engineered&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The threat was reported to the police ministry, but nothing had come of it so far, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Last year, immediately after the Cosatu\u00a0held its elective congress, intelligence officials told him there was a plot by Iranians to poison him, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;I was told that the plot originated from\u00a0Iranian intelligence, and that someone from the non-government organisations that we, as Cosatu, work with has been hired by Iranians to poison me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When asked why the Iranians would want him killed, Vavi said he did not know because Cosatu and the country had good relations with Iranians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Months have gone by and intelligence officials have not come back to me regarding this,&#8221; he told Eyewitness News.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Vavi is facing an ongoing internal investigation into alleged corruption regarding the sale of Cosatu&#8217;s headquarters, in which he was implicated. &#8211; SAPA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi fears for his life and has increased security to protect himself, he has told Eyewitness News. The Cosatu secretary general said during the interview: &#8220;I am scared. This matter came to the public sphere three years ago, and it seems people who issued the threats then are still on a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7181\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Vavi: Iranians tried to poison me&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[76,174,3934,2166],"class_list":["post-7181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-cosatu","tag-iran","tag-poison-plot","tag-vavi"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/vavipoison.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7183,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions\/7183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}