South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in return for bribes from Iran, a group of 160 lawyers has alleged.

In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the lawyers say that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) experienced a sudden financial turnaround after it launched the ICJ case, a fact that warrants an inquiry under America’s anti-corruption Magnitsky Act.

Organised by the Israel Law Centre, Shurat HaDin, the letter – signed by legal experts from the US, Israel, Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Brazil, France, Singapore and Netherlands – also draws attention to a series of meetings between ANC leaders and Iranian officials.

Days after October 7, the ANC’s foreign minister Naledi Pandor flew to Tehran to meet her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

The pair discussed what Pandor referred to as Israel’s “apartheid”.

ANC politicians also met Hamas when they visited South Africa in December.

Hamas’s former government minister Basem Naim and its representative in Iran, Khaled Qaddoumi, were part of the delegation.

The visit underscored the “cosy” relationship between South Africa and Hamas, one Israeli official said at the time. Weeks after Hamas’s visit, South Africa filed against Israel at the ICJ.

The letter suggests that the rapid improvements in the ANC’s sudden financial position can be linked to these meetings and the ICJ case.

The ANC has had crippling financial difficulties, but after it tabled the genocide case at the Hague, the party announced that its finances had stabilised.

It is South Africa, not the ANC, that has brought the case against Israel, but the legal experts suggest that corrupt ANC officials could have been independently bribed.

“This sequence of events strongly suggests that the ANC party’s financial woes were resolved by Iran as a quid pro quo for South Africa’s anti-Israel complaint,” claim the lawyers.

South African officials could be sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act for “significant corruption, including bribery, and the facilitation of corruption-related activities”, according to the lawyers.

The act allows the US government to penalise corrupt individuals with visa bans and asset freezing.

“It is imperative that the United States upholds its commitment to promoting human rights, combating corruption, and protecting the interests of its allies,” said the lawyers, who demand that the US “hold the ANC leadership accountable for their misdeeds”.

“The ANC’s corrupt practices have jeopardised peace in the region and the broader Middle East and have contributed to the frightening rise in antisemitism worldwide,” they write.

Speaking to the JC, Shurat HaDin founder and president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said: “Iran is turning South Africa into the legal arm of Hamas to bash Israel with. South Africa is doing the bidding of Hamas at the ICJ and has allowed itself to be used as a proxy for Iran.” South Africa has become “a paid puppet of the Iranian regime”, she added.

“The cynical and political use of one of the most important international conventions, which was inspired by the Jewish Holocaust, by antisemites and corrupted officials who are led by pure greed, cannot – and must not – remain unanswered.

“The US gives a large aid budget to South Africa, but any party involved with corruption like the ANC cannot receive aid from America. The US needs to open a full-scale investigation of financial links between South Africa and Iran,” she said.

The chief rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein, called the ANC’s alliance with Iran “unconscionable”.

“The South African government’s support of Iran is consistent with its equally unconscionable alignment with the brutal dictatorships of China and Russia,” Rabbi Goldstein told the JC.

“The current political and military struggles in the world need to be seen in a moral context, a battle of values between the countries of the free world which uphold human dignity and individual liberty – great democracies such as the US, UK, Israel, India, Japan, and others – and tyrannical regimes such as Iran, China, Russia and North Korea.”

“By aligning itself with tyrannical regimes, the ANC government has put itself on the wrong side of history and betrays what South Africa truly is – a beacon of democracy and human rights in the world, a country with a democratic constitution, independent judiciary, and free elections, which upholds the equal rights, dignity and liberty of all its people. In making this alliance, the ANC government betrays the treasured ideals of the South African constitution, the people of South Africa, and the values and vision of Nelson Mandela.”

The trading relationship between Iran and South Africa is significant. In 2021, the UN’s Comtrade database valued Iranian exports to South Africa at $254.27 million.

Since 2005, Africa’s largest mobile network, MTN, has owned a 49 per cent stake in Iran’s largest cell network, Irancell.

The telecoms giant has close ties with the ANC. MTN’s director, Ralph Mupita, is married to Makole Mupita, who has been described as “ANC aristocracy”. His mentor and MTN board chair is Mcebisi Jonas, a former ANC deputy minister of finance.

In 2012, Istanbul-based Turkcell brought a $4.2 billion lawsuit against MTN in the United States accusing the South African mobile company of using bribery and wrongful influence to win a lucrative Iran licence originally awarded to the Turkish company.

The case, which was eventually dismissed by a judge in 2017 after it was heard in South Africa, featured allegations that MTN promised it “could deliver South Africa’s vote [on Iran] at International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)”, as well as “promising Iran defence equipment otherwise prohibited by national and international laws, and the outright bribery of high-level government officials in both Iran and South Africa”.

According to court papers Turkcell cited a 2005 agreement between MTN and Iranian partners which said the deal should be “defensive, security and political”.

According to further claims made in court, when MTN was bidding on the Iran deal in 2004, its then director Irene Charnley visited Iran and wrote to South African minister of defence Patrick Lekota saying: “It would be very helpful if enquiries could be raised with the relevant Iranian authorities on their expectation for an appropriate bilateral trade deal.”

Less than a week later, Lekota allegedly planned a trip to Tehran where he would discuss “defence cooperation” and a formal bilateral commission in Iran followed soon after. As contract negotiations between MTN and Tehran reached a critical point in September 2004, South Africa abstained from a vote at the IAEA on whether Iran had failed to comply with its non-proliferation treaty commitments.

When the same issue was discussed a month later, South Africa voted in favour of Iran, and the next day the telecoms licence was awarded to MTN.

MTN described Turkcell’s allegations as “unfounded” and “ludicrous”. The network has consistently denied allegations of corruption.

In 2020, MTN said it would divest its 49% minority holding in Irancell over the next three to five years.

South African risk analyst Dr Frans Cronje told the JC that the country’s collaboration with Iran is part of Tehran’s ideological and military offensive against Israel and the West.

“South Africa’s foreign policy structures have been sold to the Iranians,” said Cronje, “It’s state capture.”

The country backs Iran in international forums.

It supported Iran joining Brics last year and opposed the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2019.

But there may be other forces pushing South Africa into the arms of Iran.

South Africa has economic ties with Iran ally Russia and has refused to condemn President Putin’s actions in Ukraine and abstained from voting on a UN Security Council resolution on Syria.

Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes but was invited to South Africa for a Brics conference last year.

In order to avoid an international arrest warrant, the dictator dialled in via videolink.

This month The Economist revealed that a significant portion of ANC funding comes from United Manganese of Kalahari (UMK), a mining operation with Russian connections, and suggested that the ANC’s new cashflow could be from fresh UMK donations.

The ANC has denied all allegations of corruption and has been approached by the JC for further comment.

The JC also contacted MTN for comment.