Former African National Congress intelligence operative Mo Shaik has kept a database of more than 880 suspected apartheid government spies, it was revealed on Thursday.
Shaik told the Hefer commission the ANC had investigated all these people during the liberation struggle as suspected informants.
This was done as part of Project Bible, which was aimed at combating government infiltration of the then liberation movement. Shaik commanded Project Bible within South Africa and reported on the matter to Jacob Zuma, who is now deputy president.
During cross-examination by Hefer commission evidence leader Kessie Naidu, SC, Shaik admitted the database is still in his possession. It is kept on a computer and accessed with a secret code.
When Naidu suggested that such information should be protected by the intelligence agencies, Shaik said he has informed the agencies of the database. He has not inform President Thabo Mbeki, but Mbeki is aware of the fact that he had commanded Project Bible.
Shaik said he regarded the information on the database as belonging to the ANC. Only when they instruct him to hand it over, will he do so.
He will refuse to hand it over to the intelligence agencies, Shaik said.
In December 2002 he used the database to reconstruct an intelligence analysis concluding that national Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was ”most probably” an apartheid spy.
This analysis was based, among other things, on four intelligence reports stolen for Shaik from the former security police. They were also contained in the database.
By analysing these reports and other intelligence information during the late 1980s, Shaik for the first time concluded that Ngcuka had been a spy, he testified.
He had since obtained more information which confirmed this suspicion, and added it to the reconstructed analysis. This report Shaik handed to journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, who wrote a newspaper article in which the allegations against Ngcuka first surfaced publicly.
Shaik will return to the witness box on Friday, when his cross-examination will continue.
He and former transport minister Mac Maharaj are named as Ngcuka’s main accusers in the commission’s latest terms of reference. This resulted from them being the first to publicly confirm the Project Bible investigation into Ngcuka and its conclusion in the late 1980s. — Sapa