/ 24 November 2003

Mo Shaik’s warning

Mo Shaik on Monday warned Advocate Marumo Moerane, National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka’s counsel, that his persistent questioning at the Hefer commission hearings had forced former transport minister Mac Maharaj to reveal a name that has now been linked to the arrest of intelligence expert Bheki Jacobs.

Jacobs’s arrest follows the circulation last week of an e-mail that apparently suggested that Maharaj, senior African National Congress intelligence operative Mo Shaik, Deputy President Jacob Zuma and other senior people in the intelligence and defence force were planning to assassinate President Thabo Mbeki.

It is still not clear how Jacobs is linked to the e-mail.

On Monday, Shaik told Moerane to be more careful about information that he discloses, saying the onus would fall to him to prove that he had not acquired this information by illegal means, such as the tapping of cellphones.

“Some of the people associated with the Scorpions may be arrested in the next 24 hours for conspiracy of murder. You and I know what you’re talking about.

“In the e-mail, it makes the point that there is a group of us … myself, the deputy president, who are involved in a possible plot to assassinate the president.”

Shaik said that he still had a suspicion that Ngcuka had been a spy for the apartheid government.

“I have a suspicion that he was. That’s as far as I can go,” he told retired judge Joos Hefer.

He said if anyone could provide credible information to the contrary, “then, sir, I will stand up and say I was wrong”.

Shaik also gave Hefer a “receipt of a receipt” that showed he had handed over his database of 10 CD-ROMs containing information about suspected apartheid spies to a legal adviser of the national minister of intelligence on Sunday November 23.

In his closing remarks, Shaik said the decision for him to go public has been a difficult one.

“Many in the intelligence community believe that I have violated the fundamental principal of intelligence.”

Shaik said he believed he had an obligation to serve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of South Africa.

He said he believed that the Scorpions could make a “phenomenal” contribution to the rule of law in South Africa, but he contended that far too many people had agendas.