An affidavit by apartheid spy Vanessa Brereton, aka agent RS 452, does not answer questions which have been raised at the Hefer commission about the origin of intelligence reports ascribed to her. But it does direct a litany of allegations against Karl Edwards, her former handler and alleged lover.
Edwards was an intelligence officer in the police security branch during the 1980s and early 1990s when Brereton reported to him on Eastern Cape activists. Edwards has provided the commission with an affidavit stating that National Director of Public Prosecution Bulelani Ngcuka was “not an agent for the South African Police” and was not RS 452.
However Brereton’s affidavit, while confirming she was RS 452, raises doubts about Edwards himself — accusing him among other things of being a thief, an arsonist and an accessory to murder. Brereton also contradicts his public statement that he was never sexually involved with her.
Numerous attempts to reach Edwards, who now works as a “loss-control consultant”, for comment were unsuccessful. He did not even respond to a message left with his wife.
Brereton’s affidavit, which has been submitted to Hefer and of which the Mail & Guardian has obtained a copy, is entirely silent about the content of the intelligence reports put before the commission in which she, as RS 452, is quoted as the source. The affidavit was handed in to the commission but not tabled publicly.
At last week’s sitting of the commission, attorney Krish Naidoo, who features prominently in one of the reports ascribed to Brereton, testified that she could not have been the source of the information on his meetings and movements in February 1987.
Brereton’s statement contains only one line on her spying on the National Association of Democratic Lawyers and does not mention the Henk van Andel Trust.
She states: “I also spied on meetings of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel) from 1987 to about 1990 and reported on these to Edwards.”
Reports on Nadel and the Van Andel trust sourced from agent RS 452 have featured prominently at the commission — with former ANC intelligence operative Mo Shaik raising doubts that the source of the reports was Brereton and suggesting they were falsely ascribed to her by Edwards.
Counsel for Ngcuka has argued, contrary to Shaik, that Brereton had attended Nadel meetings and had been in a position to obtain details of the Van Andel trust from one of its trustees, Bhashir Hussein, who had worked in Brereton’s law practice.
What Brereton does do in some detail is point fingers at Edwards, implicating him in a host of alleged offences, including having knowledge of at least the circumstances around the Motherwell bombings, in which the security police blew up an informer and three of their own members.
She states: “In December 1989 during a debriefing session Karl informed me that he was worried because certain security branch policeman had started to forge cheques on their own initiative and that forging cheques was something which he had taught them to do.
“The stolen cheques belonged to anti-apartheid organisations. He told me that Nic van Rensburg was coming down to Port Elizabeth ‘to sort this problem out.’
“Shortly thereafter these policeman and an informer by the name of Charles Jack were blown up in a car bomb explosion in Motherwell. It was then that I began to fully understand the nature of the people that I was working for and I started to become concerned about my safety should I resign, which was what I wanted to do.”
Notorious security branch killer Gideon Niewoudt, cited by Shaik as corroborating aspects of the spy allegation against Ngcuka, applied for amnesty for the Motherwell bombing, as did Van Rensburg and seven other security policemen. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission refused to grant them amnesty; however that ruling has been appealed.
Edwards was not mentioned during the Motherwell case, but a lawyer familiar with the case said that, based on Brereton’s evidence, he could be investigated as an accessory.
Brereton also links Edwards to the theft of personal items from anti-apartheid activists and to a R10 000 cheque fraud committed against the East Cape Literacy Project, at the time run by anti-apartheid activist Janet Cherry.
Brereton states: “Later, after Janet was released from detention she advised me that she had discovered that a cheque had been forged and made out for R10 000,00 in the name of Alex Rala who also worked for the East Cape Literacy Project.
“I verily believe that Edwards was involved in the forging of this cheque, which may also have been for his personal enrichment. At that time he informed me that he had bought a house in Recreation Road, Mount Pleasant, Port Elizabeth, as an investment and that he had obtained the funds for a deposit from an endowment policy which had recently matured.
“I remember the sum of R10 000,00 being mentioned by Edwards. Later on this house was used as a safe house and I used to meet Karl there from about 1990 to 1991 when I resigned from the security branch.”
Cherry, who is now a researcher with the Human Sciences Research Council, said she was pleased to discover more about the cheque incident, as the police had attempted to charge Rala with the offence, despite the fact that he was in detention at the time.
She said it was only with great difficulty that she had persuaded Standard Bank to make good the loss.
Brereton also alleged that Edwards had admitted to her he had “arranged for” the burning down of the Black Sash offices in Port Elizabeth and was responsible for a smear campaign against the Watson brothers, who were well known anti-apartheid activists.
Another former activist, who asked not to be named, said both Brereton and Edwards should be investigated for the offences alleged in the affidavit: “She also did nothing, despite being an attorney.”
Meanwhile, Deputy President Jacob Zuma has scored a Pyrrhic victory in his bid to gain access to documentation allegedly implicating him in soliciting a bribe. Zuma has repeatedly denied any such action.
Earlier this year Zuma launched an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court to gain access to the original of a handwritten fax in which he is described as giving a coded signal confirming the request for a bribe from French defence company Thales.
The fax, allegedly in possession of the Scorpions, purports to be from Thales executive Alain Thetard, reporting on a meeting held with Zuma and his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, on March 11 2000.
Zuma has denied attending such a meeting and raised doubts about the authenticity of the fax. The fax forms part of the evidence against Shaik.
In terms of an out of court settlement reached on Thursday Zuma will get access to the document only when Shaik himself gets access.
That might only be next February, when Shaik appears in court again, or as late as mid-2004, when his trial is expected to begin in the Durban High Court.