Former security police officer Bernie Ley apologised on Monday for creating the incorrect impression regarding National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka’s being an apartheid spy. Ley earlier backed, in an anonymous television interview, an allegation that a travel restriction on Ngcuka’s passport was lifted during the eighties at the request of intelligence officers.
He admitted before the Hefer commission on Monday that the words he chose in the interview — ”I arranged for it to be done” — created a false impression. He denied that he intentionally lied about the matter.
”I used the wrong words. Had I had the opportunity to look at it before it was aired I would’ve corrected it.”
Ley told Judge Joos Hefer that he merely passed on a message in 1989 following a telephone conversation with former colleague Gideon Nieuwoudt. He incidentally picked up another official’s phone at the police’s security branch headquarters in Pretoria when Nieuwoudt called at the time, Ley said.
Nieuwoudt wanted a restriction to be placed on one Ngcuka’s passport, and Ley said that he had passed on the information to someone else at police headquarters.
During cross-examination Ley conceded that it was not necessarily Bulelani Ngcuka’s passport to which Nieuwoudt was referring. He told the commission that he later contacted Ngcuka’s office to set the record straight after he had reflected about the television interview. He realised only afterwards that Nieuwoudt had deceived him (by getting him to back the spy allegations against Ngcuka).
”He played me like a fiddle. I’ve been lied to,” Ley testified. He said he did not want to vilify Ngcuka or be part of the ”character assassination” on the national director of public prosecutions. Ley further revealed that Nieuwoudt had made the allegations against Ngcuka to put pressure on his National Prosecuting Authority.
When Nieuwoudt first contacted Ley in August about the matter, he said Ngcuka’s office was ”dragging its heels” with his (Nieuwoudt’s) amnesty application. Nieuwoudt maintained that Ngcuka had to issue a proclamation before a re-hearing of his amnesty application could be held. He therefore asked Ley’s help in confirming their 1989 telephone conversation on camera.
Nieuwoudt was granted the re-hearing on appeal after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had refused him amnesty.
Ley said that shortly before the television interview was recorded, he asked Nieuwoudt: ”Are you certain you are not pulling me into a false-flag operation?”
Nieuwoudt laughed and reassured him that it was merely to help his amnesty case, Ley testified.
When asked on Monday whether Nieuwoudt could be trusted to speak the truth before the commission, Ley responded: ”I thought I knew how to understand him, but now I don’t know.”
Nieuwoudt is scheduled to take the witness stand before Hefer at 9am on Tuesday, but reliable sources told the Mail & Guardian Online that he was likely to ask for a postponement. Ngcuka’s testimony is expected to start on Wednesday. – Sapa