Former security policeman Bernie Ley, who confirmed spy allegations, made in the media, against chief prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka, told the Hefer commission on Monday that he had been ”played like a fiddle”.
”He played me like a cheap fiddle, and the tune he used was our friendship of three decades ago,” Ley said of former colleague Gideon Nieuwoudt.
”I’ve been lied to.”
Nieuwoudt earlier arranged for Ley to back him up in an anonymous television interview regarding the allegations against Ngcuka, the national director of public prosecutions. Ley confirmed the allegation that a travel restriction on Ngcuka’s passport was lifted during the late eighties at the request of intelligence officers.
He admitted on Friday before Judge Joos Hefer that the words he chose in the television interview created a false impression.
”Had I had the opportunity to look at it before it was aired, I would have corrected it,” Ley testified.
”I never placed a restriction on anyone’s passport.”
He realised in retrospect that Nieuwoudt was involved in the ”character assassination” of Ngcuka, and he wanted to have no part of it, Ley said.
He further revealed that Nieuwoudt confirmed the allegations against Ngcuka because his National Prosecuting Authority had been ”dragging its heels” in his (Nieuwoudt’s) amnesty case.
When Nieuwoudt first contacted Ley in August about the passport issue, he told him that he had been granted a new amnesty hearing on appeal.
However, Ngcuka’s office was dragging its heels in issuing a proclamation for that hearing to be held, Nieuwoudt told Ley.
Nieuwoudt therefore asked Ley’s help to confirm, on camera, a telephone conversation they had in 1989 in which Ngcuka’s passport restriction was allegedly discussed.
Ley’s cross-examination will continue later on Monday. – Sapa