Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille on Monday refused to identify her confidential Scorpions source, at the disciplinary hearing of the party’s ousted Western Cape leader, Lennit Max.
”I shall not disclose the source,” said De Lille during cross-examination by Leon van Rensburg, representing Max at the hearing in Parliament.
Max faces six charges of misconduct and bringing the party into disrepute.
The unnamed source had apparently informed De Lille that she and ID secretary general Avril Harding were being investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in connection with receiving a pre-election donation from alleged Western Cape crime kingpin Quinton Marinus.
Cross-examining De Lille, the first witness called in the hearing, Van Rensburg submitted that it was ”highly irregular” that the confidential source had said the matter needed to be dealt with internally by the ID, when a criminal charge had already been laid with the NPA.
”Is this an ID member in the Scorpions?” asked Van Rensburg, to which De Lille answered: ”No”.
Van Rensburg throughout his questioning tried to establish that De Lille had ulterior motives for wanting to remove Max.
De Lille was hard-pressed to explain her assertions that Max, a former Western Cape police commissioner, had made use of his apartheid contacts to bring the party into disrepute.
According to De Lille, the ”modus operandi” of implicating her in receiving the funds from Marinus, or alternatively misappropriating the money, smacked of apartheid tactics.
In her evidence-in-chief, De Lille had earlier said she contacted Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula when reports surfaced that she was under investigation for receiving the money.
”I phoned the national minister of police and wanted to know why I was being treated differently to other citizens … being investigated without being informed.”
At the heart of the questioning was the charge Max faces of recording a telephone conversation with ID member Shaun August without his permission, in which August allegedly confirmed that De Lille and Harding had received money from Marinus.
De Lille, the first witness called, emphatically told the enquiry that she believes a person accused of corruption needs to be informed first before the accuser goes to the prosecuting authorities.
She said the party had asked Max to give up his provincial seat as an ordinary member as well as party leader because he was unable to ”take the heat” in the provincial legislature.
De Lille also indirectly implicated Max in a break-in at the provincial legislature, in which documents related to his disciplinary hearing had been taken, among other items.
”In terms of security records he was the last person [there],” she said, adding that she will choose the former police commissioner above a convicted thief in a list of who might have broken into the offices.
Max faces six charges, among which are changing the party’s standard employment contract without relevant permission and wrongfully using money designated for constituency work to pay for his accommodation and meals.
The hearing continues at the parliamentary offices of the ID. — Sapa