Raids aimed to plug leak -– claim

Claims have emerged of a possible high-level security leak in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which throw new light on the Scorpions’s raids on former deputy president Jacob Zuma and his legal advisers.

Usually reliable sources claim the Scorpions suspected that sensitive internal information from the Zuma investigation had been leaked to the Zuma camp and part of the reason for the raids was to find evidence of this. The sources have in the past provided accurate insight into the legal and political chess game around the Zuma saga.

However, NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi told the Mail & Guardian: ‘Our searches in various premises on August 18 2005 were informed by reasons that were stated in the affidavit by the investigating officer, Mr Johan du Plooy. The searches were routine and no ‘unstated’ reasons applied.”

Thus the claims must be regarded as highly speculative, but they would offer an explanation of why the Scorpions took the serious legal risk of potentially breaching attorney-client privilege during the searches of Zuma’s attorney, Michael Hulley, and his former legal adviser, Julie Mahomed.

Concerns about potential leaks within the NPA would also tally with a general perception that there are serious splits both between and within the security services over Zuma — as demonstrated by the tense standoff between the Scorpions and the Presidential Protection Service.

According to Dr George Devenish of the University of KwaZulu-Natal law department, the raids could even have risked a Zuma mistrial if it was proved the Scorpions breached the confidentiality relationship between Zuma and his legal representatives.

A lawyer familiar with the search warrants obtained by the Scorpions said the case made out for the search of both attorneys appeared designed to breach the attorney-client veil. ‘It was very clumsy and these guys are not stupid. It suggests they were desperate to find something specific.”

The suspicion of a leak could also explain comments made by National Director of Public Prosecution Vusi Pikoli at a press conference to defend the controversial raids.

Pikoli explained that the need to enter Zuma’s home with armed force had been necessitated by specific circumstances that he declined to detail. However, if the Scorpions suspected a high-level leak, they may also have feared that the fact of the raid would be leaked and their investigators could meet with organised resistance.

It may also be of significance that the Scorpions launched the simultaneous raids, which were logistically highly complex, only six days after the initial search warrants were granted, suggesting a further concern about the capacity of the unit to sustain secrecy. By contrast, the Shaik raids in 2001 were launched weeks after the search orders were granted.

Hulley, who is still preparing to mount a legal challenge to the raids, said he was unaware of claims that the Scorpions suspected his client might have access to confidential NPA information: ‘This is the first I hear of that — It is certainly not the case.”

However, Mahomed’s court application this week to challenge the lawfulness of the searches carried out at her law firm and home, underscores the difficult task the Scorpions will have justifying their raid on her.

Mahomed states that during the search she tried to invoke attorney-client privilege. This was rejected by the person leading the search, advocate Rochelle van der Walt, who referred her to the wide terms of the warrant.

In her papers, however, she attacked the basis on which the warrant was obtained. Only two issues relating to Mahomed were laid before Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, who granted the search and seizure order.

The affidavit of lead investigator Du Plooy alleged that Mahomed had given evidence at the Shaik trial and was ‘unable to give a satisfactory explanation” of what had become of the original of the R2-million ‘revolving loan agreement” she had drawn up between Zuma and Shaik.

Du Plooy set out only two legs to support the search: the need to ‘try to obtain the original document and forensically examine the computers to establish the true circumstances surrounding the creation of this document”.

In her application Mahomed argued that she had provided the simple explanation that the original document had been mislaid and no evidence had been put forward to suggest she was concealing evidence.

The computer on which she had drawn up the agreement had been stolen and she had disclosed this in the Shaik trial and offered to provide proof relating to the case lodged with police and claims lodged with her insurers. This offer had never been followed up by the Scorpions, she alleged.

She also claimed the Scorpions were guilty of misstatement and material non-disclosure in their application for the search warrants: ‘They did not disclose to the judge in chambers that I am a practising attorney with various clients and not merely Jacob Zuma’s ‘personal legal assistant’.”

That being so, she said, the Scorpions made no effort to provide for safeguards during the search to protect her clients — including Zuma, who had consulted her frequently on the allegations against him — from the violation of professional legal privilege.

The NPA is due to file its opposing statements by Friday and Mahomed’s application will be heard on an urgent basis on Wednesday.