President Thabo Mbeki has rejected a request by Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon for a judicial commission of inquiry into aspects of South Africa’s intelligence agencies.
”The legislative framework which sets out and governs the mandate of South Africa’s intelligence structures and organisation is sufficient to address matters relating to their mandate,” Mbeki’s office said in a statement on Friday.
The inspector general of intelligence conducted an investigation on the possible illegal activities of some officers of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
The government subsequently made the inspector general’s report public, and the law-enforcement agencies announced they were examining some of the information contained in the report to establish whether any laws had been broken.
”In view of these factors, the president, through a letter to the leader of the DA, conveyed his determination that a judicial commission of inquiry would not serve any useful purpose,” the statement said.
Leon last week asked for a probe into the mandate and activities of the intelligence structures, in the wake of the inspector general’s findings on the ANC hoax e-mail scandal.
The NIA did not gather information about the DA, Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils said in a statement on Thursday.
Kasrils said many concerns had been raised following the inspector general’s report.
”One such issue relates to the revelation that a limited number of telephone numbers were unlawfully targeted for interception on the orders of a high-ranking NIA official. Among these were the telephone numbers of members of Parliament and the public, and numbers belonging to a political party.
According to media reports, the DA’s parliamentary offices were among 13 institutions and individuals whose telephone calls were intercepted. Others named include businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, African National Congress chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe and ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama.
”However, as far as has been ascertained [at present], conversations relating to only a few of these numbers were actually intercepted.
”Since I have received specific correspondence from the DA requesting the return of information that might have been gathered in this way about their party, I can give the assurance that none of the information intercepted relates to the DA,” Kasrils stated. — Sapa