Classified papers filed in Billy Masetlha’s court application to be reinstated as the chief of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) have exposed details of the agency’s botched surveillance of business-person Saki Macozoma.
Masetlha was suspended as director general of the NIA in October 2005 following the Macozoma fiasco. President Thabo Mbeki fired him five months later after the Inspector General of Intelligence, Zolile Ngcakani, released a damning report on the Macozoma matter and the ”hoax e-mail” saga.
The Pretoria High Court dismissed Masetlha’s application for reinstatement in December. Papers filed in court, but previously withheld from the public, detail how Masetlha and his then deputy explained that surveillance of Macozoma was motivated by the fact that they expected him to be approached by the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE.
Ngcakani’s public report dismissed their explanation as a ”legend designed for external consumption”. What is common cause, however, is that the NIA had a formal operation targeting DGSE activity.
It is now common knowledge that Macozoma’s home in Emmarentia, Johannesburg, was under NIA surveillance between August 29 and 31 2005. Macozoma complained to Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils, who, in turn, ordered Ngcakani’s investigation.
The court file contains an internal statement made the week after the surveillance by Lizo Njenje, then Masetlha’s deputy in charge of operations.
Njenje states that he was called by an acquaintance on August 31, who said that Macozoma wanted confirmation that people watching his home were from the NIA, as this was what they had claimed when confronted by police.
Betraying that he knew of the operation, Njenje states that he then phoned the NIA’s surveillance coordinator ”and enquired from him if it was true that the team has already deployed around Saki’s residence. He answered affirmatively whereupon I instructed him to immediately withdraw them.”
Njenje then briefed Masetlha on ”the flop”. Masetlha ”advised that I phone Macozoma and indicate to him the intention of our operation”.
Njenje spoke to Macozoma the next day. ”I told him … indications were that we had a counter-espionage operation on the roll. I mentioned that there was a French intelligence officer who was attempting to make contact with influential South Africans for the purposes of winning them over, [and] that Saki’s name was among those the French intelligence officer was interested in: therefore the aim of the NIA operation was to positively identify the French intelligence officer.”
Masetlha himself repeated the ”French intelligence” explanation to Kasrils three weeks later in a report also contained in the court file.
Masetlha’s report states that on August 24 the NIA’s then general manager for counter-intelligence, Lloyd Mhlanga, was briefed by one of his managers about ”the envisaged activity by the DGSE that had as an intention efforts meant to make contact with South African business officials associated to the African National Congress”.
Njenje subsequently authorised surveillance of Olivier Fichot, the first secretary at the French embassy in Pretoria. A diplomatic source confirmed this week that Fichot is an ”official representative” of the DGSE, meaning the South African authorities were informed of his function.
Masetlha’s report continues: ”On … August 27, a surveillance operation commenced on Fichot’s residence, number 205 Melk Street Nieuw Muckleneuk …” This is not Fichot’s residence. The French embassy, however, is at 250 Melk Street. It appears that either Masetlha got his facts badly wrong or the bungling NIA had put surveillance on the French embassy itself.
Masetlha’s report says that no movement was seen at Fichot’s ”residence” on August 27 and 28 and that as a result, Mhlanga asked the surveillance coordinator to ”cover” Macozoma’s home too.
The operation was compromised on its second day. ”The surveillance team encountered problems with members of the South African Police Service accompanied by members of a private security company … Macozoma later drove out of the residence and the surveillance team lost him.”
The summary of a first report by inspector general Ngcakani into the Macozoma affair, not previously made public, is also in the Masetlha court file.
This report criticises the amateurish handling of the operation: among other things operatives used their own rather than NIA cars, which could not be traced; they failed to notice that they were being watched by private security guards and policemen; and they remained in place even after their cover had been blown.
More seriously, the report accuses Masetlha, Njenje and Mhlanga of a cover-up. While acknowledging the existence of an official NIA operation, dubbed ”Operation Fairwood”, which included surveillance of Fichot, the report concludes that the two were not linked, as Njenje had ordered the Macozoma surveillance a day before the surveillance of Fichot had started.
Ngcakani’s public report of March 2006 said there was ”overwhelming” evidence that Macozoma was in fact placed under surveillance as part of the NIA’s ”Project Avani”, the ”political climate” survey that, according to the report, was turned into an unauthorised hunt for ”conspirators” identified in the hoax e-mails.