Technical arguments and a clash of wits played out in the Hatfield Community Court where the case against former National Intelligence Authority (NIA) director general Billy Masetlha resumed on Thursday.
He is accused of withholding evidence from NIA inspector general Zolile Ngcakani relating to alleged hoax emails implicating senior African National Congress (ANC) members in a conspiracy against ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and the party’s secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe.
Ngcakani’s legal adviser, Jay Govender, was in the witness stand for the state, saying in her evidence-in-chief that there was a flurry of letter writing between her and Masetlha’s legal representative at the time, asking Masetlha to provide information to Ngcakani and submit to an interview.
”We received no cooperation by the accused on information requested from him,” she testified.
She said there were always some conditions set by Masetlha’s legal team before he would agree to an interview.
Masetlha’s advocate, Neil Tuchten SC, said the major sticking point was that Masetlha wanted his legal team present when Ngcakani’s team interviewed him.
Govender said they could not agree to that.
”Our concern was that there might be classified information the legal representatives were not privy to,” she said.
She added that Masetlha also set other conditions, which the inspector general’s office did not have the power to agree to.
Much of her testimony was looked at in great technical detail, with magistrate Dreyer van der Merwe at one stage even asking where a comma was in a certain sentence in the Oversight Act. This law required Masetlha to hand over evidence to Ngcakani.
There was also a battle of wits between Govender and Tuchten.
In one exchange, Tuchten said he felt Govender’s recollection of a certain fact was faulty, but shortly afterwards withdrew his remark.
”No, Miss Govender, I withdraw my criticism because my recollection might be faulty,” he said.
”I’m very glad to hear that,” she responded. He replied, to laughter in the court, ”… but it might not be”.
He asked her several times to just answer questions and not give her own legal opinion on the matter, and several times she asked Tuchten to clarify what he meant.
The case was postponed to June 12 when it is expected that the state will call its last witness. — Sapa