Former National Intelligence Agency (NIA) boss Billy Masetlha has subpoenaed African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe to hand over the ruling party’s ”hoax” email report.
The report, sealed and classified as confidential after the ANC’s national executive committee rejected it last month, will form part of Masetlha’s defence in his fraud trial in July.
The Mail & Guardian understands that the sheriff served the subpoena on the ANC secretary general’s office on Friday. At the time of going to press, Masetlha’s legal team had not received a return of service.
The dramatic twist in the ongoing email saga will have major political repercussions, as the national executive committee (NEC), the ANC’s highest decision-making body between conferences, had wanted to keep the report under wraps after rejecting it on technical grounds. But the report was also kept out of the public eye with the apparent aim of protecting President Thabo Mbeki, whom it blames for the deep divisions in the ANC.
The NEC’s rejection of the report put Motlanthe’s political reputation on the line, as it was he who persuaded it to appoint an ANC task team to test the emails’ authenticity last year. The NEC had earlier dismissed a government-led inquiry by Intelligence Inspector General Zolile Ngcakani, who found the emails were spurious.
In addition, Motlanthe lent credence to the emails by asking the authorities to act on them. He is believed to have asked police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi to investigate the messages, but Selebi turned him down.
The subpoena will, therefore, provide a politically acceptable way for Motlanthe to place the ANC task team’s report in the public domain.
This would have the effect of strengthening him in the ANC’s undeclared leadership battle. He is widely seen as a fallback candidate for supporters of ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.
When the task team was appointed, party sources predicted that, if the inquiry found there was a basis for believing the emails, Motlanthe would be vindicated and politically bolstered. If, on the other hand, the task team confirmed Ngcakani’s findings that the emails were fabricated and Motlanthe had prematurely associated himself with them, he would suffer heavy political damage.
The task team, led by struggle stalwart Hermanus Loots, set the cat among the pigeons by rejecting Ngcakani’s report and finding the emails electronically genuine. In a presentation to the NEC on March 16, Loots is said to have explained that the emails ”existed in cyberspace” — they were written and sent by individuals — and were not fabricated by NIA officials, as Ngcakani had suggested.
The task team found that only the content of the emails was inauthentic. It contracted the services of three IT specialists, all of whom tracked the emails to the same sources.
The M&G understands from senior ANC leaders that four South African citizens, suspected to have links with ”foreign operatives”, were fingered as being behind the emails. They are not linked to the ANC and it is unclear at this stage what their motives were.
Plan thwarted
The task team’s plan to reveal their names was unexpectedly thwarted when the NEC rejected the report because of ”procedural flaws”, centrally the fact that Masetlha sat in on some of the team’s proceedings and questioned witnesses. The NEC was also concerned that the use of ”Mr X”, an unidentified IT specialist referred to in the report, hacked into the computers of Scorpions investigators to demonstrate that the emails were authentic. The NEC dismissed the hacking as illegal.
If the NEC had accepted the report, the task team would have approached a judge to release the names.
Masetlha’s motive in summonsing Motlanthe is straightforward: he is accused of being central to the fabrication of the emails, while the report finds that other, as yet unnamed, actors are responsible. If the document goes public, the authenticity of the messages would have to be further investigated.
President Thabo Mbeki fired Masetlha last March, claiming their relationship had irretrievably broken down.
Ngcakani found that a secret NIA project launched by Masetlha posed ”the risk of undermining constitutionally protected party political freedoms and of descending into the abyss of abuse of state resources”.
According to Ngcakani’s report, Masetlha launched the project, dubbed Avani, in about July 2005, without informing Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils. Its aim was to evaluate the effect of the presidential succession battle on South Africa’s political climate.
Ngcakani found that the introduction of the emails into the NIA’s intelligence collection resulted in a climate of conspiracy that appeared to take key intelligence personnel ”to the brink of treason”.
It also found that the emails had been artificially constructed to look like electronic communications between senior government figures. These included businessman and NEC member Saki Macozoma, National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former National Prosecuting Authority boss Bulelani Ngcuka, Director General in the presidency Frank Chikane, Scorpions investigators Johan du Ploy and Izak du Plooy, University of the Witwatersrand journalism lecturer Anton Harber and M&G Online publisher Matthew Buckland.
The messages purportedly implicated them in a plot to thwart one set of contenders in the ANC succession race, principally Zuma and Motlanthe.
The state subsequently charged Masetlha, together with IT consultant Muziwendoda Kunene and NIA electronic surveillance manager Funowakhe Madlala of fraud involving R152Â 000 — the amount allegedly paid to Kunene by the NIA, and approved by Masetlha, to intercept electronic communication.
Motlanthe was unavailable for comment.
Timeline of events
December 2005: The so-called ‘hoax†emails are made public.
January 2006: Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils instructs Intelligence Inspector General Zolile Ngcakani to investigate the origin of the emails.
March 2006: Mbeki fires NIA boss Billy Masetlha, citing an irreparable breakdown of trust as a result of Masetlha’s alleged involvement in fabricating the emails.
March 2006: Cabinet accepts Ngcakani’s findings that the emails were a hoax fabricated by, among others, Masetlha to discredit senior ANC leaders close to President Thabo Mbeki.
March 2006: The ANC NEC rejects intelligence inspector general’s report that the emails were a hoax and agrees to an internal ANC inquiry.
April 2006: ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe appoints a task team, headed by struggle stalwart Hermanus Loots, to test the authenticity of the emails.
March 2007: ANC task team presents its report to the NEC. It finds that the emails are electronically genuine and has the names of those responsible but the NEC rejects the report because of ‘procedural flawsâ€.
April 2007: Masetlha’s lawyers subpoena the ANC’s email report from Motlanthe to form part of Masetlha’s fraud trial in July.