Former spy boss Billy Masetlha was on Wednesday accused of not being consistent in testifying in the Hatfield Community Court.
Prosecutor Matric Luphondo said Masetlha gave different versions of when a report requested by Inspector General of Intelligence (IGI) Zolile Ngcakani was compiled.
Masetlha is charged with contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act by withholding evidence from Ngcakani.
Luphondo contended Masetlha testified earlier he could not explain when the report wanted by the IGI was created.
Testifying under cross-examination, the former spy boss said he had a good recollection of when the report was compiled, and that this happened on September 30 2005.
However, records at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) showed the date was October 5 2005.
Masetlha said the report was dictated to his personal assistant after it had been compiled by NIA management and sent on September 30 by courier to the IGI’s offices.
”It is my personal assistant’s responsibility of feeding the information to the system. It’s not for me to ask when it was done; I don’t deal with administrative issues,” Masetlha said in seeking to explain the discrepancies.
Luphondo queried Masetlha’s testimony of who sent the report to the IGI
The former spy boss previously testified that head of counter-espionage James Ramabolana — not the courier — sent the report to the IGI, Luphondo said.
Masetlha said Ramabolana was meant to send the report to the IGI but got a courier to so instead.
Almost two hours of court proceedings were heard in camera on Wednesday.
The proceedings dealt with Project Fairwood, a top-secret report on a botched operation on surveillance of African National Congress businessman Saki Macozoma.
Masetlha’s attorney, Imraan Haffajee, took the witness stand and corroborated Masetlha’s testimony of supplying information to the IGI.
Haffajee said the case was difficult to handle as he had never dealt with the NIA before.
He said a request for extra information by the IGI could only be complied with after they had heard from the president.
As the information requested was for President Thabo Mbeki’s eyes only, Masetlha required permission to release its contents to the IGI.
The content of the report given to Mbeki was in Masetlha’s office, which he was barred from entering after his suspension, Haffajee said. — Sapa