IT specialist Muziwendoda Kunene — one of the men allegedly behind the hoax email saga — was shot in Pretoria on Wednesday.
National spokesperson Director Sally de Beer said Kunene sustained a flesh wound when he was shot in the hand at around 8am in Lynwood Road.
Kunene received medical attention on the scene and was taken to a local hospital for further treatment.
De Beer said a case of attempted murder had been opened and a full investigation would be conducted by experienced detectives.
Former spy boss Billy Masetlha, Kunene and former National Intelligence Agency (NIA) manager for electronic surveillance Funokwakhe Madlala are facing charges of fraud amounting to R152 000.
The charges relate to alleged hoax emails implicating senior African National Congress (ANC) members in a conspiracy against former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
Talk Radio 702 said it was understood that two men came up to Kunene and accused him of fraternising with the media. He then tried to run away and was shot in the hand.
Conjured up story
The incident comes after Kunene claimed that senior members of the ANC were plotting to assassinate him.
The ruling party on Wednesday dismissed his claims as a ”conjured-up story”.
”It is a completely conjured-up story… the ANC has nothing to do with him, he has nothing to do with the ANC and he is not a member of the ANC and he is not part of any ANC structures,” said the party’s head of the presidency, Smuts Ngonyama.
He was responding to a 702 report in which Kunene claimed that there was a plot to assassinate him before the party’s national conference in Polokwane in December.
The report said that powerful individuals in the party were trying to silence Kunene.
He told 702 that while working for the National Intelligence Agency, he came across information linking senior politicians to corruption and bribery. He said this had led him to believe that there was a plot to kill him.
He said he was under constant surveillance and that his recent hijacking was proof that he was being targeted.
Kunene stands accused under the Intelligence Services Oversight Act of withholding information from the Inspector General of Intelligence by failing or refusing to provide a response on questions put to him.
The saga involves fake emails between ANC leaders, discrediting ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.
Meanwhile, the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court heard in October that the emails allegedly fabricated by Masetlha and his two co-accused were created by an amateur.
State witness Daniel Myburgh said that the emails he was tasked with investigating had technical mistakes, such as double brackets, which an expert would have spotted.
This was in reply to a question by Masetlha’s defence attorney, Neil Tuchten, on whether the emails might have been created by someone who was ignorant about email protocol, as the accused were experts in their respective fields.
When Tuchten asked why someone would go to the trouble of fabricating the emails, Myburgh said: ”In the light of the content, it would be done to mislead.” – Sapa