National security will be negatively affected if former intelligence coordinator Barry Gilder is allowed to testify in former police national commissioner Jackie Selebi’s corruption trial.
That is the thrust of State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele’s affidavit that was submitted to the South Gauteng High Court on Monday afternoon by his legal representative, advocate Marumo Moerane.
Judge Meyer Joffe postponed Selebi’s corruption trial to Tuesday for the state and Selebi’s defence team to prepare a response to claims by Cwele and newly appointed Director General of the State Security Agency Jeff Maqetuka.
Both Cwele and Maqetuka are opposing a subpoena served on Gilder to testify about a draft National Intelligence Estimate of 2005 that alleges the Kebble family was paying Selebi.
Chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel told the court Gilder was his last witness after which the state would close its case.
After calling Gilder to the stand, Moerane told Judge Joffe he was opposing Gilder’s evidence on the basis of affidavits by Cwele and Maqetuka.
Gilder was the chairperson of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (Nicoc) between 2005 and 2007. During this time the draft estimate was submitted to Nicoc.
Politically connected businessman Jurgen Kögl last week testified that he stumbled upon information that Selebi was allegedly being paid by the Kebbles when he performed a due diligence investigation of Maverick, the marketing company owned by Glenn Agliotti’s former fiancée, Dianne Muller.
This information landed up in the draft intelligence estimate, but Kögl said he didn’t know how.
Drug dealer Agliotti earlier testified that Selebi showed the document to him and that Selebi wanted to know who Kögl was.
Former prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli testified last week that after hearing about the draft estimate allegedly shown to Agliotti by Selebi, he followed the matter up and confirmed that the paragraph was not included in the final estimate.
According to Maqetuka’s affidavit, an estimate ”is the product of the process of considering and weighing the possibilities, probabilities and facts disclosed by national security intelligence with regard to any situation, and of drawing conclusions from such possibilities, probabilities and facts”.
Nicoc must coordinate all intelligence fed to it by the country’s intelligence agencies, the police and the defence force, and then interpret this for the Cabinet and president.
”The processes of the compilation of the National Intelligence Estimate are protected from disclosure by virtue of legislation — I believe that the introduction of any version of the National Intelligence Estimate as evidence in the abovementioned trial will bring into question intelligence methods, sources, processes and such matters and may prompt the calling of further intelligence witnesses in the trial,” wrote Maqetuka.
Nel said that he merely wants Gilder to confirm the existence of the document, but Moerane argued that he [Nel] could not guarantee that no questions would be asked about its content during cross-examination.
Arguments will resume at 2pm on Tuesday.