He added that it sometimes took 20 years to unmask an informant.
This was Shaik's response when asked by commissioner Joos Hefer how he now rated the chances that Ngcuka had acted as an agent for the apartheid government.
According to earlier evidence before the commission an intelligence analysis conducted by Shaik around 1989 concluded that Ngcuka was "most probably" a spy.
"I really feel for you," Shaik told Hefer yesterday.
"There is no way in which you can establish with your terms of reference or time frame whether anyone was a spy or not. If you do, I'll marvel at your counter-intelligence abilities".
Shaik maintained that names were not lightly put to intelligence reports raising suspicions about probable spies.
However, he had been told that the general buzz in intelligence circles, current and former, was that Ngcuka did work for the former National Intelligence Service (NIS).
For this reason he decided to name Ngcuka in the particular report, which he later handed to a journalist.
An emotional Shaik then admitted that mistakes had been made during the liberation struggle in the identification of suspected informers.
This had had "terrible consequences", Shaik said, apparently struggling to hold back tears.
He almost broke down when saying he was slow to react on "information" he acquired around 1989 and 1990. "As a consequence, people died".
Shaik again seemed to lose control when his cross-examination appeared to move towards his own interrogation and torture during the liberation struggle.
He threatened to get up and leave the witness box if evidence leader Kessie Naidu reminded him of his "humiliation" in this regard.
"You have no experience of torture, so you respect it," Shaik practically cried out at Naidu.
"If you don't respect it, I'll leave now!" Shaik's cross-examination will continue yesterday afternoon. – Sapa.
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