Leon said he had to date received no answer to his previous query regarding the dispatch in late February of an SA Air Force Boeing 707 to the Caribbean island state loaded with 150 R1 assault rifles, ammunition and assorted equipment.
"This is a most extraordinary thing in a constitutional democracy. If it wasn't for a journalist and a newspaper in Jamaica, we would never have known about this deployment," Leon told a press conference in Johannesburg.
The DA leader said he had taken legal advice on the matter from an advocate in Cape Town who advised him that the flight to Haiti amounted to the employment of the Defence Force as contemplated in the constitution as well as in the new Defence Act, and that government, by not reporting this deployment to parliament within the stipulated 14 days, was in breach of the law.
Leon added that there was every indication, short of government providing an alternative explanation that the shipping of arms to Aristide was also in contravention of the National Conventional Arms Control Act.
The facts could be rebutted, Leon said, adding that if documents, permits and end-users certificates for the apparently irregular export were available.
All government had to do to get in the clear was make them public.
Leon reminded journalists at his plush Sandton head office that Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo had earlier this month promised that Mbeki would respond in writing to allegations that he violated the Constitution by not informing Parliament of the employment of the Boeing.
"By close of business yesterday, we had not yet received a response from the Presidency".
Leon said Mbeki was usually prompt in his responses, often taking less than 48 hours to reply. His silence, particularly after Khumalo's promise of an answer was "strange". – Sapa.
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