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The
Hefer Commission heard more yesterday about Mac Maharaj's
alleged "fishing" for clues to substantiate his spying allegations
against chief prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka.
A second witness, Letha Jolobe, testified that Maharaj contacted
him recently to inquire about Ngcuka's activist past.
This happened only after Maharaj and Foreign Affairs special
advisor Mo Shaik had alleged that Ngcuka might have been an
apartheid spy.
Jolobe, a chief director in the Housing Department, said Maharaj
kept calling him until he told the former minister that he did not
want to engage with him "if it was not in a legally constituted
forum.
"I felt it was not the correct thing to do," Jolobe told Judge Joos
Hefer.
"After that he stopped calling".
Jolobe said he was confident that Ngcuka was never a spy, "and I
don't think he'll ever be one".
He said Maharaj created the impression that he was still fishing to
substantiate his allegations against the national director of
public prosecutions.
"My first impression was that it was strange to level the
accusations and then investigate only afterwards," Jolobe
added.
Another of Ngcuka's former comrades-in-arms, attorney Ntobeko
Maqubela, told the commission on Wednesday that Shaik and Maharaj's
lawyer had contacted him with a similar request.
She wanted information about Ngcuka's possible role in Maqubela's
arrest in the early eighties by the apartheid government's security
police. This request also came after the allegations had been
levelled in early September.
Maqubela, Jolobe and Ngcuka were among a group of anti-apartheid
activists who were arrested in 1981 by security police in the
Durban area.
After their trial, Maqubela and two others were convicted of
treason.
The rest, including Jolobe and Ngcuka, were jailed for refusing to
testify against their three comrades.
Jolobe told Hefer that Maharaj had contacted him through Ricky
Nkondo, general manager of the National Intelligence Agency's
operational co-ordination.
Jolobe first called Nkondo to invite him to his wedding.
The NIA manager responded by saying there were "some people" who
wanted to talk to him (Jolobe).
"Hardly five minutes later", Maharaj, whom Jolobe did not know
personally, called him on his cellphone for the first time.
Jolobe testified that he got the impression Maharaj and Nkondo had
been together and that the NIA manager might have been briefing the
former minister. – Sapa.
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