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Leaked spy report could be a fake – Mkhwebane

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Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has told police she has a leaked copy of the spy report that State Security Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba refused to officially hand over to her – but has cautioned that hers could be fake.

The continued dispute between the Public Protector and the minister over the classified spy report is evidenced in Mkhwebane’s affidavit, signed in Durban on March 12.

Attached to the affidavit is the criminal case that she opened last week against Letsatsi-Duba.

Mkhwebane’s apparent hesitation regarding the legitimacy of her report could serve as grounds to shield her from prosecution against Letsatsi-Duba’s countercharge that the Public Protector was in illegal possession of the classified state document and refused to return it.

Mkhwebane has said that her apprehension regarding the leaked report formed the basis for the request that Letsatsi-Duba provide the original copy, for the purposes of an investigation being conducted against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

“The purported report remains in my possession, but I am still not certain it indeed is a genuine, classified document,” writes Mkhwebane. Despite this, she adds, “I exercise confidential possession and control over it.”

Letsatsi-Duba faces three charges, writes Mkhwebane: “interfering with the functioning of the office of the Public Protector; obstructing and/or frustrating the Public Protector from executing her constitutional, sanctioned and lawful activities; and being in contempt of the Public Protector”.

Gordhan was implicated in claims of the existence of a so-called rogue unit at the SA Revenue Service during his time as finance minister. Mkhwebane was probing this complaint, which relates to the violation of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act.

Mkhwebane was probing this complaint, with relates to the violation of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act, in connection with the granting of pension to Irvin Pillay and his subsequent rehiring.

In the police statement, Mkhwebane says she had been in possession of the leaked document by February 15 or earlier, after it was “anonymously dropped off” at the Public Protector’s office in Hatfield, Pretoria.

Mkhwebane’s charges came just over a week after City Press reported that Letsatsi-Duba had pressed charges against the Public Protector for illegal possession of a classified state document – although Mkhwebane’s affidavit was signed two days after the City Press story.

Read: Spy boss charges Public Protector over classified report

In her affidavit, Mkhwebane says she voluntarily alerted Letsatsi-Duba during a meeting on February 15 that the leaked document – purporting to be the classified report on an investigation concluded by the office of the inspector-general of intelligence on October 31 2014 – was dropped off by unidentified sources.

“I must outrightly here state that at no stage during this meeting did the minister seek to view the document I had in my possession, purportedly the report I sought access to.”

At the end of the meeting, the minister undertook to furnish her with a declassified report. But five days later, Mkhwebane writes, she was taken aback when Letsatsi-Duba wrote to her “expressing dissatisfaction about the access by myself to the report”.

Mkhwebane goes on to say that Letsatsi-Duba “advised that I should employ several security measures relating to the handling of the report, whilst similarly threatening to lay criminal charges against me for being in illegal possession of the classified document”.

Eighteen days later, Mkhwebane learnt from a City Press report that the minister had laid criminal charges against her for illegal possession of the classified report.

According to the affidavit, the Public Protector subpoenaed Letsatsi-Duba on January 18 with two weeks’ notice to comply, by the end of the month.

But the minister missed the deadline.

Instead of the minister submitting the declassified report, the acting director-general of state security, Loyiso Jafta, requested an extension until February 6 to afford him “an opportunity to advise the minister”.

In contrast, writes Mkhwebane, the inspector-general of intelligence, Setlhomamaru Dintwe, appeared before her on January 31 and “indicated that he will consult the minister as the custodian of the report in terms of the Oversight Act, subsequent to which he will submit the document to my office”.

“It is my respectful submission that the minister’s failure to avail the declassified report, as subpoenaed, amounts to contempt of the Public Protector and also amounts to interference with the functioning of my office, and is therefore an offence,” says Mkhwebane in her affidavit.


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