Chikane says classified data may have been compromised in raid

The elite crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions, has threatened the country's national security by employing risky and unvetted agents to raid the presidency.

That is what President Thabo Mbeki's director-general Frank Chikane told the Ginwala inquiry, which is probing the fitness of suspended prosecutions head Vusi Pikoli to hold office.

He told the inquiry that he was still not convinced that top secret information had not found its way into "enemy hands" following the Scorpions' 2005 raid on ANC president Jacob Zuma's presidential offices at the Union Buildings and Tuynhuis.

This was after Zuma was fired by Mbeki and charged with corruption.

"I do not know up to now whether or not the information was not compromised and that concerns me greatly," Chikane said during cross-examination by Pikoli's advocate, Wim Trengrove SC.

Chikane told the inquiry, headed by former national assembly speaker Frene Ginwala, that he had managed to prevent the Scorpions from getting hold of classified documents after the 2005 raid by locking them in a safe.

He said he could only release them to properly vetted agents and when mechanism for dealing with the information was established.

Almost three years later, Chikane said that the documents were about to be scrutinised by the Scorpions for the first time.

"There was a concern that the people who were there to technically mirror copy the computers were a technical group of people outside government and we were concerned that you could use people who were connected to outside intelligence agencies," he said.

He said he "could not understand" how Pikoli and Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy had failed to vet people as legislation demanded.

Pikoli admitted, through his former spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi, that some of the agents who raided Zuma were "undesirable".

Chikane also expressed concern at the "manner" in which the Scorpions tried to raid the police's crime intelligence headquarters in Pretoria last year in an attempt to find incriminating evidence against National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

"The issue is not whether or not you can arrest or search the headquarters of the police, it's the way in which it was going to be done," Chikane said.

He said Mbeki had no objection regarding Pikoli's determination to pursue criminal chargers against Selebi.

Pikoli's lawyers were this morning expected to again ask the government to hand over a letter allegedly given by Mbeki to Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla two days before she ordered the NPA boss to desist from arresting Selebi.

The government's legal team has told Pikoli's lawyers that the document, whose existence was earlier denied by Mbeki's legal advisor Mojanku Gumbi and Justice Director-General Menzi Simelane, is "privileged".

With acknowledgements to Boyd Webb and The Star.