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The investigation into how the National Intelligence Agency's secret "spy tapes" got into the hands of President Jacob Zuma's lawyers - which led to the scrapping of criminal charges against Zuma and ultimately to a change in government - has been completed, but the report is under wraps.
The Inspector-General of Intelligence, Zolile Ngcakani, who has an ombud role and oversees all intelligence services in the country, confirmed that his office had finished its investigation, but said its findings could not be made public because "the report has not yet been released to the appropriate authorities".
The investigation deals with the taped recordings of intercepted conversations between former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Bulelani Ngcuka, made towards the end of 2007.
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The conversation suggested that McCarthy was taking political instructions as to the best timing to bring fraud and corruption charges against Zuma. These recordings led to all criminal charges against Zuma being dropped.
Although the inspector-general's report on the spy tapes is under wraps, the inspector-general did reveal to the Pretoria News that his investigation had found that the intercepting of phone conversations involving McCarthy had been conducted by the NIA "lawfully in terms of a judicial direction".
The investigation also established that the police were spying on McCarthy at the same time. "We have found that the crime intelligence division of the police intercepted the phone conversations of McCarthy as part of an unrelated investigation, and such interceptions were conducted lawfully in terms of a judicial direction," Ngcakani said.
He said his office had extended its spy-tape investigation to include the police crime intelligence division after it had emerged in the court case of former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi that tapes had been released to him.
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