Mac and Mo wheel out a gallery of spooks

Published Nov 22, 2003

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By Christelle Terreblanche

Mo Shaik and Mac Maharaj consulted a line-up of former enemy sources to find proof that Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid agent.

Reliable sources close to the Hefer Commission, set up to probe the spy allegations, said the two launched a "formidable investigation" to prove their allegations, along with a media campaign to bring it in the public arena, that seems "reminiscent of a Stratcom operation".

Stratcom was a disinformation system devised by the apartheid military to confuse their opponents. The main source for the allegations, however, was a set of databases set up during the 1980s by Shaik, who headed an intelligence unit for the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.

He acknowledged before Judge Joos Hefer that he still maintains the database with information on 888 suspected former agents, and that he was never requested by the state or the ANC to hand it over to the intelligence structures.

This admission has raised serious political and legal questions for the government and the ANC.

It was from these files that Shaik last year reconstructed a 1989 report, which he claimed provided evidence that Ngcuka was a spy at the time.

Maharaj and Shaik then went out to fish for more information that could prove their allegations, consulting a virtual rogue's gallery of former operatives.

Here are some of the names that came up as their sources this week:

- Mike Kuhn allegedly spearheaded the accusers' search for more evidence over the last few months.

Shaik, who was bitterly unhappy that Kuhn was uncovered in the commission, said his agent told him that "the buzz in the intelligence community was that Ngcuka had worked for (the apartheid state)". Kuhn advised Shaik that to prove the allegation, he had to find his handler. But it seems Shaik failed.

Kuhn was a "Z-squad" member - a unit active in early 1970s sabotage against the liberation movements.

Kuhn then became head of division K, which handled apartheid sources overseas. Kuhn allegedly also acted as a go-between for chemical and biological expert Wouter Basson, when he offered his skills to foreign countries. He now runs his own private security company, called International Business Information Services in Pretoria.

- Michael Snow, a former British secret agent living in South Africa and working as a private investigator. Maharaj denied Snow had been consulted directly. However, reliable sources place him along with Kuhn as investigators on behalf of the accusers during the last few months. Snow is said to own a number of companies that are not active.

- Gideon Nieuwoudt: a notorious former security policeman, mainly active in the Eastern Cape during the 1980s.

Nieuwoudt was involved in numerous murders of liberation activists, including Steve Biko, student activist Simphiwe Mtimkulu and the "Motherwell Four", black policemen who were ambushed and killed. He was refused amnesty for the "Motherwell Four" and a special amnesty committee is being set up in accordance with new legislation to provide for a review of the refusal.

If he fails amnesty again, he will fight an appeal on an earlier conviction on the matter. Maharaj acknowledged Nieuwoudt was one of the people who detained him in 1990, during Operation Vula.

During cross-questioning of Maharaj before the commission, Nieuwoudt was uncovered as SBZ, one of three security branch operatives who provided "evidence" in an e.tv documentary that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy. The programme was filmed at Shaik's house in August. Shaik testified that Nieuwoudt told him that RS452 was Vanessa Brereton, but nevertheless raised questions about Ngcuka's past. Shaik acknowledged he paid the men's expenses

- Dirk Coetzee: Former commander of the notorious Vlakplaas base, and site of interrogation and torture during the 1980s. Shaik told the commission Coetzee had said that there was an apartheid intelligence source in the office of lawyer Griffiths Mxenge, who was murdered, along with his wife Victoria, by Coetzee's squad. Ncguka at one time worked for Mxenge's law practice.

"ANC intelligence believes that Mxenge asked Ngcuka to leave, because he did not believe Ngcuka shared his strong belief in the ANC," Shaik told the commission.

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