Ex-spy boss Fraser has duty to reveal state capture secrets – Cope

Former State Security Agency director-general Arthur Fraser – now National Commissioner of Correctional Services – is in the best position to know what led to state capture, Congress of the People (Cope) says.

It was reported on Monday that Fraser’s legal representative advocate Muzi Sikhakhane said he would lay bare to the State Capture Commission “secrets that relate to presidents and judges”.

Sikhakhane told the commission’s chair, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, that his client “is probably the only implicated person who has been accused of treason” and that he never received a 3.3 notice when former spies Gibson Njenje and Mzuvukile Maqetuka implicated him.

Cope national spokesperson Dennis Bloem said the “threat” by Fraser to expose presidents, parliamentarians and judges was welcomed, adding he had a duty to “come clean” and tell who was responsible for the state capture.

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“Mr Fraser knows very well that the Zondo Commission is not investigating state secrets. Its mandate is to investigate state capture and corruption.

“There are serious allegations before the commission against Mr Fraser that implicate him in wrongdoing. We want to hear about the R600 million Principal Agent Network (PAN),” Bloem said.

Bloem added: “Mr Fraser cannot hide behind the oath of secrecy that he took. Three of his former senior colleagues, Mzuvukile Maqetuka, Mo Shaik and Gibson Njenje, appeared before the commission and gave evidence and they never contravened any law.

Red-flagged

“They told the commission about what went wrong in the country and who is responsible for the mess we are sitting in.”

The PAN, which was abolished in 2011, was among the intelligence operations red-flagged in the State Security Agency high-level review panel report released last year.

The report found widespread abuse of the country’s intelligence services for political ends, including internal ANC factional battles.

The PAN had also become a talking point when investigative journalist Jacques Pauw released his book, The President’s Keepers.

According to Pauw, a “principal agent network” was simply jargon for spy handlers – people who engage and manage other spies on behalf of the intelligence agency.

The PAN had been described as another parallel intelligence structure that allegedly spirited away nearly R1 billion in state funds over three years, and diverted the intelligence mechanisms of the state to Fraser.

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