Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

A leading Scorpions investigator – who was arrested for drunk driving last month – has been named as one of the men behind an “extremely inflammatory”, “dubious” and “illegal” intelligence report on Jacob Zuma.

This is according to parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence (JSCI), which yesterday identified Western Cape Scorpion Ivor Powell as the man who produced the controversial December 2006 “Browse Mole” intelligence report.

Last month, Powell was arrested in Cape Town in the company of fugitive and alleged Americans gang leader Igshaan Davids and is currently on R1 000 bail on charges of drunk driving and defeating the administration of justice.

He was yesterday too ill to comment on the claims against him.

The JSCI also accused the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) of falling “prey to dubious activities of information pedlars”, some of whom were linked to foreign governments that aimed to create divisions within the ANC.

The JSCI’s attack on the Scorpions comes days after Zuma tried to use Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla’s complaints about the Browse Mole report – made to justify the suspension of prosecuting boss Vusi Pikoli – to try to persuade the Mauritian Supreme Court that the investigation against him was political.

The 2006 Browse Mole report claims that Zuma was being bankrolled by Angola and Libya to support his presidential ambitions.

It claimed Zuma was involved in a conspiracy to topple President Thabo Mbeki’s government. This conspiracy was apparently driven by left-wing groups, like the SA Communist Party, Cosatu and the ANC Youth League, alienated by Mbeki’s government.

The Browse Mole report further alleged that former SANDF chief Siphiwe Nyanda had raised the possibility of military support for Zuma and a possible military coup against Mbeki’s government during a meeting at the Nasrec exhibition centre outside Joburg in early 2006.

Others suspected of involvement in the conspiracy included lawyers for the killers of SACP general secretary Chris Hani and people associated with slain mining magnate Brett Kebble – whose murder reportedly sparked the Scorpions’ investigation into National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

According to the JSCI, the Scorpions believed the information contained in the Browse Mole report and “had in fact acted on it in order to pursue or consider prosecution”.

Following the report’s leak to Cosatu and later the media, the government’s National Security Council set up a task team to investigate its origins and the way in which the report had been compiled.

The JSCI’s special report, presented by chairperson Siyabonga Cwele, found that the motivation behind the report’s production was “primarily directed and targeted at gathering information on a known individual … the (then) deputy president of the ANC, Jacob Zuma”.

But the JSCI also revealed that the leaked Browse Mole report was not the same one that was finally given to Pikoli and Intelligence head Manala Manzini.

“The task team (investigating the leak) has demonstrated that the leaked document originated from senior special investigator Mr Ivor Powell and thereafter found its way to the public through pedlars and the media.

“In this regard, the task team found that (Scorpions head) Leonard McCarthy did not want to accept that the Browse Mole report was leaked by Ivor Powell. Yet it is not clear why Mr McCarthy refused the task team access to the computers of the Directorate of Special Operations and in particular of Powell.”