Cape Town - National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka on Sunday defended the "integrity" of the joint investigation team's report on the probe into the arms deal, saying much of the criticism was misplaced.

Speaking on SABC's Newsmaker programme, he denied allegations that the report was a "white-wash" or a "cover-up".

People who claimed this, had done so about 30-minutes after receiving the report of over 300 pages.

It was impossible to arrive at any conclusion on the detailed report after such a short time, and they must therefore have decided on their negative response beforehand.

Ngcuka said the investigation by his directorate, Auditor-General Shauket Fakie, and Public Protector Selby Baqwa had looked into all the allegations.

Some proved unfounded, while action was taken in other instances.

However, the investigations into some allegations of irregularities, such as "kickbacks" and conflicts of interest were still being pursued to see if any fraud or corruption had been committed.

Further arrests - other than Friday's arrest of Schabir Shaik, one of the bidders in the arms deal - would depend on the outcome of these investigations, Ngcuka said.

Shaik, brother of defence force acquisitions chief Chippy Shaik, was arrested in Durban and charged with being in possession of classified government documents.

Ngcuka said the investigating team had not yet subpoenaed Schabir Shaik, but "we will ... it is just a question of time".

The team had no idea where he had obtained the documents, and there was no evidence as yet that it had been from his brother, Chippy.

One could not just make assumptions.

"He will have to tell the court how he got it," Ngcuka said.

Regarding Schabir Shaik's claim in the media that he was a "scapegoat", Ngcuka said it was up to him to explain why this was so.

Ngcuka said although he hoped to wrap up the whole investigation into the multi-billion rand arms deal "as soon as possible", it was impossible to say exactly when.

With acknowledgement to Sapa and News24.