Former Eastern Cape human rights lawyer Vanessa Brereton claims to be the apartheid-era government spy National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka has been accused of being.

In an interview with Independent Newspapers Brereton, who now lives in London, claims to be Agent RS452.

She is apparently drawing up an affidavit to be presented at the Hefer Commission, established to explore the allegations against Ngcuka, who was linked to the codename RS452.

Ngcuka's accusers, former transport minister Mac Maharaj and defence department advisor Mo Shaik confirmed, at the time that the allegations against Ngcuka became public in September this year, that Ngcuka had been suspected of spying against his anti-apartheid activist colleagues.

In the interview Brereton admits to being the spy.

"I was RS452 and I have had enough of the lies and deceit," she is reported to have said.

She casts no light on whether Ngcuka was a spy for the apartheid government.

According to the article commission secretary John Bacon has confirmed that he has asked Brereton for an affidavit, and that the commission might want to hear her testimony. She is reported to be reluctant to travel to South Africa, and there appears to be a possibility that the commission will travel to London.

Brereton said in the interview that she was recruited by security police operative Karl "Zac" Edwards, who was a Bureau for State Security agent too. He recruited Brereton as a fellow anti-communist and was her handler throughout her six-year involvement in spying on "leftists" such as Molly Blackburn.

In the interview Brereton says she began to doubt her involvement with the apartheid state's security forces some time before her misgivings reached a climax in 1989 with the killing of three black security policemen and an askari -- the name given to an African National Congress operative who turned to work for the apartheid state.

Brereton gives no reasons for her work as a spy. She says she has come forward now to set the record straight about Ngcuka and to expose the secret past.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and the Business Day.