Mo Shaik says he has handed over a secret database containing information about 888 suspected apartheid government spies.

He has submitted a receipt to the Hefer Commission indicating he handed 10 CD-ROMs to the legal adviser of Intelligence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

This happened on Sunday and was witnessed by the deputy director-general of the SA Security Service, Shaik testified yesterday. "I am no longer in possession of this database," he said under cross-examination.

Shaik's testimony last week revealed that he kept the computer database even after the intelligence units of the former apartheid government and liberation movements were integrated after 1994.

It was compiled as part of the ANC's Project Bible, aimed at combating government infiltration of the then liberation movement. Shaik commanded Project Bible within South Africa.

When Shaik - currently an adviser to the Foreign Affairs Ministry - revealed his continued possession of the database, commissioner Joos Hefer advised him that he was probably committing a crime.

Legislation protects as confidential any information gathered during an intelligence operation. To disclose this without permission from intelligence authorities is a crime.

However, Shaik used spy reports from the database to reconstruct an apartheid-era intelligence report on National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka. The spy reports were stolen for Shaik from the files of the former security police.

His report concluded that Ngcuka was most probably apartheid government agent RS452.

Shaik handed this report to journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, who wrote a news story on the matter. He has since submitted the report on Ngcuka and its accompanying documentation as evidence to the Hefer Commission. Shaik told Hefer last week he regarded the database as belonging to the ANC. He said he would hand it over only if the ANC ordered him to do so.

A sigh of relief for a day off

It was day 14 of the Hefer Commission of Inquiry, and it rained. There wasn't much happiness to go around.

A kind of reserved grumpiness seemed to have settled over the members of the commission.

"It is Monday morning, Mr Shaik, and you are still under oath," retired judge Joos Hefer sighed when he finally managed to start the hearings for the day, 20 minutes late.

Advocate Marumo Moerane SC, representing National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, indicated his desire to wrap up Mo Shaik's cross-examination throughout the morning, but seemed to find something more to ask every time he turned a page.

Then the most energetic person seen at the commission so far - Ngcuka's attorney, Dumisani Tabata - arrived, climbing over desks and chairs to reach Moerane and drag him away for consultations, necessitating a tea break, for which all seemed grateful.

Shaik drew the first smiles of the morning. "I had an operation to the spine, which had some consequences, judge," he said, pointing to some medication that his brother Yunis tried to give him.

"Are you saying you have a pain in the neck?" Hefer asked, smiling.

"Exactly," Shaik said.

But the levity faded fast as Shaik refused to answer a question about his loyalty to Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

Luckily for all involved, the end was near, and with the conclusion of his evidence, Shaik proceeded to thank everybody, from President Thabo Mbeki to his own counsel.

And when Hefer adjourned the commission until tomorrow, gratitude was exactly the sentiment that everyone felt.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and The Star.