Vanessa Brereton's former colleague, attorney Wayne Gray, has called on the Cape of Good Hope Law Society to investigate Brereton with the aim of striking her off the South African attorneys' roll.

Brereton, who dropped a bombshell this week by admitting that she was spy RS452, represented hundreds of detainees who were jailed in Port Elizabeth during the turbulent 1980s.

This gave her significant access to information being passed between the detainees and their families, some of which may have led to detainees unwittingly informing on their comrades.

Gray said if reports on her admission were accurate, she had breached attorney-client privilege. "This, at the very least, is unethical behaviour of an official of the high court."

Brereton worked at the Legal Resources Centre, and served with the National Democratic Lawyers Association (Nadel).

Former Eastern Cape activist Mkhuseli Jack said that Brereton was trusted by many of the detainees. The prisoners used her to smuggle letters and crucial bits of information to their families and other activists.

"She obviously knew lots of secrets, and could have forwarded damaging information to (the) police. She helped many comrades sort out their difficulties, especially those regarding their families," Jack says.

Port Elizabeth activists and legal sources have reacted with shock, dismay and anger to Brereton's confession. But her revelation has gone a long way towards clearing Bulelani Ngcuka, the prosecutions chief who is being investigated by the Hefer commission amid allegations that he was spy RS452.

African National Congress (ANC) veteran and former Port Elizabeth Blacks Civics Organisation (Pebco) general secretary Mike Nzotoyi worked closely with Brereton.

"She was responsible for smuggling money and letters into (St Albans) prison, and no one was arrested."

"She carried out her tasks in a satisfactory manner. We trusted her. However, I hold no grudge because she was also a victim of the apartheid system. She was doing a ... job," said Nzotoyi.

Former Port Elizabeth trade unionists and Eastern Cape ANC provincial MP Thobile Mhlahlo said, however, that he and other United Democratic Front (UDF) members had "reservations about some of the white liberals who came as helpers in the struggle. I will be glad if she could be called to the Hefer commission to testify. Maybe that will help us to know who betrayed our comrades in Port Elizabeth."

Former Eastern Cape UDF leader Stone Sizani, who is now chairman of the ANC in the Nelson Mandela metropolitan council, reacted with disbelief.

"Did she really say that? I am disappointed and shocked. This poses the question of how do we trust people we are working with in the politics? Our lives were at stake!"

Leading Port Elizabeth activist Janet Cherry said Brereton acted "completely unethically to be representing people. I feel very sad and very disappointed."

She said Brereton had done legal work for detainees and for a crisis centre that had been set up to find people who had been arrested, detained or missing.

Brereton had also attended meetings at Cherry's house and socialised with her friends. She learned that Brereton started out as an informer, and was recruited as a full police agent in 1986.

"We tried to phone her, but she would not return our calls or speak to us, which was confirmation that she was the spy

"I am glad she's come out. She was put under pressure by the commission, and it got to her."

Jack, however, has called for an end to the "witch-hunt" and naming of spies, saying it has potential to really damage relations and SA's spirit of reconciliation.

He said any investigation into the pasts of those who were spies was bound to create animosity especially if they no longer posed a threat.

"I've witnessed people being tortured with burning tyres on untested suspicion that they are spies. I do not wish to see SA go through that experience again," Jack said. With ECN activities. While we were both working for the ANC, I was working with the structures in Swaziland, while he was working with structures in Lesotho."

"I took steps to protect this (operational) information and no one outside our structure knew. The person who sold us out was not Ngcuka. It was Mr X, who has since passed away."

Ngcuka and others were called by the state to testify against Maqubela, but refused and were jailed for periods between three and five years.

"During the trial, you always suspected that someone, somewhere was selling out. It was quite clear to me that it could not have been someone from my group.

" It was someone with us, who was outside the country," Maqubela said.

Suspicions grew against Mr X when two of the ANC operatives he was with were executed in Swaziland, but he was spared.

Mr X was also Jolobe's main contact while he was in the country.

"Later I got to know that it was Mr X who sold us out. However, I cannot reveal his identity because it would not morally be proper for me to do so because of his family," Maqubela said.

The case against Ngcuka being alleged by Maharaj and Shaik was dealt another blow when advocate Kessie Naidu, the leader of evidence for the inquiry, said they had withdrawn their claim that Ngcuka was the apartheid agent codenamed RS452.

This followed the admission this week by former Eastern Cape human rights lawyers Vanessa Brereton that she was the agent who went by that name.

Maharaj and Shaik, and their lawyer Yunus Shaik, were not in attendance at the inquiry yesterday to cross-examine Maqubela.

Naidu said his secretariat had notified Yunis Shaik at the weekend that yesterday's testimony would be of interest to his clients.

With acknowledgements to Mike Loewe, Hopewell Radebe and the Business Day.