Mac Maharaj has admitted that Mo Shaik gave a document to former Sunday Times reporter Ranjeni Munusamy.

The leader of evidence at the Hefer Commission of Inquiry, Kessie Naidu SC, asked Maharaj whether he ever discussed the contents of the article - originated by Munusamy and published in the City Press - in which it was claimed that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was investigated by the ANC as an apartheid-era spy.

This came after Maharaj explained to the commission - which has been appointed to probe allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy and that he abused the power of his office - that Shaik, a former ANC intelligence head, had reconstructed the report that Ngcuka was a spy.

He said Shaik had reconstructed the report and showed it to top people in the ANC.

Sidestepping the question on why the report was reconstructed, Maharaj said he did not want to pre-empt Shaik's evidence.

He then went on to a fairly lengthy explanation as to how he had never asked who the people in the ANC were, suggesting that despite weeks of media speculation on the source of the Munusamy article, he had not asked Shaik about the matter.

But the former transport minister was clear when Munusamy asked him for his comments on the report that he was determined to go public with the spy allegations.

"Miss Munusamy's questions were on the basis that she would publish my remarks," he said.

"I wasn't concerned that it was going to be published. I knew it was going to be published ... it is quite possible that Shaik gave her the report," he said.

When Naidu demanded a straight answer, the commission chairperson, retired judge Joos Hefer, told Maharaj to answer.

"Did Mr Shaik give Munusamy the report?''

"Yes, Mr Shaik gave Ms Munusamy the report," Maharaj answered.

Earlier, Maharaj had testified that a letter to prison authorities and a docket in a high treason trial were the links that strengthened his suspicions that Ngcuka was a spy.

In the 1980s, Maharaj was the head of the ANC's operation Vula, a plan to bring struggle leaders into South Africa.

Yesterday he told the commission he had been informed by Shaik in 1989 that there was a spy in the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel). Later, he said, Shaik had concluded that the agent "in all probability" was Ngcuka.

Maharaj admitted that his main source of the spy information was Shaik, but in a painstaking cross-examination, Naidu queried the basis of Maharaj's conclusion.

Naidu also asked Maharaj about interviews he (Maharaj) had had with other witnesses before the commission. These were Ngcuka's friends and co-detainees and all denied that he was an apartheid spy.

Ngcuka was detained in the early 1980s for refusing to give evidence in the Pietermaritzburg High treason trial.

Naidu wondered how Maharaj and Shaik had come to be in possession of the dockets of that trial.

"Where did you get it?" Naidu asked. "The Director of Public Prosecutions is still searching for it in KwaZulu Natal."

Maharaj replied that Shaik claimed to have had the dockets since 1990. The pair needed statements in the docket to prepare their evidence for the commission.

Maharaj said it was very suspicious that there was no evidence in the docket to indicate when Ngcuka had been arrested and detained.

"When I was at Robben Island, spy prisoners were planted among us. We were suspicious that Ngcuka was recruited as an agent before he was arrested," Maharaj said.

"This case grows more curious and more curious by the day."

Maharaj also complained about the Department of Justice.

"From day one we were asked to help the commission, we wanted to be here and cross examine witnesses but the Department of Justice didn't pay for us."

He also told the commission that a confusion about the date and place where Ngcuka was detained had enhanced his suspicion about Ngcuka being a spy.

He quoted from a letter written to Leeuwkop prison in 1984 that deals with Ngcuka being registered at the office where the names of those classified as Africans were kept.

Witnesses, however, told the commission that Ngcuka was not at Leeuwkop prison in 1984.

Maharaj was pushed for details on a meeting he claimed to have had with President Thabo Mbeki, in which he told the president about the 1980s investigation into Ngcuka.

Maharaj at first did not want to answer, but he would say that apart from Mbeki, Deputy President Jacob Zuma, Police Commissioner Jackie Selbi, and several members of the ANC and the youth league were present at the meeting.

"The danger of Bulelani Ngcuka's conduct was utmost in my mind," Maharaj said.

He added that he had spoken to Mbeki before he was phoned by Munusamy but after he discussed the issue with Mo Shaik.

Cross examination of Maharaj was set to continue throughout the day. Ngcuka's legal team asked to cross examine him last.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis, Caiphus Kgosana, Melanie-Anne Ferris and The Star.