African National Congress chairman Mosiuoa Lekota today confirmed he was present at a meeting over a plea bargain deal apparently struck between the then prosecutions chief Bulelani Ngcuka, former justice minister Penuell Maduna and disgraced ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni.

Lekota was reluctant to reveal details about the meeting.

"I don't really want to talk about it," he said in an apparently contradictory interview. "The other thing is (that) when the people were discussing these issues, wherever they were discussing it, I was not there.

"I can only tell you what I was told."

ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe, who was also named by sources as one of those who attended the meeting, said he knew nothing about it.

Lekota's admission is the first after a day of silence on the controversy by the ANC.

Yengeni called a meeting at ANC headquarters to discuss his alleged betrayal by Maduna and Ngcuka after he had pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud arising out of the arms deal.

Yengeni claimed that Ngcuka and Maduna has reneged on a plea bargain deal that he would be fined no more than R5 000.

Instead Yengeni was jailed for four years.

The Cape Argus has been told that the plea bargain meeting - in February 2003 - was attended by Defence Minister Lekota in his capacity as the party's national chairman, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe, Maduna and Yengeni, among others.

The ANC's silence follows Ngcuka's rejection of Yengeni's claims as "a contrived version of truth".

"Mr Yengeni's version is going to be exposed in court as a contrived version of the truth," Ngcuka said yesterday through spokesman Sipho Ngwema.

According to Ngwema, Ngcuka has confirmed that a meeting took place between himself, Yengeni and Maduna, and that "the principle of the matter" was discussed.

Ngwema said the details of the deal were worked out between the prosecution and defence teams.

Ngcuka denied making any deals himself, Ngwema said. "He could not have done that. It was not within his powers. The most puzzling thing is why it has taken two years for Mr Yengeni to come up with this distorted version."

Yengeni, sentenced in 2003 to four years' jail after being convicted of defrauding parliament, is now asking the Pretoria High Court to review his conviction and sentence and overturn both.

In an affidavit before the court, he says he agreed to change his plea of not guilty on corruption charges to guilty of fraud after Ngcuka promised he would be fined no more than R5 000.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Michaels and the Cape Argus.