Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille has acknowledged she named a dead man as one of six "enemies of the State" whom she wanted State investigators to probe in connection with the arms deal.

De Lille named Richard Carter (sic) - the deceased agent for arms contractor BAE Systems in South Africa who allegedly paid fees to the ANC - during a heated session in the National Assembly yesterday afternoon.

She also incorrectly spelt his surname as "Carter" instead of "Charter".

Confronted with her gaffe, De Lille was clearly taken aback. "I didn't know that he died - may his soul rest in peace," she said.

Charter was one of the men De Lille named in parliament yesterday as those who needed to be investigated and charged for their role in the arms deal.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel described De Lille as "a useful idiot" in the hands of those who failed to secure a slice of the lucrative arms deal and said it was "disingenuous" of the ID leader to parade the documents of anti-arms deal campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne as "the De Lille dossier".

De Lille used her parliamentary privilege, which protects MPs from defamation law suits, to name five others, who include:

Ron Haywood - then-chairman of Armscor, the State's arms manufacturer.

Chippy Shaik - brother of Schabir Shaik, the convicted advisor of former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, and then procurement chief at the Department of Defence.

Ntsiki Mashimbye - then-chairman of parliament's joint standing committee on defence who was entertained by Michael Woerfel, the German boss of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) who was charged with fraud and corruption along with former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni.

Vivian Reddy - the Durban businessman who has been closely linked to Zuma;

Jayendra Naidoo - the chief negotiator for the government's strategic defence procurement package, better known as the arms deal.

De Lille called on the National Prosecuting Authority to investigate why the government had paid $17 million more than the market price for each of the Hawk jets from British Aerospace and R750m more for each of the German frigates from Ferrostaal.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Michaels and the Cape Argus.