"It was far from the truth" *1 that National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Vusi Pikoli was suspended for arresting national police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, the Ginwala Commission heard on Wednesday.

"At no stage did the president or myself say no official in government could be arrested," Director General in the Presidency Reverend Frank Chikane told the commission.

He said the problem was "the way in which it was going to be done".

This, especially when dealing with "sensitive matters of crime intelligence and military intelligence and so on".

Chikane told the commission he had facilitated an NDPP request for documents from criminal intelligence.

He was therefore surprised when the NDPP asked for a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki. He presumed it wanted to hand over a report on the outcome of its findings.

"Instead of a report... (Pikoli) arrived to say 'President I have now acquired the warrant'; it was contained in a black bag."

Chikane -- who was present at the meeting -- said Pikoli's attitude appeared to be one of: "It doesn't matter what process you set up, I'm going to do it my way".

This was in spite of Chikane having pointed out to him that he would need the assistance of the Commander-in-Chief, Mbeki, to do so.

Chikane also expressed concerns about the manner in which the NDPP went about conducting search and seizures at the Union Buildings, in Pretoria, and Tuynhuys in Cape Town.

He had asked Pikoli whether the operatives who conducted the search had been vetted by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Pikoli told him he was unsure and would ask Gauteng Scorpions' head Gerrie Nel.

Pikoli did not even know who was going to the Union Buildings, Chikane told the commission.

"What I expected, if you are going to search the office of the President of the country, you make sure everything is done in accordance with the law," he said under cross-examination by Tim Bruinders for Pikoli.

The NDPP had failed to take into account that its operative and the private company engaged to carry out the search and seizures needed to be vetted by the NIA.

Both venues were national keypoints and the documents were of varying degrees of classification.

"... You would expect a state entity would understand that and take it seriously," Chikane told the commission.

"I can't stop search and seizures, but I have a responsibility to ask 'are these people vetted to conduct the search and seizures?'"

Chikane told the commission that in his involvement in the Heffer commission into leaks, he had also found that Scorpions officials were not appropriately vetted for the tasks they had performed.

With acknowledgements to Sapa.