The elite crime fighting unit, the Scorpions, threatened the country's national security by employing risky and unvetted agents to raid the Presidency, President Thabo Mbeki's director-general, Frank Chikane, has told the Ginwala inquiry.

The inquiry is probing suspended prosecutions head Vusi Pikoli's fitness to hold office.

Chikane said yesterday that he was still not convinced that top-secret information had not found its way into enemy hands following the Scorpion's 2005 raid on former deputy president Jacob Zuma's offices at the Union Buildings and Tuynhuis.

The raid took place after Zuma was fired by Mbeki and charged with corruption.

"I do not know up to now whether or not the information was not compromised and that concerns me greatly," Chikane said during cross-examination by Pikoli's advocate, Wim Trengrove, SC.

"There was a concern that the people who were there technically to mirror-copy the computers were a technical group of people outside the government and we were concerned that you could use people who were connected (to) outside intelligence agencies," he said.

Chikane told the inquiry that he had managed to prevent the Scorpions from getting classified documents after the 2005 raid by locking them in a safe.

He said he could release them only to a properly vetted agent and when a mechanism for dealing with the information was established.

Chikane said he could not understand how Pikoli and Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy had failed to vet people as legislation demanded.

Pikoli admitted, through his former spokesman, Makhosini Nkosi, that some of the agents who raided Zuma were "undesirable".

Chikane was called as the second witness by government.

He told the inquiry that Mbeki had no objection regarding Pikoli's determination to pursue criminal charges against Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi.

"At no stage did the president ever say there is anybody in government that cannot be arrested … It's very clear in his mind that every official, no matter how high they are, if they have committed a crime they should be charged and sent to jail," he said.

However, Mbeki felt it was inappropriate for one state organ to raid another law enforcement agency, he said.

Instead, the president had agreed to facilitate a hand-over of the required information.

Today Pikoli's lawyers are expected to again ask the government to hand over a letter allegedly given by Mbeki to Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla two days before she ordered the NPA boss to desist from arresting Selebi.

The government's legal team has told Pikoli's lawyers that the document, whose existence was earlier denied by Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, and Justice Director-General Menzi Simelane, is "privileged".

With acknowledgements to Boyd Webb and Cape Argus.