Cape Town ­ Director-general in the Presidency Frank Chikane insisted *1 yesterday that prosecutions head Vusi Pikoli was suspended because of his attitude to national security, and not to protect national police commissioner Jackie Selebi from prosecution.

Chikane, testifying to a special parliamentary committee which will decide if President Kgalema Motlanthe’s decision to fire Pikoli should stand, said that neither former president Thabo Mbeki nor then justice minister Brigitte Mabandla interfered with the independence of the national director of public prosecutions.

Sceptical opposition MPs demanded that Chikane explain why, if national security was the issue, there was no mention of it in Mbeki’s letter to Mabandla or in Mabandla’s letter to Pikoli at the time of his dismissal.

Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Tertius Delport said that Chikane’s position was “incomprehensible ” because the core of Mbeki’s letter to Mabandla asked about the evidence that had been gathered on Selebi, and did not deal with preparing the ground so that the arrest of Selebi did not harm national security.

Mabandla’s letter to Pikoli asked for details of evidence against Selebi, and ordered him to stop pursuing the route he had embarked on. “It was about the arrest and not about managing a threat to national security.”

Delport said that when Mbeki suspended Pikoli he again did not mention national security, but gave the “nonsense reason” that it was about an irretrievable breakdown in Pikoli’s relationship with Mabandla. National security was also never included in the terms of reference of the Ginwala inquiry, but now Chikane was insisting that the reason had always been about national security, he said.

African Christian Democratic Party MP Steve Swart pointed out that it was a matter of record that Mbeki had been briefed 10 times *2 on the Selebi issue, and that Mabandla had been briefed 13 times.

“Surely there had then been plenty of time to prepare a conducive environment for Selebi’s arrest without harming national security?” Swart said. He suggested that national security was now being used as an afterthought to justify Pikoli’s suspension.

Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille joined the fray, suggesting that the issue of national security was a “smokescreen”. She suggested that Mabandla’s letter instructing Pikoli to back off had been an illegal action *3.

The committee will continue its work next week, and is to decide by month-end whether or not to support Motlanthe’s decision to fire Pikoli.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.