ANTI-ARMS deal campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne wants the Seriti commission of inquiry into the multibillionrand arms deal to subpoena the ANC to produce what he describes as its internal inquiry and the receipt book of donations from procurement deal beneficiaries.

An initial request was turned down last month, said Crawford-Browne’s advocate Paul Hoffman, but further correspondence was on its way to arms deal commission chairman Judge Willie Seriti.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said it was not possible to comment on “an imaginary probe”, but anyone was free to approach the commission of inquiry.

“We are not part of it. If anybody wants to (make requests), the commission will have to decide on that,” he said. “Some people have a passion of hating the ANC. They will go to any length. They will have to tell us where are these donors.”

It is understood that the commission’s response to the initial request was that there is no evidence implicating the ANC before it and, if there were to be, the commission would deal with it as it deemed appropriate.

The request to subpoena the ANC is the latest move by the veteran anti-arms deal campaigner, who took President Jacob Zuma to the Constitutional Court, to institute an independent truth commission-style inquiry.

Crawford-Browne said he was pursuing the matter because South Africa bought weapons it did not need and could not afford.

When Zuma announced the two-year arms deal commission in September 2011, it was widely welcomed.

Meanwhile, it emerged this week that the DA returns to the Pretoria High Court on April 30 for an order of contempt of court, and to compel the National Prosecuting Authority and presidency to hand over documents and transcripts of the so-called spy tapes relevant to the 2009 decision to withdraw corruption charges against Zuma, shortly before the elections.