Bulelani Ngcuka
Image by: Tyrone Arthur

Former National Prosecuting Authority boss Bulelani Ngcuka believed that the Zuma spy tapes were twak*1 (rubbish) and demanded to be told how Jacob Zuma's lawyer, Michael Hulley, came in to possession of them.

This is some of the new evidence contained in documents seen by the Sunday Times over the past two weeks.

Ngcuka was recorded on the tapes, allegedly interfering in the prosecution of Zuma with former Scorpions chief Leonard McCarthy.

Former NPA chief Mokotedi Mpshe dropped all charges against Zuma on April 6 2009, because Ngcuka - by then no longer with the NPA - was allegedly manipulating the proposed prosecution of Zuma.

Ngcuka and McCarthy were allegedly campaigning for former president Thabo Mbeki to be re-elected as ANC president at the national party conference in Polokwane in December 2007. The two men were allegedly plotting to charge Zuma just before the ANC conference, or days after he had unseated Mbeki.

Mbeki, it is alleged in the newly obtained documents, rewarded Ngcuka by naming his wife, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, to replace Zuma as deputy president.

According to the documents, Ngcuka was interviewed by Scorpions advocates Billy Downer, Johan du Plooy and George Baloyi at his Sandton offices on March 20 2009, just weeks before the charges against Zuma were dropped.

Ngcuka, in the presence of his two legal advisers Dumisani Tabata and Lungisa Dosi, claimed that the recording was a gross violation of his privacy and called it twak. Ngcuka did not deny he was the person recorded talking to McCarthy but said the recording did not show wrongdoing.

He confirmed that he had arranged a private meeting between McCarthy and Mbeki on December 22 2007 - two days after Zuma was elected ANC president. But he stressed that the meeting was arranged so that McCarthy could ask Mbeki to release him from his NPA contract so that he could join the World Bank, which he did on June 25 2008.

Ngcuka "emphasised that he has never sat in any room and conspired against Zuma" and was concerned that the people who alleged that he was an apartheid spy had made the Zuma tapes*2.

He claimed it would have been wrong to charge Zuma just before the Polokwane conference and that it would have been equally wrong to charge him immediately afterwards because it would have been seen as "a vendetta against Zuma".

Ngcuka denied that he campaigned for Mbeki to be re-elected.

With acknowledgement to Mzilikazi wa Afrika, Rob Rose, Stephan Hofstatter and Sunday Times.