But if you are a regular at The Daily Caveat, you read about it in this space more than a week ago. Here's what Reuters had to say:

S. Africa's police, spies squabble over elite unit

October 19, 2005
By John Chiahemen
Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's police and spy agencies are locked in a damaging power struggle that could undercut efforts to improve security in one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. A row over which government department should control the FBI-style Scorpions investigation unit has openly split President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet and brought into the open wrangling among heads of his intelligence agencies.

A special commission ended public hearings last week and will advise Mbeki whether the Scorpions should fall under police control, as their critics demand, or retain their elite status in the Justice Ministry's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Many analysts worry that bringing the Scorpions under the police -- whose poorly paid and poorly trained members are barely managing to cope with one of the highest crime rates in the world -- could further undermine the fight against crime.

"The Scorpions were set up to do their own part of crime fighting, and they do a good job -- better than some expected, perhaps," said political analyst Herman Van der Linde. In a submission to the commission, Mbeki's spy chief, Billy Masetlha, accused the Scorpions unit of compromising national security "because it relies on and interacts with foreign intelligence agencies".

According to a leaked version of the submission, he also said the unit's outsourcing of forensic work to foreign companies like Kroll International meant vital information could pass into the hands of foreign agencies. Masetlha was backed at the commission by national police chief Jackie Selebi and, surprisingly, by Justice Minister Bridgette Mabandla, whose ministry now oversees the Scorpions.

Opposing them were Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils and Vusi Pikoli, head of the NPA and its Scorpions unit, whose official name is the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO). Mbeki and his cabinet have denounced Masetlha's submission in which he named Scorpion agents he said were cooperating with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI5.

In a statement, the cabinet said it wanted to "distance government from statements ... which seek to question the integrity of officials employed in the DSO and to cast aspersions on cooperation that our institutions have with their international counterparts". Government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe told Reuters the submission "does not reflect our policy of cooperating with international agencies on issues like fighting terrorism".

TURF WARS

Masetlha, who until last year headed Mbeki's presidential intelligence unit, is director-general of the country's domestic intelligence network, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The NIA has become increasingly alarmed by the growing involvement of the Scorpions in external intelligence, notably their hunt abroad for South Africans suspected of working in the black market for nuclear components, security sources say.

But political analysts said underlying the row was Mbeki's contentious sacking of his popular deputy, Jacob Zuma, who was investigated by the Scorpions and charged with corruption in a case that has split the ruling African National Congress (ANC). As a former operative in the ANC's exiled armed wing during the fight against apartheid, Masetlha would have worked under Zuma, who was head of the ANC's military intelligence unit. Many NIA officials were in the same unit.

Critics say Mbeki has turned the Scorpions into an instrument for political vendetta. Zuma says the graft charges following the conviction of his former financial adviser were trumped up to prevent him succeeding Mbeki in 2009.

The original article appears here.

-- MDT

Labels: Department of Justice, Kroll