DA wants access to additional 'spy tapes' info

Johannesburg - The DA is making arrangements to get access to additional documents and recordings that were part of the so-called "spy tapes", the party said on Monday.

Twenty two documents were referred to in the documents handed over to the DA earlier this month but they were not part of the package, said DA federal executive chairperson James Selfe.

"We've been in touch with the State attorney and the advocate representing the NPA and we are in the process of making arrangement to get access to those additional documents, as well as get access to the other recordings that weren't transcribed as part of the so-called spy tapes.

"[This is to] ensure we get the proper context of those conversations and make sure the conversations transcribed and given to us were not cherry picked," he said.

Selfe said when the DA received the reduced record from Judge Noel Hurt, he himself made reference to documents which were referred to in the ones the opposition party received but were not part of the documents handed to Hurt.

The DA was handed the spy tapes earlier this month after the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the National Prosecuting Authority had to comply with a previous order to release the tapes. Zuma had opposed the move.

The recordings, internal memoranda, reports and minutes of meetings dealing with the contents of the recordings had to be provided.

The tapes, containing recorded phone conversations, allegedly reveal collusion between the former head of the Directorate of Special Operations (the now defunct Scorpions) Leonard McCarthy, and the NPA's former head Bulelani Ngcuka, to manipulate the prosecutorial process before the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007.

Zuma was elected ANC president at the conference. Former president Thabo Mbeki had been a contender for another term.

The charges were dropped shortly before Zuma was sworn in as president in 2009.

Then acting National Director of Public Prosecutions, Mokotedi Mpshe, said the tapes showed there was a political conspiracy against Zuma and so the case against him could not continue.