The spy who saved Zuma, twice

Arthur Fraser’s strategic incompetence is paying off for Jacob Zuma [View this email in your browser]( September 8, 2021 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, The department of correctional services will neither name the former president’s condition nor confirm whether the medical advisory parole board was convened before his appeal for parole was granted by Correctional Services Commissioner Fraser on 5 September. The timing of Zuma’s unknown malady and the alacrity with which Fraser made the decision to place the erstwhile leader on medical parole inevitably led to questions about fairness and propriety. Couple this with the equally odd [refusal to confirm the exact nature of Zuma’s ailment]( and those questions become deafening. Fraser, [News24 has reported]( is in the last two weeks of his contract … and will not be renewing it. Some of us smuggle out company stationery during our last days at work; Fraser thought it better to bail out a buddy. Zuma was jailed for being in contempt of court, and the judgment that sent him to prison for 15 months was taken to a rescission hearing. The Constitutional Court [has not yet ruled on the application]( to rescind its entire judgment. Given their prior relationship — Fraser served as Zuma’s spy chief — it makes sense to question Fraser’s conduct, which hasn’t always been above board. Let’s call it strategic incompetence, shall we? Be so rubbish at a task that no one asks you to do it again. To recap: [In April 2009]( the Mail & Guardian established from three independent sources central to the criminal charges against Zuma that it was Fraser, who was then the National Intelligence Agency’s deputy head, who had leaked the secret recordings that ultimately let him off the hook to Zuma’s lawyers. The recordings of bugged conversations between former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and other roleplayers — including former president Thabo Mbeki, former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils and former prosecutions boss Bulelani Ngcuka — paved the way for the National Prosecuting Authority to abandon its corruption case against Zuma. At the time, acting NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe announced that the secret connivance between McCarthy and Ngcuka amounted to an “intolerable abuse”. Later, as director general of the State Security Agency, Fraser commandeered a parallel intelligence army that served Zuma, the Zondo commission heard earlier this year. Fraser personally signed off on payments of [R20-million to the African News Agency]( as part of a covert operation code-named “Project Wave” to co-opt the media during the last years of the Zuma administration. In the Zuma era, South Africa became what the M&G called a “spy nation”. There were all sorts of security, quasi-security and quasi-intelligence figures hovering about, and a range of strange “reports” from such figures that served the interests of particular powerful politicians. Zuma, having been the ANC’s own security chief for so long, no doubt played into this: he seemed to trust and rely on spies and securocrats more than he did any of his cabinet ministers or senior party leaders. And for this episode of Zuma’s Zany Antics, it seems to have paid off. Fraser, who was appointed as correctional services national commissioner in September 2016 by Zuma, is set to vacate the role in less than two weeks’ time. His contract will not be renewed. The official opposition says it will submit an access to information request to correctional services for the records of the parole board’s decision to grant medical parole. In the statement announcing his release, the department of correctional services does not mention or make reference to receiving a report from the medical advisory parole board, but suggests they made the decision based on a report by the former president’s own doctors. Zuma is still in hospital, but will be released into the care of his doctors and family. He has served less than two months, after being imprisoned on 7 July. He was due back in court on 9 September to argue his special plea that the corruption case against him be thrown out because of NPA prosecutor Billy Downer’s alleged bias against him; [this court date has now been postponed to 20 and 21 September](. The Ramaphosa administration has so far been sanguine and leisurely in dealing with Zuma. If you’re hoping there’ll be any sort of serious scrutiny about how Fraser came to his decision, forget it. With our intelligence agencies, past and present, having become used to carrying out acts of malfeasance — enough to make it clear that they are by no means always honourable or obedient to civil authorities — it is highly unlikely we will get to the bottom of this parole palaver without heading to the courts. Until next time, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change which mails you receive from Mail & Guardian? 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