Johannesburg — FORMER National Intelligence Agency (NIA) director-general Billy Masetlha continued to express his belief that his former boss, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, was responsible for removing him from office.

Masetlha, the agency's former technical manager Funokwakhe Madlala and information technology salesman Muziwendoda Kunene all pleaded not guilty yesterday to fraud relating to the African National Congress (ANC) hoax-e-mail saga.

The state claims that Masetlha defrauded the NIA when authorising the payment of R150000 to Kunene for reportedly intercepting e-mails and chatroom communications between highly placed ANC figures in 2005. These e-mails were presented to Masetlha's superiors as genuine.

The e-mails were purportedly between ANC officials seeking to discredit ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and the party's deputy president, Jacob Zuma. The inspector-general of intelligence, Zolile Ngcakani, investigated the communications and found them to be fabricated.

In a statement to the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court yesterday, Masetlha said the case against him arose from Kasrils's efforts "to dishonour and remove" him from office.

Masetlha was suspended in October 2005 following a finding by Ngcakani that he ran a parallel political intelligence campaign which included the e-mails.

His contract was terminated in March last year. Masetlha said he was not given reasons for his dismissal. The Constitutional Court will pass judgment tomorrow in Masetlha's appeal against his suspension and dismissal.

He is challenging last December's decision by Pretoria High Court Judge Ben du Plessis, who ruled a breakdown of trust was a lawful reason for President Thabo Mbeki's dismissal of Masetlha.

Du Plessis found that the appointment and dismissal of the head of the NIA were executive acts and could be performed by the president without regard to "procedural fairness".

Meanwhile, Kunene, in his plea explanation, admitted to supplying Madlala and Masetlha with intercepted electronic communications, but denied falsifying any e-mails. He said he had not retained any electronic communications.

Madlala said he had not admitted that the documents he received from Kunene were the same documents that the state was relying upon in its case.

Daniel Myburgh, a director at computer forensic analysis company Cyanre, told the court that the state had given him 74 pages of copies of electronic communications to analyse. Myburgh said the fact that he was given paper copies made it impossible for him to test the electronic routes of the communications.

However, Myburgh said he found a number of mistakes, such as wrong dates. "I felt that I could form an opinion regarding the authenticity of the e-mails based solely on mistakes in the contents of e-mails I received."

Myburgh said the computer's time and date were very important on e-mail communications because computers worked on an international time standard.

The trial continues.