Former president Thabo Mbeki has filed an 82-page statement to the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into delayed Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) prosecutions denying multiple claims including that he held secret discussions with apartheid generals and former president FW de Klerk.

The much-anticipated appearance of former president Thabo Mbeki at the Khampepe Commission set down for two days from 19 October is a significant moment in the inquiry's almost year-long sitting.

The former statesman has been accused by the families of victims of human rights abuses, known collectively as the Calata Group, represented by Lukhanyo Calata, the son of murdered Cradock Four activist Fort Calata, of actively suppressing TRC prosecutions.

Mbeki, in a statement filed with the commission on 5 October, has categorically denied this, placing the blame squarely at the door of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Recalling British wartime president Winston Churchill, Mbeki noted "the elaborate steps" the Allies had taken during World War 2 to mislead the Germans, thus protecting Normandy with "A Bodyguard of Lies". This, he added, was the strategy deployed by the NPA.

In failing to "discharge its duties" and seeking to blame the executive "it would seem to me that some in our country have spent a considerable amount of time and energy to manufacture a Bodyguard of Lies to hide the truth about why the cases referred to the NPA by the TRC were not prosecuted and who was responsible for this gross...