Maputo, Mozambique — Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi has denied any involvement in supposed arms deals with the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa in the early 1990s.

The police informant at the core of allegations that a former ANC general secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa, and two former provincial premiers, Matthews Phosa and Tokyo Sexwale, were plotting against President Thabo Mbeki, mentioned Mocumbi's name in his statement.

The informant, James Nkambule, claimed that a meeting had taken place in Maputo's Polana Hotel in late 1992, attended by Mocumbi, who was then Mozambican Foreign Minister. Others said to be present at a meeting discussing what to do with a a shipment of arms sent to the ANC from Ester Europe were Phosa, who was in charge of ANC security and the head of the ANC armed wing, Umkhonto we Siswe, Joe Modise. Chris Hani, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party is also alleged to have been present.

Since the ANC was no longer waging an armed struggle, the participants of the meeting, according to Nkambule, decided to sell the weapons, and a Kenyan middleman was used to sell them to Angola.

The disappearance of the 2.5 million US dollars made on this deal is supposed to have led to the assassination of Hani in 1993, and Nkambule claimed that Mbeki was involved in this killing.

But at a press briefing on Thursday, Mocumbi categorically denied that the Maputo meeting mentioned by Nkambule had ever taken place.

"I never attended any such meeting", said the Prime Minister, adding "none of these people met with me".

He said, "it was never the practice of the Foreign Ministry to be involved in practical actions of solidarity with the ANC during the struggle against apartheid".

He hoped that the South African investigators would handle Nkambule's statements "very attentively", and would "do their job properly".