Kasrils: NIA still credible
2008-07-03 17:13
Pretoria - The National Intelligence Agency has not lost its credibility, Intelligence Services Minister Ronnie Kasrils said on Thursday.
"It is untrue...they have not lost their credibility," Kasrils told reporters at a seminar on intelligence and democracy in Pretoria.
The minister was responding to a comment from Democratic Alliance leader Sandra Botha that the intelligence services appeared to have a "lack of support" from government.
She was referring to recent xenophobic attacks which she said could have been prevented.
On the question of whether the NIA could have predicted the attack which began in May and led to the loss of over 60 lives, the minister said "this was difficult to predict".
"We are talking about socio-economic root causes in society. I am not saying that we couldn't have done better," said Kasrils.
He added that the tendency to criticise intelligence services was "quite amazing" saying that the service was being projected in a bad light.
- SAPA