YEARS AGO

The Weekly Mail bugged the Hillbrow office of former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) regional boss “Staal” Burger after a lengthy investigation. The newspaper was probing allegations of police involvement in illegal activities and information that former members of the CCB, a military intelligence “dirty tricks” operation, were involved in “third force” types of destabilisation.

Burger obtained an urgent court interdict preventing the newspaper from continuing surveillance of him and disseminating information acquired through the bug. Advocate Gilbert Marcus argued that information should be allowed to be published if there was “overwhelming public interest” in it being made public.

September 4 to 10 1992