Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-11-19

UNKNOWN: Well yes, whatever it was but one can even indicate that this may be an even clearer case than the case of robbery because in a case of robbery the act committed, except in rare circumstances, does not have a political objective in mind.  I know that many people convicted of robbery are saying that we did it for the cause.  There was even a case, not in this country, in another country that he was a robber and said no, no, no, he was committing lots of bank robberies in order to keep the police busy so that they wouldn't chase political - his comrades, that was his contribution to the struggle.   So the circumstances must be taken not in isolation, it's not only this but it's coupled with the other unusual features that we have referred to and on top of that the gain.
	The purity of their political belief is coloured and negative.  Let us pose the question, Mr Chairperson and I think Mr van Zyl is the clearest example.  Would Mr van Zyl have done any of this if it was not financially attractive to him and on the probabilities the answer must be a simple one.  He wouldn't have done it and we only need his own evidence and his own undisputed behaviour that as soon as his business really got of the ground his patriotism came to an end and he became a successful man in the security business and he tell us in the Heads of Argument filed on his behalf how much good he has done the country.
	And then if we turn to paragraph 1 on page 10, I would like to refer you in relation to support of that, of the misappropriation of the funds that were intended for the ELC.  It's in paragraph 126 and here we have - it doesn't matter which of the two is to be believed.  What we do know is that R12 000 was taken.
	What patriotic fervour led one or both of them to do this and there is a conflict.  They were both unsatisfactory witnesses.  We remain with the one proven fact, admittedly proven fact that the R12 000 was not paid to Hardien.  Because there are unsatisfactory witnesses the negative finding must be made against both of them that probably both of them received it without actually preferring Van Zyl as a witness to that of Burger.
	Now in relation to - and I might as well deal with it before I deal with the conspiracy to assassinate Minister Dullah Omar and because we are going to rely on the evidence of Mr Barnard, I want to refer to the indignantly strong submissions made against Mr Barnard and his credibility.  We would submit that the evidence of Barnard must be approached with grave caution, careful consideration, because when we deal with the evidence of accomplices, of course we have to warn ourselves against the danger of the ability of the accomplice to implicate people because he knows the facts, with the usual thing that in Kanana's case that Schreiner spoke about, we don't have to develop it.
	 But let us see what Mr Martini left out in his indignant attack about Mr Barnard.  Firstly, Mr Barnard was chosen as a partner of Mr van Zyl's crime with Mr van Zyl knowing who Mr Barnard was and Mr van Zyl is not allergic to lying and I will give you a number of examples.  Firstly, he lied when he said that he forgot to tell the CCB about ...(intervention)

MR LAX: He lied to the CCB.

UNKNOWN: He lied to the CCB when he says that he forgot to tell them about the Kombi and the printing press.

UNKNOWN: He failed ...(inaudible) his projects, he took the money.  He took no steps to recover the money if in fact was paid to a mythical perpetrator.  Again, what is the strength of his political motive if that is what he is prepared to do about the monies of the body which he joined.  I would refer to paragraph B10 where you will find references to these matters, Mr Chairperson.
	On the evidence he lied to his superiors about losing Barnard as an operative over a period of months.  The evidence of Mr Burger in this regard is clear that Mr van Zyl made reports to him regularly and in none of these reports was the fact that he had employed Barnard mentioned.  
	Thirdly, he lied in his amnesty application when he said that he had paid Hardien to burn down the printing press.  You will find that in B9.  Ten years afterwards he tried to justify this in truth by substituting Hardien by Peaches, an inventive piece of evidence, knowing that Peaches is no longer alive.  
	While we're about it, Mr Chairperson, Mr van Zyl is a very good manipulator of fact.  An honest man, when he came here, when he knew that Mr Hardien was an important witness on what happened at the training centre, would you not of expected him, Mr Chairperson, to say "I have taken Mr Hardien into my employ from March last year", coincidentally at a time when the preparation for the hearing of the applications for amnesty was being prepared that we were talking about dates?  He was buying his loyalty.  And it was "how can we trust anything that Hardien may say to corroborate Mr Van Zyl" and vice versa.  He manipulated the truth in order to show that he is an honourable man who apologises for the wrongs done.  It turns out from matters that he had to admit, published by Mr Evans and we refer you to B12, that he didn't apologise.  In fact - in fact he said in 1990 that if he had his way he would have done exactly the same.  He lied about the contents of what he said in his Section 29 statement.  We refer you to B13, Mr Chairperson.  Now you will recall how he vacillated on this.  He says that "my Section 29 statements are correct".  It was not a pleasant experience and we would all accept that it is not a pleasant experience to be detained under Section 29, even in its sanitised form that Mr van Zyl and the others had to suffer.  But he says "I was never induced to tell an untruth, I have nothing that I really want to correct except one very minor point."  But when in cross-examination by my learned colleague, he finds himself contradicting himself.  He says "Oh, blame it on Section 29."  He couldn't have it both ways.  He was asked specifically if he told any untruths and he said no.  He, for the reasons already advanced, lied and to be advanced, lied about the training centre and he lied about Omar.
	With those introductory notes, we will want to turn to paragraph 22.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Bizos.  What training centre?  Do you mean the learning centre?

UNKNOWN: ...(inaudible)

MR LAX: Oh, sorry.