Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-07-14

CHAIRPERSON: I think if you can just simplify your question instead of asking him for the structures.   You really want to know whether you were acting on somebody's orders and if so, whose orders, isn't that what you want?

MR JACOBS: Yes, but Your Honour, if I may explain that I think there is a, what to me is becoming, yesterday morning I think we, as Mr Benzien had indicated, we greeted each other, and all of that and we came here with the idea that hopefully we will get the full truth and the full truth means how the system worked to which will then create the environment within which Captain Benzien can operate and can do certain things by which information is extracted from us and then the Investigating Officers or they then go further to get other arms, to get other people, which the Investigating Officer then provides.
	Now, my torture, him applying here for me is very strange alone and yesterday when I heard him, I got the distinct impression that he, there is an organised attempt to make Captain Benzien and his conceding to it, the fall guy.  So why is he being the fall guy and for who is he being the fall guy here, because he wasn't alone when they tortured me?	Yet, all the time he was saying he was alone.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Jacobs, you can go on if you want to ask him questions on structures, but I am happy you say you were here yesterday, you will recall Mr Kruse spent an hour on that very issue.

MR JACOBS: But you see, I will concede with that as well.  He didn't answer some of the questions.  I am presently a member of the South African Police Service and I have a fair idea of how structures, the police structures normally work.  And yesterday when he was asked who was the Commander of the Security Branch, he hesitated and he wasn't sure and he said, I think it is Colonel Smit.  Yet, you know as I mean, I know as a police member and as an Officer, when a senior Officer, like him being a Warrant Officer and a senior Officer, like Colonel Smit calls you which they from time to time would do, to his office or he is around, you jump up sky high, you do all of those kind of normal authority, and you know that this man is your superior in terms of the line function.   How come he couldn't remember that?  And therefore when I thought about it, I thought I should ask those questions again, maybe in an attempt to refresh his memory or then if not, he can maybe then tell us that there has been a discussion around how he is going to approach his amnesty and that he will be the fall guy.
	That is what I want to know, are you the fall guy  Mr Benzien?  That is what I want to know and I am going to ask you questions around that.

CHAIRPERSON: Try and avoid a repetition of a great deal of what we have heard.

MR JACOBS: I will try as far as is possible.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I hope to God I am not the fall guy, Sir.  I have made application to this Amnesty Committee, because I think it is right and just.	It is free for any other member who so desires or could apply for amnesty to have done amnesty.   It will not be in my favour to try and cover for other people in the extent that I do not get amnesty and then have to face the full burden of my misdemeanours.
	I am sure that if there are senior Officers or Officers above my rank or even below my rank, that felt that they should do this, they should have done it.  It can never be in my interest to place a gamble on this Commission to take the rap myself.

MR JACOBS: Would you agree that in the public profile of three, remember this is three cases, they were three prominent cases in the Western Cape in which your name appeared all the time which is of Leio Bright, Ashley Forbes and the Yengeni trial?

CHAIRPERSON: That merely proves once again of his own participation in all these matters.

MR JACOBS: I would agree with what I am saying.  What I am saying is that he was the obvious weak link in the structure, he was exposed too much.  It would be appropriate then in terms of the way I think, the way it appears that to have - therefore I am asking the question of him being, is he the fall guy and is that an organised, a caucused position?

CHAIRPERSON: You see, he has explained to you that his chances of getting amnesty are reduced if he says he was taking instructions from others and that others really were responsible.  Why should he take a chance, why should he do that when his chances for amnesty would be reduced if he put the blame on others?  I think it is a factor that you must take into account and move on to some other question.

MR JACOBS: I will do that.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I just want to say to you that a number of you have been asking questions and very important questions, make no mistake about it, some questions were very important and have been very helpful.  And we are pleased that you did ask those questions, but at the same time, there was a great deal of overlapping, perhaps there is a misconception.  The fact that six people come and repeat the same point six times, doesn't make that point six times stronger than it was.

MR JACOBS: I see what you are saying.   I would in my further questioning consider that very seriously and thanks for the direction which you are putting this as well.  I am busy winding up.
	Is the issue of where was this the torture and the treatment recorded?  You were a policeman, you weren't an Officer, so you had to have a pocket book, where is that pocket book?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: No records as such as official records were kept.  For all purposes the interrogation handed out to you and your colleagues were never recorded as an official business, in actual fact it was denied that it ever happened.

ADV DE JAGER: It was denied and concealed that it ever happened?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct, Sir.

MR JACOBS: Now, so in other words you are saying again, which brings me back to this further point, that there was no record kept because we heard earlier there was in the case of Mr Kruse also about the Sea Point police station issue, so it means that in that environment anything could have happened which brings us back to the question of treatment of people when injured, when caught - do you see what I am saying?
	Now, the question is therefore it comes back to is the structures that operated in this which you mentioned earlier, was surveillance team which you haven't mentioned who is - at least the surveillance team I know is a covert structure, but at least the Commander is known and that person liaise with other people.  Who was the Commander of the surveillance team at that time?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Mr Jacobs, I don't know what position you hold in the Security Branch now, but do you - okay you are asking me the questions.  I do not know who the Commander of the Surveillance team was at that time.

MR JACOBS: Do you know who the Commander of the Western Cape Security Branch was then?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: The main Commander was Brigadier Strydom.

MR JACOBS: Brigadier Strydom?  Now you come up with that name.  Okay.  Then the Anti-terrorist Unit was Captain Liebenberg, or Inspector Liebenberg, Lieutenant Liebenberg?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Lieutenant Liebenberg.

MR JACOBS: Then the askari squad in Cape Town was Sergeant Bellingham?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: The Field Commander, yes.

MR JACOBS: The Field Commander?  Who is in charge of the Intelligence section?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Excuse me?

MR JACOBS: The Intelligence Unit that provided the information.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I haven't an idea who the Commander of the Intelligence Unit was Sir.