Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

DR RANDERA: Gentlemen can I just say that I was hoping with the three of you coming initially that you would actually throw some light on what we have been listening to in the last six days because clearly you are very professional in your approach, you have gone right up the ladder in your careers, but what concerns me is that we are told by both of you that there was no political pressure put on you or there was no political culture that prevailed at the time, now I just want to remind you, okay, let me just go back a little, we are not talking about a normal society with a normal police force and a normal justice system.  We have heard sufficient evidence in these hearings as well as our special hearings that there was a great deal wrong with our system.  If we look even in the period between 1990 and 1994 14,000 people died in this country, 14,000.
 Now what I am not hearing either from Supt Dempsey or yourself is that we are looking at a period like 1988 when you come into this case where we have been told that people were being abducted, tortured, there were people's courts going on, women being raped and you come into that situation.  We've also had the situation in the last three days, never mind what we have heard over the last 20 months where people have come in and said we were tortured and they broke down right here in front of us.  And I hear from Supt Dempsey then that when he tried to question, and you've got an organogram there of the Mandela United Football Club I am sure there was one available at the time as well, that when you tried to question these people it was like the lights going off.  But gentlemen I mean that hasn't been a problem in the past.  We've had hundreds of statements of people being tortured.  I mean we have already here, and you haven't responded to that, where somebody is actually saying you yourself were involved in assaulting, Mbatha.  
 And what is striking for me, I am just going to take the Asvat case, what is striking for me is that even at the time you don't question Mrs Sisulu, you don't question the Janas, Mr and Mrs Jana, you don't question Mr Mayet.  We go to 1995 the same situation prevails, but yet the case is closed.  Now at the time was there not some movement within your own force where you were working, wasn't there any link-up with Stratcom, because we have heard about Stratcom in the last few days, where there was a clear move towards discrediting not only Mrs Madikizela-Mandela but many other people, wasn't this part of the culture that prevailed at the time, that said well let's leave things alone, you know we are being informed by our Stratcom officials, but let's leave these things alone, enough of a situation is being created so we won't interfere any longer?
 We come to 1995, can we also assume the same sort of political pressure and the same sort of political is prevailing which prevents you from going any further?  Sorry I have said a lot but I want you both to comment.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: First of all I'd like to say if you said I didn't dispute the fact that I tortured a guy, I didn't torture anybody.  It came out of the court hearing and this is why the court had found that confessions be admissible, and that's the first.
 Secondly, when we did this investigation in 1995, and the last four days, five days that I have been sitting here I heard so much of lies from the very same people you are now talking about, Cyril Mbatha yourselves in this hall here heard him contradict himself.  Jerry Richardson came out afterwards and said he killed Kuki Zwane; Jerry Richardson he killed Lolo Sono; we are investigators, we are detectives, we you must know in that old culture had nothing much to do with these organisations.  We weren't the security branch, the security branch was a unit on its own, we never even went to their doors.  I came from that unit, I know what the unit is.  When I was in Soweto it's a different culture.
 What I am trying to get across to you here ...(intervention)

DR RANDERA: Mr Moodley sorry, I mean I understand what you are saying, but just earlier on when asked about an askari you talked about the link-up with the security branch, so not you, but Mr Dempsey talked about the link-up, so you know let's try and get some semblance of sanity within these discussions.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Let me get some sanity with the discussions.

CHAIRPERSON: Give him a chance to answer please.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: When we ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: And if you could try and do it briefly.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I'd like to be very brief but one word answers doesn't seem to work here Mr Chair, it doesn't seem like it, you need a big explanation of what's happening here.  We as the Murder and Robbery Unit we know for instance, I am not saying any particular - say an organisation, it can be AZAPO it can be anybody that that man we are looking for him, we don't have the means, we don't have records of these people, the people that have the records the first thing comes to mind is, let's try the fingerprint bureau see if they've got anything on this man's ID number, let's try the computer system, let's try the Security Branch, maybe they've got a file on this man.  We phone them and tell them we want Mr Naidoo, he lives at a certain address, can you try and trace him for us.  That's the type of link we had with these people. So we used them as a means of investigation like I would use a fingerprint expert or use a forensic science laboratory.  I would go to them and say look I am looking for Mr Naidoo, he belongs to this organisation can you help.  Through their tapping and their intercepting of mail they will come back to me and say HITE anyway we know where this man is, go and find him here, or they will tell us the man is out of the country, that kind of situation.  So you must try and understand the culture, the situation we as detectives were in at the time.  They wouldn't come and tell us what - they would even bug our offices, we don't even know about it.  You know what I am saying, I am trying to get this across.

CHAIRPERSON: Can Mr Dempsey try.

FREDERICK HENDRIK DEMPSEY: I don't know whether I will be able to assist you further but my reply will be brief.  No, there was no political pressure at all exerted upon me.  I walked with an advocate of the Attorney General's office and he would definitely not have allowed this to happen.

YASMINE SOOKA: I just want to check one more thing with you.  It's quite clear from what you have said that you and Col Hesslinga were the original investigators of the Asvat murder, is that correct?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I assisted, yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: Yes.  Now if any one of the two of you or anybody working under you had interviewed Jerry Richardson about the medical card it would be attached to that docket, but am I correct in saying that when the investigation was reopened in 1995 under the steam of again Hesslinga yourself, that this document represents probably the sum total of the work of all the people involved in the different investigations and there are three of them in the organogram, and from your own words every time somebody did something it would be handed to somebody who would type this into the computer, so this would represent then a record ...(intervention)

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: ....where we are at the time.

YASMINE SOOKA: So would I be correct in saying that if anybody had interviewed Jerry Richardson it should probably be in this document?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: But there's no reference there.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Where what Richardson told us?

YASMINE SOOKA: No about the visit Richardson paid to Dr Asvat for the ...(intervention)

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: We didn't go and canvass what we already knew.

YASMINE SOOKA: No but ...(intervention)