Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

MR DERBY-LEWIS: As far as I know as well, yes.

UNKNOWN: You set yourself up as one of the Voorbokke, so to speak, of doing something about the cause of the right?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, nothing that I did was in terms of setting myself up as one of the Voorbokke.  I did it because I believed it to be necessary and part of, in terms of the climate which existed.

UNKNOWN: Well, I called you a Voorbok, because you were ahead even of Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg and other Conservative Party leaders.  You were, apparently, a person who just did not talk, but you made, took practical steps in order to further the cause?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Right, now, how serious is, are you in giving evidence that this gun was acquired for that purpose and not for the purposes of assassination.  If it is the only gun that you obtained for this purpose of a period of at least nine months, from the time of the conference at Kimberley, and on your present evidence even longer, because you told us that they were stored even before.  One gun with a silencer for the purposes of arming the Volk.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, if everyone participated, all I needed was one weapon.

UNKNOWN: But you already had two, Mr Derby-Lewis?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No, that is not correct, Mr Chairman, I only had one pistol.

UNKNOWN: Only one pistol?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Oh, and was this ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: And that was ...

UNKNOWN: ... acquired so that you could shoot with both hands?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That was a 38 revolver, Mr Chairman, and I, while I can appreciate something like that appealing to Mr Bizos, that was not anything to do with the intentions behind the acquiring of the weapon.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  Now, if you were serious about this mobilisation, surely you would have tried to do an arms stockpile for the benefit of the rights of the Volk?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, my perception was that that was not necessary, that the Volk would do that side of it themselves and that my responsibility was to prepare them for that.

UNKNOWN: And you were rather fortunate and in a better position in order to stockpile these arms, if your evidence is true, ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That is not ...

UNKNOWN: ... because you have, you had ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Excuse me.

UNKNOWN: ... come across a person that had, apparently, a stockpile of arms which were stolen from the army, according to the evidence?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I did not know that, Mr Chairman.  I did not know where he was going to get the weapons from and I did not ask him either.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  In relation to the reason and manner in which you acquired this gun, when was it agreed that you would get the gun for Mr Walus to do the shooting?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: He asked me for the gun in the latter part of March, Mr Chairman.  Up to that stage I had thought he was going to use his own weapon, because I knew he had a weapon.

UNKNOWN: And if anyone said that there was agreement between you about securing a gun at the end of 1992, would that be false?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That would be false, Mr Chairman, yes.

UNKNOWN: Will you please turn to R4, page 51, paragraph 21.

MR PRINSLOO: What page number, Mr Bizos?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Page 21, not 51, 21.

MR PRINSLOO: 21.

UNKNOWN: According to the notes made at the time, it would appear that, - I just want to get the correct - of your interrogation on the 20th of April, which appears on page 19, 93, it is noted that you said,
"During the end of 1992, a decision was taken that Kuba would do the shooting and would be responsible for obtaining the firearm.".
Were you correctly recorded there or not?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, this statement is totally devoid of any factual basis and, in fact, this statement to which Mr Bizos is referring is not in my words and I have called for the tape to try and compare this with what is on the tape and I have been told that the tape is not available, but, Mr Chairman, it must be clear and we, I am sure Mr Bizos will ask me out about certain other details here, that this could not have been correct.

UNKNOWN: You say that you never said anything of the sort?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That is correct, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: You are not saying that you were in any way compelled to say something like this?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I am saying that I was under a general air of compulsion throughout my Section 29 interrogation, under a general air of compulsion.

UNKNOWN: Please make up your mind, if you can, whether if you said this, you said it, because you were compelled to say something which was not true?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I said that I did not say that, I could not remember saying that and I wanted to check what had been on the tape in order to refresh my memory as this interrogation was taken under extremely adverse conditions, as it will be apparent from here, it was on the 20th at 04H45 after I had been in detention since the 17th of April with very little sleep and with a lot of discomfort and pressure and harassment, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: No, please try and answer the question directly.  Are you saying that you did not say it or that if you did say it, it was some form of compulsion that led you to say it?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I am saying that I did not say it.

UNKNOWN: You did not say it?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: And if I was and there was a possibility that I was compelled to say this, but I would not have made this statement in my right mind, because I knew that that statement was incorrect.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that, you know, you are a sufficiently experienced man to know the difference between making a statement under compulsion and not making a statement at all.  Now, either you made this statement or you did not make it.  There may be some statements which you may have made under compulsion with which you do not agree now.  Is this one of those, that you made a statement, but you disagree with it now or did you not make that statement at all?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I could not have made this statement in my right mind, because it was not factual.

UNKNOWN: The section at the, Section 20 before, did you make that statement?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, this whole document is not in my words.

UNKNOWN: Please ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I would not have made statements which appear here.

UNKNOWN: Please tell us whether you said what is contained in the short paragraph 20, whether you said that or not?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I could have said that in, but not in this context, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: You could have said it, but?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: In another context, at another, discussing something else.

CHAIRPERSON: Is this paragraph 22, Mr Bizos?

UNKNOWN: 20, We will come to 22, Mr Chairman.  What is the problem?  In what context other than that within the paragraph itself was it being said?
MR PRINSLOO OBJECTS

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Chairman, with respect, in as far as this statement is concerned, we have asked on numerous occasions for the tapes to be made available.  As is clearly, from reading this document, not in the words of the first person making a statement and up till now nobody produced those tapes, nobody has come forward to explain where they are and, secondly, Mr Chairman, this is not the original document.  We asked for the original document and so far it has not been produced.

CHAIRPERSON: The Committee will bear that in mind when it decides on what value to give to all this evidence.

MR PRINSLOO: Right.  With respect, Mr Chairman, the difficulty is how can the applicant refresh his memory from a document which is not in his words whereas there is a document, a tape available, which will reveal his precise words.  That is the objection we made from the instance of this particular enquiry, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: For once and for all, Mr Bizos, can we put to rest this whole question of what has happened to these tapes and why they are not made available.