Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-20

MS PATEL: All right.  During your time there can you, perhaps, give us an indication of what kind of information, specifically, was then relayed back to Mr Bellingan and Mr Liebenberg?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: I did not have much information, because I did not remain for a long time with these men, but what I gave them was the information to the effect that I had been given an address, that is this persons address, whilst I was at this cell before I was taken to these men where they had congregated.

CHAIRPERSON: So, you were given an address in the cell and did you go there and find these people congregated there?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: No, Chairperson, the address I had been given was to the brother's place and I went there to see him.  He is the one who took me to where these men had congregated or where they use to congregate.

MS PATEL: Mr Mbelo, did you get any information from this group about what kind of activities they were involved in or where they lived?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: What I saw when I got there was that these people were liberation fighters or sympathisers.  I could say comrades and they were doing patrols during the night.  That is all that I was able to glean or get when I got there.

MS PATEL: When you came back and reported to Mr Bellingan...

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, I went back to Mr Bellingan to report.

MS PATEL: The impression given is that you were afraid after you had spent the night with this group.  Could you, perhaps, give us more information or explain more fully why exactly it is that you were afraid?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: What made me to get scared was that I was told that they would go and phone the number that I had given them in order to verify the fact that I had been sent by these people to the Western Cape.

MS PATEL: What did you think would happen to you if they had found out that you were an infiltrator?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: I thought I could possibly be necklaced.

MS PATEL: Why did you think that?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: It is because during the previous years it was a very common thing for informers or infiltrators to be necklaced.

MS PATEL: Is it correct, then, to say that you then came to the conclusion that your life was in danger, not because of anything specific that the group had said or done towards you, but because of your knowledge of other incidents, perhaps, that had taken place?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Chairperson, they even told me that I must not try to run away, because they would catch up with me, it was at night and I would not be able to get away.  That is what made me even more scared.

MS PATEL: Was this your first time at trying to infiltrate a group?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, that is correct with regard to people who had been trained.

MS PATEL: How did you know they were trained?  Is this because of the information that was forwarded to you by Mr Bellingan and Mr Liebenberg?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, that is correct, I acted upon information that I got from Captain Liebenberg as well as Mr Bellingan.

MS PATEL: So, except for the fact that or for the impression that you gained that they were doing patrols, you had no further information or nothing further had occurred during your stay there with them to substantiate the information that Mr Bellingan and Mr Liebenberg had given to you regarding the fact of whether they were trained or not?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: No, there is nothing that happened besides that.

MS PATEL: Thank you.  To move on to another point then. Just generally, my learned colleague, Mr Williams, Brent Williams, has touched on it.  Just in terms of the weapons at the scene, from the data that we have and just from various applications that other people have made, that it was part of the modus operandi at Vlakplaas that in certain instances when an operation needed to be covered up, that weapons were planted at bodies.  What is your comment?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: With regard to putting weapons on peoples' bodies, I had never been involved in such a situation, but what I know is that the commanders of the groups, that is the Whites, many a time they had some Russian made weapons in their cars as well as grenades.  They were kept in their cars.

MS PATEL: For what purpose were these weapons kept in their cars?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: I would not be able to comment on that, but I know that they use to keep such weapons in their cars.

MS PATEL: All right.  Just to go back to the scene.  You will, however, confirm that when Mr Mlifie was killed, was shot and killed, he was unarmed?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: When Mr Mlifie was shot he had a gun on his body and it was not in his hands.

MS PATEL: Was the evidence not that the gun, that he was disarmed, that the gun was taken away from him?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, he was disarmed first, then he was shot.  By the time he was shot, he had no gun on him.

MS PATEL: Yet, in the photographs we see him laying with a gun on his abdomen area.  Is that correct, do you confirm that?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: That is correct, on the photos that is how it appears.

SISI KHAMPEPE: May I interpose, Ms Patel.  Mr Mbelo, who disarmed Mr Mlifie?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: If I remember well, I took Mr Mlifie's gun.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Were you instructed by any person to do that?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Such instructions to disarm a person, when you are a policeman you do not need specific instructions to disarm a suspect, but that is what I just thought I had to do as a policeman.

CHAIRPERSON: My recollection of your evidence a short while ago is that you said one of the White policeman took his gun?  Did you say that?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: I want to put this in perspective.  I said I took the gun from him and gave it to one of the White policeman.

SISI KHAMPEPE: That is not what you said, with due respect, Mr Mbelo.  You made it quite clear that Mr Mlifie was disarmed by a policeman, it was not clear to me whether that policeman was the same policeman that subsequently instructed you to shoot him.  That is how I recollect your evidence.  That is why I was asking you at whose instructions did you disarm him.

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Maybe I was not understood quite well or I did not get it through well.  I took the gun from the person and I gave it to the White officer whom I said I did not know, but he actually instructed me to shoot.

CHAIRPERSON: What you said was,
I threw him down and one of the Riot Squad disarmed him.  This is after he said he would take us to where the others were."

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: The things happened fast that day.  It is possible that that is the answer that I gave and it is possible that I made a mistake.  I do remember pushing him down.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Which version should we now accept?  (end of tape 1B).

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: I do concede that I made a mistake.  The version that you should accept is that I pushed him down, I disarmed him and I gave, I handed over his gun to the White officer.

MS PATEL: May I ... (intervention).

SISI KHAMPEPE: You may proceed, Ms Patel.

MS PATEL: Thank you Ms Khampepe.
	Mr Mbelo, the point I wish to make, though, is that at the time when Mr Mlifie was killed or immediately after he was shot, he did not have a firearm in his possession, yet afterwards, both on the police video and in the photographs, we see a gun lying on his abdomen.  Do you confirm that?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, I confirm that, Chairperson.

MS PATEL: Do you then accept, as an inescapable inference, that that weapon that one sees on the video, had then been placed on the body of Mr Mlifie?

TIKAPELA JOHANNES MBELO: Yes, I agree with the Commission that that video was actually placed on his body after he died.

MS PATEL: I am sorry, perhaps, there is a problem with the translation.  Is it the video or the weapon that was placed on the body?