Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-03

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I beg your pardon, Mr Chairperson, are you talking about page 6 or 4?

CHAIRPERSON: Page 4 and it's just the one line paragraph, fourth from the bottom.
"He further told me that Peaches was tasked to shoot Omar"
and then you carry on after that and you talk about the heart attack pills, on page 6.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: This is what Ferdi told me, Mr Chairperson.  It was not his project, so I could not say with certainty that this is how it was.

CHAIRPERSON: Well I mean I can understand that because you weren't there.  I also can't say many things for certainty because I didn't see them personally, but I accept them because I've been told that they've happened.  You know if I come home from my work and my wife tells me what she did, I accept that, I don't have to say "Well I'm not certain that she did that."  There's certain things that people tell you that you accept, specially if you're going to repeat them in a statement.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I understand what you're saying.

CHAIRPERSON: I mean you can't say you didn't - obviously we all know you can't say for certainty about what other people did if you weren't there, but then why repeat what they tell you in a statement if you're not satisfied that that was the situation?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That was the state of mind in which I was when I made this statement.

MR LAX: You see it wasn't just any old person that told you this, it was your close friend who told you this.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I accept it so, yes.

MR LAX: And you would generally accept what he told you to generally be the truth, he wasn't going to lie to you.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I hear what you're saying.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman, for that reference.
	But even more startling is at the end of that paragraph 3 on page 6 you say:
"An offer was made by Van Zyl to Ferdi for R50 000 to kill Omar."
Now where did you get that information?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It was mentioned at a stage, I cannot say exactly when.

GEORGE BIZOS: From whom did you get that information?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It was very obvious that it came from Mr Barnard.

GEORGE BIZOS: And nothing could have been clearer, that there was a plan to kill internally, wasn't there?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Somewhere in another statement I also stated that Mr Barnard said that he was not quite sure if Mr van Zyl was serious or not.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now in relation to the Early Learning Centre you did mention it in your statement under Section 29, did you speak about it before the Commission, the Harms Commission?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: About what, Sir?

GEORGE BIZOS: About your role in the Early Learning Centre bomb incident.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I presume I did, I'm not hundred percent clear on that.  I'm sure I did.

GEORGE BIZOS: You're sure you did?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: In all probability, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: You didn't have any problem about speaking about it?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Can I look at my statement?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, well ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I think that Mr Bizos is talking about the evidence given at the Harms Commission.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone)

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone.

MR LAX: Sorry, your microphone Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(inaudible) any difficulty?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Not that I'm aware of, Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Not that you're aware of.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there a statement sanitised - you know what I mean by that, made more favourable by your legal advisers at the time to put into the Harms Commission's record and not the one that appears in bundle B of the 29th - of 12th of December '89?  Was there another statement?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Not that I'm aware of, I'm not sure Sir.

GEORGE BIZOS: You're not sure.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did anyone advise you to claim privilege in relation to the Early Learning Centre before the Harms Commission?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: There were a few cases where we had to plead, I'm not sure if this was one of them.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was that advice given to you?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Sir, it was the acceptable norm that where the result would be self-incrimination we had to plead.

GEORGE BIZOS: But by that stage when you came to give evidence, didn't you know that Van Zyl had spoken about it?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I possibly knew, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you claim privilege in relation to Rosscam's car?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I think I did.

GEORGE BIZOS: And was that on advice?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I accept it was.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now do you agree that the person that was supposed to burn the car, burn out the car, didn't exist?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No, I will not admit that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well if he did exist he wasn't used for the purposes of burning the car.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That I would agree on.  He did exist.

GEORGE BIZOS: But nevertheless you and who else shared the sum of money and held out to your superiors that the money was given to this person?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Me and Mr Barnard more specifically, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: I thought that you were doing these things for the love of the fatherland and country.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is precisely the way it was.

GEORGE BIZOS: Including the misappropriation of your country's funds?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No, it was a meagre R5 1/2 -thousand.

GEORGE BIZOS: Some people have to work for a year to earn that.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Those persons didn't place themselves in a position where they had to burn out a vehicle for the purposes of the organisation's objectives.

GEORGE BIZOS: So patriotism is a relative thing, it can be betrayed for a small sum of money.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No, it was part of it.  I could not not have put a claim in, then it would have been clear that Geoffrey had not burnt out the car, so I had to follow through with the entire progress and claim money for the Coloured man by the name of Geoffrey.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now in your application for amnesty you refer to Van Zyl's affidavit.

CHAIRPERSON: Paragraph 1.3 as far as I can recall.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you read that affidavit carefully before you incorporated it into your statement as the truth?

CHAIRPERSON: Page 11.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I did read it possibly, I don't know how carefully but I did read it.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now do you agree that there are contradictions between your evidence, your statements and the statements of Van Zyl and the evidence of Van Zyl?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Regarding my Section 29 statement and his statement?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, and also in relation to the evidence.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: With regard to my Section 29 statement and his statement, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why did you unreservedly confirm the correctness of Van Zyl's affidavit when you knew that there were differences between you?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Those were the differences, as I stated, were in my Section 29 statement, which I accept as having been incorrect.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now we will argue about those differences, that they are material differences and that the reason for these differences is that statements were made originally at a time when the one did not know what the other one had said.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Once again I will tell you briefly, perhaps I haven't made my point clear, the fact of the matter is that I simply went along to detonate the bomb.  Everything that you have said is possible and all other matters related to that possibility, but my primary purposes was to assist Mr van Zyl, due to my expertise regarding explosives and more specifically the SPM limpet mine.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well let's deal with a number of the issues from you.  Were you or were you not in the car when the bomb was activated?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I was in the car.