Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-21

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: At some point Mr van Zyl reported back to me that the carrying out of the plan as  proposed, with the pistol, was very difficult to carry out, and that Peaches had told him that he had access to Mr Omar's home, by means of the domestic servants, and that Mr Omar used medication for his heart, heart tablets and that we could actually substitute those tablets, that we could replace them with some chemical medicine or a drug which would cause him to die of a heart attack.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Was this proposal taken to the Managing Director, Mr Joe Verster?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.  I made this proposal to the Chairperson, myself.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry you say you made it to the Chairperson?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I beg your pardon, it was the Managing Director.

MR P DU PLESSIS: I think for practical reasons, maybe we should use names, rather than the titles, so that we can avoid confusion.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Very well.

MR P DU PLESSIS: All right, so you relayed this to Mr Verster?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.  There are quite a few Chairpersons here, so I will have to qualify.  Chairperson, at that stage, Mr Wouter Basson was my Co-ordinator of Region 6 and he was busy with some other mission, and they gave me another Co-ordinator by the name of Nick, he joined my group.  Later it became known to me that his name was Tilly Smit and we then gave this information to Mr Verster.
	Mr Verster, at a later stage, came back to us and said that we should try and get some of that so-called medication.  The request was conveyed to Mr van Zyl, Mr van Zyl did it, he came back and at a meeting where Nick, Theo Otto were also present.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Is Theo Otto, is that his correct name or is it a pseudonym?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: It is a pseudonym.  His real name also later became known to me as Verni Lange.  I don't know what his background was, but he also fitted in along with the Co-ordinator, Nick.
	They then took the tablets and they left with these tablets to go and do the swop  of the tablets, swop it from a heart medication to a toxic substance.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Now apart from your immediate contact with the Co-ordinator, which in this case was Nick and the person, Theo, did you have any access to the CCB's support structures, such as for instance the place where the toxic substances was manufactured?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Perhaps we can call it directly by name, as we have now heard from various bits of evidence, Dr Basson's case as well, it became known that there were certain facilities at the disposal of the Defence Force, where certain chemical things were, substances were manufactured.  Did you ever have direct access to any of those facilities, or have contact with the people in responsible positions there?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.

MR P DU PLESSIS: So your only channel of contact was via the Co-ordinator and the person, Theo who was present at the meeting?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Very well.  Was this toxic substance later delivered?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, the toxic substance was received by Mr van Zyl, not in my presence, no.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Was it reported to you that that had happened?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Was the order from Mr Verster, that the project should continue on that basis?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Was it your impression that the necessary approval had been obtained?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: The project, as we have it on record now, did fortunately not proceed, it wasn't carried out?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.    Mr van Zyl came to me at some stage and said to me that he had problems with Peaches in the sense that he couldn't trust him and that he suspected that Peaches could be a double-agent, he could be playing more than a double role in fact, and that he was pretending to be part of the infrastructure along with him, but he could also at the same time, perhaps, have been favouring Mr Omar and the other forces.
	On those grounds the project was aborted.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Once again, was it your decision?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, I went to the Managing Director, I briefed him.

MR P DU PLESSIS: That is Mr Verster?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.  I briefed him as to what was happening regarding the shooting of the Makarov, which was not successful and the poison and the problem with Peaches and his order to me was to report back to Mr van Zyl, that the project had to be halted and that it would be reconsidered at a later stage and that Mr van Zyl should be requested to try and destroy the poison and the Makarov pistol.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Did you convey this order to Mr van Zyl?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Did you get any feedback from Mr van Zyl, as to which these steps had been taken to halt the project?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.  Yes, the project came to a halt.

CHAIRPERSON: Was there any reason why the Makarov pistol should have been destroyed, wasn't it some sort of asset for the CCB, wouldn't it have been booked out of some armoury?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Chairperson, at that stage, there were quite a few of that weapons, that type of weapons were available, and I actually also requested Mr van Zyl to break off all contact with Peaches from that point forward and told him that there should be less contact with him from that point onward.  I told him to break off the contact and sort out the matters and destroy those things.

MR P DU PLESSIS: All right, the point is that your order was to destroy or have destroyed, this poison, the tablets or whatever and the Makarov pistol.  Did the initiative come from Mr Verster?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, it was Mr Verster's order which I conveyed to van Zyl.

MR LAX: Sorry, just on the question of this weapon, he had to destroy it himself, did van Zyl have to destroy it himself?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: He had to use his discretion, either to, perhaps he could take it from Peaches himself and destroy it, yes, that would have been the best.

MR LAX: Because he wouldn't have trusted  Peaches?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Because in any other way, you wouldn't know if it had ever been done or not?

MR LAX: Yes, so he would have had to take possession of it?   You couldn't trust Peaches with it?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.

MR LAX: That is self-evident in the situation?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: And if he was going to get it back, why destroy it, why not return it?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: The order was that it had to be destroyed.

MR LAX: So no one questioned the order, it was just carried out?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: You know, you don't always know why, how easily a thing can be traced back, and in his position it could land up, so I think to destroy it was perhaps better in a covert set-up.

CHAIRPERSON: But normally, if it had been used to kill somebody, you don't want to trace back, those sort of circumstances you throw it in the sea or the river or whatever, but it hadn't been used?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Chairperson, I received the order from Mr Verster and to spell it out in that way exactly to Mr van Zyl, and with hindsight, I could say yes, but at that stage, it was better for us to say "destroy the thing" so that it could not be traced back in any way.
	I don't know to whom Peaches had already shown these things and what stories he had told about the weapon, etc.  I also thought it was a good idea for this order to be conveyed in such a way.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Of course you also would have had the logistic problem that you had to bring it back all the way from Cape Town, that of course had its own risks inherent in it?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR P DU PLESSIS: All right.    This is a convenient time, thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: We will take a 20 minute tea adjournment, thank you.