Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-10-06

MR MCBRIDE: I can't remember exactly, but they went - they didn't go in the same direction, they went in a different direction altogether.  If I remember correctly the road that CR Swart is on, I forget its name now, they continued straight on that road.

MR RICHARD: Now, what did you infer from that?

MR MCBRIDE: What did I infer from that?  I didn't infer anything, I knew for sure that they did not go to the Why Not.

MR RICHARD: Now what did you do next?

MR MCBRIDE: We went back to where we were waiting earlier, I think there used to be a drive-in there next to it, I don't know what is there now, and we waited until the next group came and we followed them and they went past the ice rink onto the Marine Parade itself and then moved along the, I think it's called Marine Parade, the road onto the beach.

MR RICHARD: And what did they do?  They went down the Marine Parade, where did they go?

MR MCBRIDE: They went to the Why Not bar, well they went into the entrance of the Parade Hotel.

MR RICHARD: Did you see where they went next?

MR MCBRIDE: No, I didn't see, I didn't see.  They went into the entrance and ...

MR RICHARD: Then at page ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Richard.
	So this was at night.

MR MCBRIDE: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it a Saturday night or ...?

MR MCBRIDE: It was a Saturday night, it was between quarter past nine and half past nine.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.  Now at line 14 I think it is, it starts left to right
"Security-off duty policemen.  That's the verification I did, besides the general knowledge that was there."

MR MCBRIDE: Yes, I have that.

MR RICHARD: Now there you're stating that between a combination of what you had heard at the Allan Taylor residence in '85 or '85, a catch phrase, "May the force be with you" and following two groups of people.

MR MCBRIDE: That's correct.  And?

MR RICHARD: That was your verification.

MR MCBRIDE: And also the evidence given to me by Gordon, but it was not followed up in a question and diverted there.  At that stage you can see I talk about Matthew ...(indistinct)

MR RICHARD: That's your verification.

MR MCBRIDE: Sorry?

MR RICHARD: I'm talking about what you did.

MR DEHAL: Sorry, Mr Chairperson, I think it will be fair to deal with that paraphrase correctly.  Mr McBride in Exhibit C on page 20, otherwise numbered 196, goes on to say
"That's the verification I did besides the general knowledge that was there."
And then he deals with what Matthew said during the trial, about which is the most popular place for off-duty policemen.  And these prevailed in his mind.  Of course by argument that does not exclude the other recce.

CHAIRPERSON: And then Mr McBride's mentioned what Mr Webster told him.

MR DEHAL: Indeed, indeed.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Richard, you can continue.

MR RICHARD: Yes.  Now, lower down on the page it starts
MR GOVENDER:   Why did you deliberately go out to find out whether this bar was frequented by policemen?"
Now your answer was -
"Because we had heard it was frequented and at a later stage I was specifically given instructions by my Commander to verify the information again."
When was that instruction given to you?

MR MCBRIDE: I can't remember specifically what I was referring to here, because there are two occasions.  One where we spoke about at a early stage, before Easter, I think I was referring here to a later stage when I had dropped Gordon off in Botswana and came back to verify.  The occasion I referred to earlier that I went, when I couldn't enter the door.

MR RICHARD: And you also say higher up - sorry, I missed my place there.  I put it to you that when you say
"A high concentration of them, yes"
... that inference was speculative.

MR MCBRIDE: No, it wasn't.  You followed two groups of people from CR Swart on the same night and one group goes to the Why Not.

MR RICHARD: And how many of them were in that group?

MR MCBRIDE: Five.

MR RICHARD: And how many people might have been in the Why Not?

MR MCBRIDE: That is a rhetorical question.

MR RICHARD: In other words you didn't know the answer.

MR MCBRIDE: That's why I say it's a rhetorical question.  Even if you were outside you wouldn't know the answer.

MR RICHARD: Now, what percentage of people in your perception, inside there would be security personnel?

MR MCBRIDE: In my perception.  I wasn't able to perceive in the bar, I was only able to perceive those which went to the bar very frequently.  And the indication of what Gordon showed me of this infestation was that one out of two we followed from CR Swart goes into the Why Not bar on a Saturday night.

MR RICHARD: Now did you ever do the opposite and that's wait outside and see where people walked to?

MR MCBRIDE: No, we didn't do that.  One of the reasons was we would have been too obvious waiting there.  I think I don't have to refer you to Russel Davidson's evidence about this.  To wait outside there, I mean, people would become suspicious of us.  In all operations we do, one of the principal elements of the operation is retreating away safely, not bringing suspicion to yourself.

MR RICHARD: Now we move onto the next point.  You had been taught by Mr Pillay, Mr Dumakude, Mr Mnisi and others, amongst other things, how to construct a bomb and you had exploded explosive devices.  When you constructed this bomb, what radius of effect did you think it would have?

MR MCBRIDE: This particular question you're asking, it cannot be answered easily.  I will come and answer directly, because I was instructed to place the charges towards the side of the car that would face closest to the building.  So the radius doesn't come into play in this.  In fact, during - they would give us square metre ranges of effect because I remember when we were talking about gradpair(?) rockets, I think it was 500sq feet or something effective radius of effect or effective area.  I can't recall specifically on car bombs which quantities is how many, what is the radius.  We worked in more general terms, more devastating, less devastating, probably like that.

MR RICHARD: Alright.  If you say on a range of devastation, what would the range of devastation be? - the grading.

MR MCBRIDE: What size explosives are you talking about?

CHAIRPERSON: I think the question is relating to the actual bomb that you yourself manufactured, that was used that night.

MR MCBRIDE: Well I think it's, the devastation is the devastation that we saw.

MR RICHARD: When you constructed the bomb and parked it there, from your training you manufactured a bomb.

MR MCBRIDE: That's correct.

MR RICHARD: Now from the corner to the end of the Parade Hotel where Magoo's bar ends is not particularly far, how far do you think it is?

MR MCBRIDE: Can you just be more specific when you say it ends and so on.

MR RICHARD: From the corner where the car was parked to the wall of the building adjoining the Parade Hotel to the North, how far do you think it is?

MR MCBRIDE: I'm still not clear what you are saying, Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: The distance he wants to know is from the place where the car was parked to the Northern extreme of the Parade Hotel building, you've got the Why Not first, closest to the car, then there was Magoo's and then at the end of Magoo's was the end of the Parade Hotel, going North towards the Natal Command.  The question asked by Mr Richard is, from the place where you parked the car to the Northern extent of the Parade Hotel, facing Marine Parade Drive, how far would that be, to the end of the Parade Hotel?

MR MCBRIDE: My attention was focused on Why Not bar and how to come as close as possible to it, not any other considerations.  The intention - to cut a long story short, was to give enough devastation Why Not bar so that enemy personnel inside can be injured or killed.  So my attention was not focused on the bar next door or the wall next door, it was on Why Not.