Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-13

UNKNOWN: I assume you are aware that you can cause structural damage to a building by placing an explosive against an exterior wall?

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: So the same symbolic message could have been sent by placing the explosives against an exterior wall.

MR VAN ZYL: To a certain extent.  As I said to you, by planting a limpet mine inside the hall that was used that specific evening by people of the Kewtown Youth Movement, would after the explosion - the first thing would have asked is who were the last people to have used this hall and then they would have obtained the names of those people and accordingly they would have been able to make the inference that it was their bomb that had exploded.  If it was planted on the outside of the structure, I don't think they would have made this inference.

UNKNOWN: Did you discuss in the meeting where the device should be placed?  You must have discussed this.  Just tell me who said what.

MR VAN ZYL: Is this at the in-house?

UNKNOWN: Yes.  Maybe let me preface this - before you answer the question, let me put this to you.  You're no doubt aware that there's a science to using explosives to cause structural damage?

MR VAN ZYL: Please repeat.

UNKNOWN: A science.  There are people who have specific knowledge about how to place bombs, so as to cause structural damage.  They have expertise, do you agree with that?

MR VAN ZYL: That is so, yes.

UNKNOWN: Now, that is a bomb is to be placed in a certain position in relation to the structural elements of a building, it can cause a certain amount of damage if you put it here, you can cause a certain amount of damage if you put it there.  What expert advice did you obtain on this subject?

MR VAN ZYL: None.

MR MARTINI: Mr Commissioner, might I just butt in here.  I don't want to interrupt my learned colleague, but what is the relevance of all this?  Is he going to put it factually what my client is alleging, because my client's made a statement, he says "We didn't intend to kill anybody".  Is he now going to attempt to allege that my client did kill somebody with this explosion?  Otherwise, where are we going with this process?  It's taking a lot time.  I mean, the applicant applied for amnesty for bombing the building.  We've seen statements in the documents submitted by the Commission, that some party may have had injury on the head, there's no deaths.  So where is this really taking us, because we could be here many, many days with questions like this.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, that's exactly what I'm going to argue and I'm going to get there.

MR MARTINI: ...(inaudible)

UNKNOWN: No.

CHAIRPERSON: No, I think it's clear, it's common cause that no-one died.

UNKNOWN: I'm going to argue at the end that it was - the object of the exercise was they were intending to kill the people in the meeting.

CHAIRPERSON: You may continue.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.
	Now why would you not have obtained expert advice about where the limpet should be placed?

MR VAN ZYL: I did not deem it necessary under the circumstances and it was also not asked of me to do so.

UNKNOWN: Did you receive instructions about where the device should be placed?

MR VAN ZYL: I do know that we discussed it and that we proposed that the limpet mine be placed in a bag and that the bag was placed in a cupboard so that it could be hidden.  That is all that we basically discussed about the placing of the limpet mine.  Where exactly the cupboard was in relation to the hall, I do not know.

MR LAX: Sorry, can I just interpose.
	Did you have a plan of the hall at that time?  Did you know where the cupboards were?

MR VAN ZYL: No, Mr Chairperson, we did not have.

MR LAX: You never went inside that hall.

MR VAN ZYL: No.

MR LAX: You didn't even have a diagram of the hall.

MR VAN ZYL: No.

MR LAX: Even a rough one?

MR VAN ZYL: No, we had a description of what the hall looked like on the inside.  The description we got from Gakkie, but there was not a sketched plan relating to the hall.

MR LAX: I'm just puzzled, so you don't know what kind of damage would arise from the placing of the mine, other than it would go off in the hall?

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: Which was rather strange, Mr van Zyl, in the light of the fact that you said in your application that the object of the exercise was, and I use the Afrikaans words, "om die saal te venietig", which means to destroy it.  Correct?

MR VAN ZYL: What's so strange about that?

UNKNOWN: I'll leave it at that.  At the time that you had the in-house, had the person who would place the device been identified?

MR VAN ZYL: That's correct.

UNKNOWN: What had he been told that he would be paid?

MR VAN ZYL: An amount of R30 000.

UNKNOWN: Why was it necessary to risk using a gangster when a trusted CCB person could have placed the device himself in the middle of the night?

MR VAN ZYL: That was the way in which we worked.

CHAIRPERSON: R30 000.  So that person for placing a mine in the cupboard, would get more than the person who was later to assassinate somebody?

MR VAN ZYL: That is the amount that was approved for me.

UNKNOWN: Alright.  Now ...(intervention)

MR LAX: Sorry.  Was there any rationale for that, that you can think of?

MR VAN ZYL: No, that is the amount that was given to me, that was mentioned to me that had been approved by means of the budget.  That's the amount that I accepted.  I didn't see anything strange about that.

CHAIRPERSON: If you as Project Leader - what was your salary then?  R3 000 a month?

MR VAN ZYL: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Now somebody's going to get ten months salary for taking a case into a hall.  Okay, there's a risk factor, but didn't you find that to be a bit gross?

MR VAN ZYL: At that stage I didn't find that suspect at all.

MR LAX: My next question was going to be, in relation to your "voorstudie", didn't you prepare a budget, a proposed budget as part of the "voorstudie"?

MR VAN ZYL: No, the budget was actually done - if I say together with the preliminary study, then I mean the budget was actually done the day of the first in-house.  It might have been that I might have mentioned an amount in my preliminary study that could have been less than R30 000.  I can't remember that.

MR LAX: You see, if someone's doing a presentation to someone else about a proposal for a project, surely the budget forms part of the proposal.  You say to your people that "Here we are, this is the way we intend presenting it, this is how much it's going to cost our organisation: airfares x 3, accommodation x 2, possible salary suggested X."  It then goes through, they decided no, hang on this is too much, they scrap that by so much or whatever.  But surely you as the person putting forward a proposal, which is what it was, would prepare a reasonably detailed budget.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so, I did give evidence in this regard, that's the case, but I cannot remember the amount of R30 000, whether I proposed it and whether it was accepted and what the amount was.  I do not deny that there was a budget attached to that proposal.

MR LAX: You see because the original proposal would have come from you.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR LAX: And that may obviously have been varied or it may have been left the same.

MR VAN ZYL: That is also true.

UNKNOWN: Maybe I can refresh your memory.  If you can go to page 39 of bundle B, I'll just read you the sentence.  You said
"At the time of the in-house Gakkie at this stage had already agreed in principle, to help with placing the limpet mine.  During the in-house a budget was also attached.  Gakkie would receive R30 000 for his part.  I submitted the budget in writing."

MR VAN ZYL: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Now we know that Peaches had recruited Gakkie and they were members of the same gang, correct?

MR VAN ZYL: I know that he recruited him, whether they were members of the same gang I do not know.