Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-24

MR VISSER: Perhaps I should start the ball rolling.  Mr Chairman, before we go on with Ndaba's matter, you have been informed that there is another part-heard matter before Your Lordship's brother, Justice Mall, which was generally referred to in these hearings as the Quarry Road incident.  In that matter Mr Webster appears for the family of the victims, or for some of the families of the victims and he anticipated that he wanted to call a witness called Breytenbach who was the Commander of the Reaction Forces during the chase in which 4 people were killed, for which amnesty is now being sought by South Africans and that matter stood down, Mr Chairman, until after the conclusion of the Ndaba and Shabalala matter.  	Mr Webster can inform you himself of what his position is, but he informed us this morning that he will not be able to proceed immediately, for reasons which he no doubt will tell you about.  He spoke to us this morning and we told him and we told you in chambers, Mr Chairman, that that matter should properly be postponed awaiting Justice Mall's recuperation, by reason of the fact that the application has really been concluded for all practical purposes.  The only evidence outstanding is that which Mr Webster might wish to call and seeing that matters of credibility have been raised during the hearing, Mr Chairman, it would be invidious for yourself to be placed in a position where you have to make credibility findings in that hearing.  
	Therefore, Mr Chairman, we will have no objection to the proposal by Mr Webster that the matter be postponed awaiting the come back of Justice Mall.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Webster, do you wish to say anything further?  Or perhaps I could say something before you do.  As I understand it from the discussion we had in chambers, you have not had an opportunity as yet of interviewing this potential witness.  He is someone who would have to be subpoenaed, but I suggested and I suggest again that if the matter is now adjourned, you should endeavour to make contact with him, through his legal advisers, if he has them, to decide finally whether you wish to call him or not and if having had the opportunity of consulting with him, you do not propose to call him as a witness, I would then request that you inform the Committee because the matter would then, as I understand it, not require any further hearing and arrangements could then be made for argument to be delivered in writing.  Do you agree with that suggestion?

MR WEBSTER: I agree with that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: All that remains is to adjourn the matter to a date.  Adjourn it sine die.

MR LAX: Perhaps he could tell us by Monday.

MR VISSER: We were informed, Mr Chairman that there is a statement that has been obtained from the witness Breytenbach and we would just like to have a copy of that before Mr Webster leaves with that, if it pleases you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well I think it's already been made available to the Committee hasn't it?

MS THABETHE: Mr Chair, we only have one copy and we had a problem with the photocopier yesterday, that's why we couldn't make it available.

CHAIRPERSON: The Committee will make it available to you.

MR VISSER: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Webster can leave without waiting for them to mend the photocopy machine.  When do you think you'll be able to give us any information, do you know how long it would take?

MR WEBSTER: Monday, I think Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, if you endeavour to let us know by Monday, we'd be grateful.  Thank you.

MR WEBSTER: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: And the matter is adjourned sine die.
	We now revert to the matter that we were concerned with yesterday and the cross-examination of Mr Maharaj will continue.

MR VISSER: May it please you, Mr Chairman.
SEPTEMBER ...(indistinct) MAHARAJ: (s.u.o.)

MR VISSER: (cont.)
	Mr Maharaj, just to recoup.  Yesterday at the adjournment my understanding of your evidence was to the effect that the applicants have come to this Committee with a concocted story about the reasons why Messrs Ndaba and Shabalala were killed and you stated that part of the reason why you said that it was a concocted story was because in your belief Mr Ndaba could not have been an informer of the Security Branch.  Have I got that right?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Yes.

MR VISSER: In part you relied on some documents which you  handed in yesterday to prove the point that Mr Ndaba could not, or would probably not have been an informer and I refer to Exhibit J.  Is that correct?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: That's right.

MR VISSER: Now we have had the opportunity of last night, reading through Exhibit J and I want to direct your attention specifically to Exhibit J 1 and I want you to explain to us very briefly by way of summary again, why you say Exhibit J1 proves that Mr Ndaba could not have been, or probably wasn't an informer of the Security Branch.  Can you just summarise your viewpoint to us?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Thank you.  Chairperson, my contention has not been that J 1 on its own should be seen as standing alone.  What I've done is to put a set of documents which have a time sequence to it.  That time sequence starts with J 1, which is the 14th of February 1988.  The significance of J 1 is that it has a column on the front page which says who has submitted the report and the code number of the source.  J 1 source is P 1666.  What that report does is it identifies Charles Ndaba and has reference numbers which show that as at February he was a potential target of interest to the South African Security Forces and (b) that his reference numbers show that there was no indication that he was at that stage working for the South African Security Services.  That's as far as that goes with the addition that I made that if we look at page 11, and in particular I drew attention to paragraph 41 where I said certain people's names appearing there were clearly marked as not of security interest.  There were other instances in the same document, but not in that clause, which refer to agents with PN reference numbers.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: And Charles Ndaba has two reference numbers in addition to what appeared earlier in the document, one is the "Afdelings" reference number which has a PNV with a set of numbers which have slashes.  That is the reference number of the division.  The second reference number is a VHK and that I have looked at last night and tried to locate it from my knowledge of previous documents and work, is the "Veiligheids Hoofkwartier" reference number, and what is important there is it has an S prefix.  The S prefix has a clue in this document in paragraph 40 where you will see that the ANC, Inkatha, and United Democratic Front have files beginning with S but they have a second number.  A first number which distinguishes them, for e.g. the ANC has S9 and the Inkatha Freedom Party has S2229 and UDF has S 13.  So that is as far as I had gone with J1, but J 1 must be seen together with the other documents.

MR VISSER: But just confining ourselves to J 1 at the moment.  What you've just told me is that there are basically 3 reasons why you say J1 shows that Mr Ndaba was not an informer.  The one is he's identified as a target.  The second point is that there is no reference in that document, J 1 to show that he was an informer and thirdly at page 11 next to his name, it is not stated "not for security interest".