Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-03-27

ADV DE JAGER: The first line reads,
"He said to me to see, he told me to see to it that I, to see to it that the suspect is found, to see to it that the suspect receive, gets the opportunity or gets the chance".
You must get the opportunity.

JUDGE WILSON: The word "chance" has to be written in there.  That "the accused should get a chance to escape.

MR DE RU: Colonel Voigt also said that he would come out to the scene if I needed him and that he would attend the shooting incident personally.
	At that stage and that day I was stationed at Sasolburg.  Colonel Voigt was my District Commanding Officer, he was stationed at Kroonstad which is a 120 kilometres away from where I was.  Colonel Voigt contacted me that morning to come and do identifications.  I went to Kroonstad, received the Black man at the charge office of the Kroonstad Police Station.  What I would like to mention is that before I could find the Black man, Colonel Voigt took me to the State Mortuary, which is behind the police station, where he pointed out the body of the deceased, Mr Bezuidenhout, to me.  Your Honour, the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and it was mutilated
and I, the body was in a state of - it was extremely mutilated and I managed to obtain photographs which I would like to submit to the Commission.  Unfortunately, I only one have one set of photographs.  We have made photostat copies, but they do not indicate what the colour photographs show and hence I would like to hand them in to you.

JUDGE WILSON: Very well.

MR DE RU: Thank you.

JUDGE WILSON: What has been handed in is an album apparently prepared by the South African Police during the course of the investigations.  It shows the body of a man lying on the floor of a kitchen.  There are close-ups of his head and the wounds there and other photographs of the room and other rooms in the house.  There is also a photograph of an elderly woman with an extremely battered eye lying on a bed with a gash on her leg.  This will be EXHIBIT A.
EXHIBIT A HANDED IN

JUDGE WILSON: Mr Mpshe, there is no other previous exhibits in this application?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No, Mr Chairman.

MR MADASA: Mr de Ru, when you saw the photo of the deceased before you went into the investigations, how did you feel?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, in my police career I have seen thousands of corpses.  As you yourself have seen, that is not a good, a very pretty sight.  It is shocking to see such photographs.  It is shocking to see that it is an aged, an aged man who was killed in that way and an elderly lady who was assaulted.

ADV DE JAGER: Do you know how old they were?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, Mr Bezuidenhout was 68 years old and Mrs Bezuidenhout was 64 years old.

MR MADASA: These attacks on the farmers at that stage, I am referring now to the police force interpretation, the way they saw them, were they seen as political or purely criminal?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, I saw it as being political, Colonel Voigt saw it as being political.  I am fairly certain that the seniors, his seniors, saw it as such as well.  There was no way in which I could have believed that Colonel Voigt would have followed his own agenda by attaching politics to such, to such crimes if he had not received his instructions from a higher authority.

MR MADASA: My next question is, if they were seen as political, they were therefore security matters, why were you called to investigate or to be involved in this matter whereas you were in the Detective Branch?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, it was well known that all investigations are done by Detectives at the end of the day, and I even believe that the security people in the court today, that under emergency regulations that they have arrested people and have helped people and that us, as Detectives, we had to do investigation.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr de Ru, were you involved in the investigation in Kroonstad of the Three Million gang?

MR DE RU: Yes, that is correct, your Honour.

MR MADASA: Carry on after you have, Colonel Voigt has shown you the body, what happened?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, I received the Black man, as I told you, at the charge office and then also the prescribed form for suspects, I completed that.  Myself and Constable Mojafe travelled together and the suspect showed us the route to
plot 80, Vrisgewacht, that was in Kroonstad.  We were also accompanied by a police photographer, he travelled in his own vehicle.  
	On the scene many places were shown to me by the deceased and photos were taken.  After that we went back to our respective vehicles.  The photographer left in his vehicle and myself and Mojafe stayed behind with the deceased and we talked to him.  I told him that other exhibits, pieces of evidence had to be shown and identified to us, that his co-suspect would have hidden away in pigstyes.  
	We walked to a specific scene.  I will also hand in photographs to you to illustrate it to you.  It will make it much clearer for you.  In front was the suspect, myself behind him and then Mojafe.  There was a rondavel and a reed hut just behind the rondavel.

JUDGE WILSON: Are you, are you handing these photographs in or are they part of the record?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, I will hand it in.  I just want to complete the paragraph.  It is a whole set and then I will explain it to you if it pleases you.  Thank you.
	When we got to the rondavel the suspect walked around the rondavel and at the entrance of this bush he stood and then he quickly walked into the bush and it looked to me as if it was the ideal opportunity to let it seem as if he is trying to escape.  I took out my pistol and I fired two shots at him.  He fell down and Mojafe and myself shouted that he was escaping, he died.  
	The police officer who was standing at the house ran to us and I left him and Mojafe with the deceased and I went to my car and then also called Colonel Voigt on the radio to the scene.  He came and I showed him the scene.  On the scene he talked to Mojafe, I do not know what they said, but later on the way back he told me that the Colonel said that there is nothing to worry about and we did a good job. Voigt also took my hand on the scene and said it was excellent work.  The news that the suspect was shot spread quickly and all the local detectives congratulated me as well as the magistrate.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr de Ru, the congratulations, was that because the people had knowledge of the true facts that you shot this person or was it that they congratulated you because you shot someone who tried to escape?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, they did not have any knowledge.  It was only Colonel Voigt who had knowledge of the true facts.

ADV DE JAGER: So those people was not based on the fact that you shot him because of the true circumstances, but it was because they thought you shot a person who escaped, who was a suspect in a murder case?

MR DE RU: Yes, that is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: And up to now they are still under the impression.  Do they have knowledge of the true facts?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, I think the true facts are being revealed today for the first time.  Your Honours, just to go back to the photos that I referred to.  I hand in photos.  We will mark it as EXHIBIT B.  It is photos taken on the 15th of June 1990 where you will see me at the entrance of a reed bush and on the second photo you will see the deceased lying.  I just want to point your attention to the date, it is 15/6/90.  It was round about 19:30, 13:30.

JUDGE WILSON: This is again official police photographs?

MR DE RU: Yes.
EXHIBIT B HANDED IN

MR MADASA: Sorry to interrupt you.  Before you carried out
the instruction from Colonel Voigt, did you have 
information, personally, that the person you shot was, in fact, connected with the killing of the farmer?

MR DE RU: Yes, that is correct.

MR MADASA: What information did you have?