Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

MR DE KOCK: No, any hunting of Temba, this is only what I've heard here now, this is the argument.  He wasn't a member of the S.A.P. then, he was used as an informer, as a registered source really, he was not a sworn in member of the SAP. because if that were the case I would have had a case against him, I would have cancelled his medical aid fund, there is a process therefor, I would have cancelled his pension fund, I would have cancelled his salary, but he was, he still didn't qualify to become a member of the SAP, in other words to look for him because he absconded, that is not true, and, from a legal point, I can also lay a charge against him.  One has in that case no case against him.  What could be a solution was that we could say we had a verbal agreement; you help us, you work together with us and then I charge you in terms of the terrorist act, I think that would have been the practical way.

CHAIRPERSON: Get on quite quickly please.

MR PRIOR: Thank you Mr Chairman.   Who set up the arrangements at Penge Mine on the day that you received Mr Mabotha from Colonel Potgieter?

MR DE KOCK: Those were my arrangements based on, somebody didn't come to one and tell you to shoot somebody or whatever, it was very clear to me what my instructions were.

MR PRIOR: And the question of the explosives, whose arrangement was that?

MR DE KOCK: That was, he's not represented here today but I think he will be here some time.  One of the former task force members of Ovamboland.   I went and asked him where we could get rid of this person and where we could bury him and he said it was better to blow him up so that's when I asked him where the blowing-up situation came from because I, it was a bit bizarre to me, I'm not looking for sympathy, but he said they used it in Otavi with the task force and another Koevoet member told me the same thing that was told to me in Ovamboland that such a person was blown up at Sodwana which I also found very bizarre.  I'm not trying to build my own image here, I am just telling you.

MR PRIOR: After the interrogation at Marble Hall on the 22nd February 1989, had any discussion taken place between yourself, the detective or the security branch Soweto, the Marble Hall security branch concerning the future handling of Mabotha, whether he could be let go, whether he was to be charged, whether he was to be eliminated?

MR DE KOCK: No, Mr Chair, Vlakplaas's mandate ended that afternoon.  He who is Mabotha became then again the subject of a security investigation and in no way could Vlakplaas interfere, it was not allowed.   Vlakplaas also didn't have access to information in any way;  we never went and booked them out, there were cases where we went along and had to go and look at them with the view to recruitment but that's all.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Prior,  Mr Pigou,  no questions? Mr Mavundla.

MR MAVUNDLA: Thanks Mr Chairman.  The members of Soweto security branch who were there when Mabotha was assaulted, do you remember whether any one of them participated in the assault or what?

MR DE KOCK: Can you just repeat.

MR MAVUNDLA: The members of the security branch from Soweto were there when Mabotha was assaulted.  Do you remember whether any one of them participated in the assault or what?

MR DE KOCK: Yes, I can because I know that Klopper and someone working with him were very active.  What actually happened in fact that you become tired so it took place on a relay basis so that the interrogated person got no rest, no water, no light, it was a total disorientation and a breaking down of a person physically and mentally.

MR MAVUNDLA: What I gather is, they did participate in the assault?

MR DE KOCK: I said before already that Colonel Grobelaar didn't, I never saw him assault anybody or interrogate anybody - I mean hard interrogating.   The two Marble Hall people whose names I don't know did not participate and the person with me I couldn't remember him participating, and that's not because I'm protecting him, but all the other members of Soweto did participate;  those who were there participated.  You must just know one thing - the mentality at that stage, the patterns, the thought patterns at that stage was not that you had to force somebody to interrogate a person.  As it were you had to queue to get a chance because people wanted to gain success.  It was not for promotion, we want to make sure that terrorism doesn't take place any more, and then they took their gloves off.   That's my opinion.

MR MAVUNDLA: The issue of handing Mabotha over to you, why was it necessary that Mabotha should be handed over to you?

MR DE KOCK: What was it necessary?

MR MAVUNDLA: Why was it necessary that Mabotha should be handed over to you?

MR DE KOCK: To be killed, as far as I know.

MR MAVUNDLA: As far as you know.

MR DE KOCK: That is not as far as I know, that is what I know, sorry, because we will still be hearing in future that a similar request was directed at me again and then there will be more aspects that will indicate that although there were a group of security policemen who did, who were not violence-orientated who were investigation-orientated, they did not have a problem to receive a broken person from the interrogators because that made his case safe.  When this case was court-orientated, the investigator could say that somebody was not assaulted but testified.  The persons who interrogated that person, they could go on with another case.  In many cases a Judge said that this is not a matter in dispute, your assault, let's deal with this matter in hand.   I think we have all heard that, you too.

MR MAVUNDLA: Then could you clarify this point again for me:  will I be right to say that the police officer who handed Mabotha over to you is the one who gave you instructions to kill him?

MR DE KOCK: I wouldn't say he gave me orders, there was a cross-pollination of ideas.  He and I understood each other well, we had no problems with each other around such a situation.  I believed without doubt that from his side there would have been, he wouldn't have nodded and winked at such a situation.  I don't remember the exact words and I'm not going to thumb-suck and ascribe it to him for that one doesn't do in a situation like this.

MR MAVUNDLA: You are saying that you understood each other well.  Does that mean ...(intervention)

MR DE KOCK: Very well.

MR MAVUNDLA: You had similar dealings in the past or what?

MR MAVUNDLA: : Yes, there's no doubt that it was in another country and at another time but the same things happened.  If we come back to that, my former colleague Mr Potgieter said that he didn't know what the reference framework of C1 was, I would not say that he is lying, maybe he just forgot, because the reference framework at Koevert was specifically the same as that of Vlakplaas because what happened there was the icing on the outside of C1 which is almost the same as Koevert was that the arrest of terrorists, the recruitment and the use of such terrorists, the delivery of witnesses, the identification of the photographs, that was icing, but on the inside we had an anti-insurgent group which was ready 24 hours a day to resist and should we have found that, there I drew the line because there was a difference between anti-insurgence and anti-terrorism.  Anti-insurgence - anti-terrorism you went to the border, anti-insurgence you crossed the border and gave a person his own lesson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mavundla are you nearly through, are you nearly over?   Could you tell me how much longer you are going to be?  You have no further questions. Please move as fast as you can.

MR MAVUNDLA: I have further questions.  Thanks Mr Chairman.  You also mentioned one aspect.  Mr Mabotha was not a member of S.A.P. as such?