Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-09-29

FERDINAND BARNARD: It certainly must be a crime if you frame someone with an arms cache, because those aren't the persons who are really accountable for the charge.  I did that.  And then there were attorneys from Pretoria who smuggled with Trust money.  I knocked them with a swindle of R20,000 and I gave Vlakplaas members R5,000.  Four of them received R5,000 and one received R10,000.

MR WESSELS: You were an expert at framing people Mr Barnard.

FERDINAND BARNARD: I wouldn't say that I was an expert, but I have a background in it and I have done it before.

MR WESSELS: You see that's precisely what you are doing here, you are framing Lafras Luitingh and Joe Verster regarding Webster.

FERDINAND BARNARD: And you know why I am doing that because I don't want to go to jail, I am so scared of going to jail.  I have been in jail for three years.  I am in C-Max, the prison.

MR WESSELS: No Mr Barnard you are doing fancy footwork to try and recruit friends in high places for yourself because you know that at some or other point in the future, even if it is the distant future, you will not be compelled to serve out your two life sentences.

FERDINAND BARNARD: If you want to cheapen what has taken place between me and the Omar family you can go to hell.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard I am not trying to turn it into something cheap.

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is precisely what you are doing.

MR WESSELS: It is you who are standing here and it is you who is not explaining everything that you have done in the past.

FERDINAND BARNARD: I am telling the truth.

MR WESSELS: If you are here to tell the whole truth to clear your conscience as you have attempted to do so according to your evidence, why don't you clear your conscience?  Why don't you tell us about all the other cases of crime in which you were involved during the past?  And why don't you disclose the truth so that those who have suffered as a result of your actions can know what really happened?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I have testified regarding everything that has happened up to DCC.  It stops with DCC.

MR WESSELS: Have you testified regarding everything that you were involved with?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I could not because I was not permitted to do so by the Commission.

MR WESSELS: No the Commission did not prevent you from testifying about anything which could have been an offence.

FERDINAND BARNARD: No that is not what I am saying Sir.  I am saying that I testified yesterday regarding activities with DCC and then the Honourable Chairperson said that we should not take it too far.  I cannot think of any crimes that I committed that I have not testified about.  If there is something that you know about please tell me, they can take my fingerprints and charge me.  I will take the maximum.  I will plead guilty and take the maximum.  It doesn't really matter, don't you understand, it doesn't matter.  Whether I have another life sentence or four more life sentences, it doesn't really matter.  I only have one life to spend in prison, not four lives, one life.  It doesn't matter to me at all.

MR WESSELS: Then why don't you tell us about all the other things that you were involved in, or is it your memory that fails you?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I cannot recall anything else, I don't know what you are referring to.  If there is anything else I will admit to it.

MR WESSELS: Well those 20 photographs in the album, tell us about those Mr Barnard.

FERDINAND BARNARD: I have explained already, you can either accept it or reject it.

MR COETZEE: With the greatest respect Chairperson, this is no relief that has been offered in terms of confessing to everything that he has done regarding all his crimes.  It would not be appropriate.  This is not the forum within which a person should come to confess about aspects pertaining to crime or anything else which are not relevant here.  What is relevant here is politics.  You have permitted us to go further than what we really could, especially with regard to DCC involvement.  But what my learned colleague is trying to do here by means of suggestion is actually a blackening of Mr Barnard's name by confronting him with certain things which have not been served before you.  It is not acceptable and I really do not think it should be permitted.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman Mr Barnard arrives here and he pretends that he is telling the whole truth, that he lied in the past about everything and that now he is telling the truth and, for that reason, we have to believe him.
	And it is very important that we have to decide that with the evidence in front of you we have to test now if he is telling the truth or is he lying again.  He pretends that he is here to open his heart and tell the truth to reconcile and somebody who wants to do this must tell the whole truth and not just selective truths.  
	And with respect it is my client's right to see to what an extent he is telling selectively the truth or up to the point where he actually discloses everything, because somebody who tells the truth does not have a problem in mentioning every aspect.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels the witness has said look, he's lived a life of crime.  For many, many years he has been steeped in it to such an extent that it's twisted his life for years and years and he's said that he just can't remember any other crimes other than what he has told us.  I think he did say, he qualified that he, he did say he can't remember any crimes outside of the Police context because there were many in the Police Force where he shot first, and they planted guns etc, but outside of the Police context  ...(intervention)

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairperson that is correct, but it has to be tested to see if he is now telling the truth, because a point that he is making now is very simple.  He comes here and he says that he's telling the truth.  He will sit in jail for the rest of his life.  He is telling the truth and we must believe him.  But when he is asked about other crimes to test or find out if he is telling selectively the truth, can I just finish my point, then why it is important Sir is that it is my statement that I put to Mr Barnard that he has a motive why he is making these allegations.  And to test that motive it is important that we can see to what extent he is making a full disclosure, or is he holding back.  Because if he is holding back something then it is very clear that there is a motive.

CHAIRPERSON: But then where do we draw the line Mr Wessels.  He's described himself as being the bouncer of all bounces.  He's probably bounced hundreds of people in night-clubs.  He's pimped prostitutes for years.  He's inhaled cocaine and dealt in drugs in probably dozens or hundreds of occasions ...(intervention)

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman I am not interested in those, in his life would be petty crimes, I am interested in the serious crimes that he's committed.  And we want evidence about the serious crimes that he's committed because it is very evident that if he had committed other very serious crimes then he will never come out of prison.  Now let him disclose those other serious crimes that he has committed and then we can see how we must judge his evidence in this particular case.

CHAIRPERSON: The serious crime you are calling murder?

MR WESSELS: Murder and similar type of offences.  Mr Chairman may I just place on record here.  From the first day I objected when there was evidence given in this forum that went outside the ambit of what I perceived to be the aims of the Act.  And with all due respect a lot of evidence was admitted and the result has now arisen that the river has broken its banks and we don't know where to stop.  That is unfortunate.