Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-14

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: You will have to go and ask him that Mr Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't you take an interest in your erstwhile co-conspirators?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: You have  to remember that, I don't want to use the word co-conspirator.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, your colleagues in the CCB.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is much better.

GEORGE BIZOS: But would you mind answering the ...

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, it has nothing to do with me, you will have to go and ask them.  It is not relating to what we are busy with at the moment.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did Mr van Zyl go into, or rather continue with a very lucrative business, which he established at the expense of the CCB?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That you will have to ask him Mr Chairperson.  I read in the newspapers that he has his own business.  I do not know how successful he was.  I have no idea.

GEORGE BIZOS: The reason why I am asking you these questions is because we are going to submit that they are relevant.  That the terms of employment and the monies and other benefits that they were getting, should have made you particularly careful about what they were proposing should be done in the name of the State.  Do you have any comment on that?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It was all authorised structures and decisions and we were the only structure who had an authorised financial plan.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Because you were able to keep away vital documents from the Auditor General, to wit the operational files.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think you read this in the newspaper, Mr Chairperson, I do not know what you're talking about.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well did you, never mind where I read it from, did you in fact make the operational files available to the Auditor-General?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: The financial plan had a written guideline that no operation should have been shown or had to be shown to  - there were two files, the financial part of the file he could receive and this was an authorised procedure on a level above my level and this is where it was authorised.

GEORGE BIZOS: My learned friend Mr Khanovitz reminds me that we didn't get it from the newspapers but from the evidence given in the Harms Commission as to how unspecified Defence figures were used in order to cover up the operations.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Never, we never hid anything from our side, it was done on financial level.  In the Army it was a level above me and I do not see any one of those members here.

GEORGE BIZOS: Please tell us who recommended or put a plan before you to kill Mr Evans?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: This came from Region 6, for its Co-ordinator, Christo Britz and from Staal Burger regarding the activities of Botha.

GEORGE BIZOS: Which Evans was to be killed?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It was Gavin Evans.

GEORGE BIZOS: What were you told about him?  What was his occupation?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: If I can remember correctly, then he was working in the media profession and on the same basis, information was given that he was busying himself with radical leftist activities which was a threat to the safety of the State and a threat to the sovereignty of the State.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, well that's the formula but lets get down to facts.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That was how it was presented to me Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, when you heard Mr Gavin Evans' name, when it came through from Region 6, was that the first time you'd heard his name?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Yes, I did not know him at all.

GEORGE BIZOS: Which newspaper was he working for?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I do not know this Mr Chairperson.  This was information, or the Intelligence community's problem, my problem was the operational decision.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were any of his writings put before you in order to persuade you that he was a person worthy for elimination, having regard to his writings?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No this is an Intelligence problem to determine this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now if  you say that you nearly put a stamp of approval on the information, who in the information services, gathered the information in relation to Mr Evans.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I just want to correct that.  I did not say that I put a stamp on the information that I received from them.  What I did is that I would approve a plan after it was confirmed that the individual was a target and what I would then do is that I would act on the information and the plan in front of me and on my level I would approve it and then I would present it one level higher and in the case of the question that you're asking regarding the information itself, it came from the regional level, once again through the Co-ordinator to me and the Co-ordinator would then present it to the information people who are functioning on his level and then it would leave our structure to Special Forces and once again to intelligence and then to Trevits that you spoke about and then quite possibly the South African Police and even National Intelligence and we did not have direct contact with them apart from the approved Intelligence staff.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now the information people didn't decide whether a window pane would be broken or whether there would be elimination, that was your decision.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: They do the recommendations or they give the position of the individuals and then an evaluation is done of the information and the threat and an operational evaluation is done and then the plan is made.

GEORGE BIZOS: Do you know whether he had a brother?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, I did not know him at all Mr Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: In the information that you were given, was there anything about the involvement of an Evans in the end conscription campaign?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, Mr Chairperson, I do not have any knowledge of this.

GEORGE BIZOS: You have never heard of any of the Evans brothers being involved in the end conscription campaign.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Mr Chairperson, that knowledge and those activities were activities for the Security Police and they were responsible for the internal intelligence and intelligence system and the Defence Force was responsible for the rest of Africa and I was not in the intelligence community at all, I was an operational officer and I determined the targets and, based on the information at my disposal and then we made operational plans for the attack.

GEORGE BIZOS: An operational soldier is told, go and do this specifically, he is given orders.  You were not given orders, your function was to decide whether the windowsill was going to be broken or a window pane was going to be broken, or a person was going to die.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I was part of the planning system.  I approved the plans on my level and then I presented them, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Bizos.  Mr Verster, when you got a proposal put, would that proposal contain an intelligence report saying:  Mr Evans is a member of this organisation.  He knows such and such a person.  He walks in such and such a circle, that sort of information?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So you would have all the information before you that was gathered by, either from your cell people on the ground, or from the Intelligence services?