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

MP PIGOU: Okay, I am going to be quick now because I can see - we've got to go around the table, I am just going to talk about why the invest - well why the investigation was ended.  We received in some of the papers that you handed over to us, perhaps inadvertently with this one, that there is a document from the National Intelligence Agency which we have quoted in the course of this hearing about Katiza Cebekhulu and former Mandela United Football Club members and that those members were expressing fear of Cebekhulu regarding the Stompie Seipei trial.  Was any attempt made, it speaks about certain Football Club members in this document, was any attempt made through the intelligence agencies, through the SANDF to locate Football Club members?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Yes there was attempts made.

MP PIGOU: Could you tell us what those attempts were?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Okay.  The director, now director Msowetu Malaba was then an intelligence officer for the ANC and he was in the team and he indicated that he would be able to do all the intelligence work as far as these members were concerned and he had a close relationship with that kind of people and that kind of situation.  He did the investigations, I went on one occasion with him to Biria(?) where we went, we looked for a man there.  We then found out that there was a Sithole who was also in the army that was there, and I think the documents are here, he had then, we since then found out that he was a reservist then and we couldn't find him again.

MP PIGOU: Were any other attempts made to trace Football Club members who may have been integrated into the SANDF?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Well that's the attempts we made there.

MP PIGOU: That was it?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Ja.

MP PIGOU: Were you made aware either directly or through Director Malaba that a certain Guybon Kubheka, whose name has popped up throughout the course of this hearing, received indemnity in 1994 for the assault and attempted murder of Stompie Seipei?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: No.

MP PIGOU: So that information wasn't furnished to you by Director Malaba at all?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: No if it is it may be in his notes.

MP PIGOU: Right, okay.  Could you tell us, in the light of the organograms that are stuck on the back of your investigation diary of who people, which people were spoken to that had been listed down and a number of them haven't been spoken to, could you tell us why, in the light of all the resources that were spent, and I am sure counsel for Mr Cebekhulu will want to ask you about your visit to London to see him, why having spent all this money this investigation was just suddenly stopped when there was clearly investigative work that could still be done on this matter?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I was sent to London by the national commissioner and the Minister of Police, Sydney Mufamadi, with Dave Soritch to go and investigate this matter and speak to Cebekhulu and get some statements from him.  I had a lot of difficulties getting through to Cebekhulu because Mrs Emma Nicholson refused me access to this gentleman and I have got a lot of documents here to prove that, eventually she allowed me, I went to her just to the interview with one of the FBI agents, sorry, one of the agents from Scotland Yard to her house.  She then agreed that she would see me alone and not with Dave Soritch, she didn't want to talk to a white policeman at the time.  I agreed, we made an appointment and she spoke to me.  And she wanted more information from me because she said Cebekhulu is here but I won't let you have him, I won't let you speak to him unless you give me certain information.  I then corresponded with my head office, that is with Commissioner Fivaz and Commissioner Suiker Britz and in the interim we were discussing how best we could get this thing resolved that I could see or get some sort of statement from Cebekhulu.  Her questions at that time, or arguments should I say was that I should first of all give her two of Cebekhulu's statements that he had made to the police because she would hand me Cebekhulu's third statement, if we call it so.  I then refused and I said the day she would give me Cebekhulu's statement I will hand over these two statements which I then had faxed by Col Dempsey from Soweto to me in London, I had them then transcribed from Afrikaans to English and the day she handed me that sworn affidavit I gave these two sworn affidavits to Miss Emma Nicholson.   There was a contradiction in all those statements plus the verbal statement.  I was then - sorry, before that I was asked to go to Emma Nicholson's house where she then for the first time introduced me to Cebekhulu, he was sitting in her house in Devon, and that's the first time I saw him.  I spoke to him and she said to me then I should not put any questions to him, he will ask all the questions and I must just answer.  I said look I don't play that game.  I mean we can both have a conversation but I am not coming here to answer a lot of questions.
 Then she said okay would you answer certain questions and she put the questions to me regarding Mrs Mandela and a few other things about the Stompie Seipei case and his disappearance from South Africa.  I said I have no knowledge of his disappearance.  We then had supper and I stayed over that night in Emma Nicholson's house.  And that's when the agreement was made about the statement that she would give to me if I gave her two statements.  And that's how I got the statement.

MP PIGOU: Okay ...(intervention)

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Then ...(intervention)

MP PIGOU: Sorry I don't want to go down a whole recollection of your visit to the UK although I believe it's important, your opinions, because they are expressed in your correspondence about Mr Cebekhulu and I believe that those opinions were taken by Commissioner Fivaz with regards to correspondence he then sent to Tony Leon that in your opinion Cebekhulu was an unreliable witness and with specific reference to the Asvat murder case that you felt that maybe he got that story from Thulani Dhlamini somewhere along the line.
 I want to finish off this section over here simply with trying to understand that in the light of all the investigative work that still had to be done, the amount of resources that had been put into this investigation which seemed to be quite considerable, why in your opinion was this investigation stopped?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Okay.  When I had come back from London all the other local information we had we then put in front of the Attorney General, who then looked at the information, the statements concerned, the transcript of the tape that we got from Zambia which I had transcribed in London and with all those documents, in other words the four statements, plus the transcript and the Attorney General said I am not prepared to prosecute in this matter at all.

MP PIGOU: But with respect Mr Moodley did you consider that the investigation was in a position where you could submit those dockets to the Attorney General, that it was ready, that it was time that further work could still be done on this matter, because I see again in these organograms there are a lot of people still could have been spoken to, a lot more effort it seems to me could have gone into tracking down former Football Club members and it seems to me that a decision was taken to close this investigation without these other avenues having been thoroughly explored?