Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-09-27

MR KAHANOVITZ: Alright.  Now just returning then to your application at page 28, just read paragraph 3 to yourself, or maybe read it into the record.

LEON A MAREE: NO TRANSLATION
" In my hoedanigheid as lid van die BSB was ek betrokke by sekere projekte.  Ek is geadviseer dat my betrokkenheid by een van die projekte, welke projek ek hierna beskryf, mag meebring dat ek my moontlik aan strafregtelike oortredings skuldig maak."
		"In case I do make myself guilty of such offences, I therefore according to the Act of Indemnity, apply for it."

MR KAHANOVITZ: Right.  Now it's clear from the way that this is phrased, that there's considerable doubt as to whether anything that you did in fact amounted to an offence.

LEON A MAREE: That's correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And the reason why it's phrased in that way becomes apparent when you read paragraph 4.  Just read paragraph 4 into the record.
MR MAREE
"During approximately March 1989, I received an instruction to monitor Gavin Evans in order to determine whether or not he was involved in undermining activities towards the State.  I was aware that if I were to find evidence which would indicate that the aforementioned Evans was indeed involved in undermining activities towards the State, there could be possible action taken against him and that such action would be violent by nature and could possibly have his elimination as a consequence.  However I never received any instruction to take any steps against him with the objective of possible violence against Gavin Evans.  Before the opportunity arose for me to carry out my instruction to monitor Evans, I was given an instruction to go abroad and the project for Gavin Evans was taken away from me."

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, why were you in doubt as to whether your conduct amounted to an offence?

LEON A MAREE: I was of the opinion that I hadn't done anything wrong, my legal advice was that I should have foreseen that even if it was a compartment of the crime, that it forms part of the crime.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Alright.  so your thinking was that:  "If all I did was establish the guy's address, that can't be a crime"?

LEON A MAREE: Ja, but my legal advice was not that.  That was my thinking, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Good advice that you got.  Now, you've already agreed that the first sentence in that paragraph, that your instructions were to monitor him to establish him, sorry in order to establish whether he was involved in activities undermining the security of the State, that's false?

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now the next sentence is also false.  It must be so because the two are logically linked together.

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You agree with me, it's false?

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, the final sentence of that paragraph
"Before I could execute my order to monitor Gavin Evans, I was given an instruction to execute a project beyond the borders of South Africa and the Gavin Evans project was taken from me."
That's also false?

LEON A MAREE: No it's not.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But your evidence-in-chief has been, "I was tasked to establish his address.  I took a while to do it, but I did it."  Nothing to the effect of:  "I couldn't establish his address because I was sent overseas on another project."

LEON A MAREE: I understand, sorry, I understand that.  Maybe the wording is not correct, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No, no, it goes a lot further than that.  I'll tell you why you've inserted that sentence there in that way, because it's in line with the fact that the entire paragraph is a lie.  What you're telling the reader is the following.  You tell the reader that you were going to establish whether he was involved in activities undermining the security of the State.  That's the first thing you say.  The second thing you say is that you realise that after you'd carried out that monitoring activity, that information might have been used for purposes of his elimination.  Are you with me?

LEON A MAREE: I'm with you.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But then you go on to tell the reader that you actually never got round to monitoring him because you went overseas which is why it can't be said that you've committed an offence.  In essence you say:  "I was asked to monitor him, but I never got, but I couldn't monitor him, even though I was asked to, because I was sent out of the country.

LEON A MAREE: That's what it says, yes.  I understand.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well, the whole thing is a lie.

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes.  I was just going to - it appears a lie but this was the legal people that drew up, it wasn't - as a previous witness also has said, we can say what we want to, but this comes from our legal people.  I'm not pushing the blame to anybody.

CHAIRPERSON: Because usually if there's a distortion, it's to reduce the culpability of the writer.  Here it's just the opposite.  You know if you say:  "Look I had the task to establish the address, I did that, I didn't really know why they wanted the address except I believed that it was to take certain steps against Mr Evans of which I didn't know whether it was to break his window or kill him, I didn't know, but just to get his address", which is very, very straight forward, simple, it's against the law with that knowledge that steps might be taken against him, you might have been an accessory before the fact.  I don't know if it can be said that you were a conspirator, but in any even that would be for argument, but nothing too serious.  It's just difficult to comprehend, now this version then comes in, that you were there to monitor him which never happened.

LEON A MAREE: No, it didn't happen.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kahanovitz.

MR LAX: You see, sorry, your purpose wasn't even to monitor him, it was just to get his address.

LEON A MAREE: To establish an address, yes.

MR LAX: Monitoring is something quite different.

LEON A MAREE: I agree.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Alright.  I'm just, I want to clarify.  You're now - Mr Basson's evidence, I just want to see if you agree with his evidence.  Mr Basson says that Staal Burger instructed you to use indirect members to trace Gavin Evans' whereabouts, is that correct?

LEON A MAREE: I don't think he told me directly, I would have done that myself, I can't remember Mr Burger giving me that instruction.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well somebody has to tell you to establish his address.

LEON A MAREE: No, that I can do, but telling me that I must do it with an indirect member, that I would do by myself.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well, I'm just putting to you what Mr Basson's evidence was.  Mr Basson said you dragged your feet in doing this.

LEON A MAREE: That may be his perception, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well, is it a correct perception?

LEON A MAREE: Well I dragged my feet in this particular thing, but the reason for that was that I was trying to run two or three businesses at that stage.

MR KAHANOVITZ: How long do you think it would have taken you to - or, you knew that he worked at the Weekly Mail, correct?

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So his work address you could establish by looking it up in the phone book?

LEON A MAREE: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Home address?

LEON A MAREE: That I did not know.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, but how much work was involved, you were involved in all these other things that you didn't have the time.

LEON A MAREE: We can sit and discuss it now, but at that time, the reality of the situation was that I was, it wasn't a major thing in my life to do this, to trace this address.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Maree, how long did it in fact take you to get the address, from the time Mr Basson spoke to you until the time that you provided it?

LEON A MAREE: Two days, Sir.  Two days and three telephone calls.

CHAIRPERSON: Two days?

LEON A MAREE: Ja.  I didn't want to phone continuously ...(indistinct), so I give two days to redial again.

CHAIRPERSON: I was under the impression that it was far longer than two days.