Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-22

JAN B DE WET: Mr Chairperson, I cannot remember in that period when I worked at Ventersdorp that Mr Fourie or Mr Le Roux came to Ventersdorp at any stage.

MR LANDMAN: Mr Fourie was an important man, he was one of the bodyguards of the leader, wasn't he?

JAN B DE WET: Yes Sir, that is true, but they worked in another district and when Mr Terreblanche let's say go to Johannesburg or Witwatersrand, then Barnard wasn't always with him.

MR LANDMAN: But he was at times with the leader in places like Johannesburg?

JAN B DE WET: Yes, the times when he did drive with Mr Terreblanche, he did not wear his uniform.  I can concede to that.

MR LANDMAN: So he normally wore a uniform at the office, at Headquarters?

JAN B DE WET: No Mr Chairperson, in the office he did not wear his uniform.  He did though, or let me put it this way, he was a Colonel and I can confirm that in parades that we attended and when he was on a horse, he had the uniform of a Colonel.

MR LANDMAN: Did he ever fall off?

JAN B DE WET: No, Mr Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Mr De Wet, I want to put it to you that you fabricate and you are making this up.

JAN B DE WET: Mr Chairperson, that is what the Advocate says, my opinion is that it is the truth and that is how I knew Mr Barnard.

MR LANDMAN: Just as you made up the evidence about seeing this gas bottle bomb at Koesterfontein.

JAN B DE WET: No Mr Chairperson, I do not agree with that.

MR LANDMAN: Did Mr Barnard ever give you any orders?

JAN B DE WET: No Mr Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Did anyone give you orders to plant bombs?

JAN B DE WET: Yes, Mr Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Who was that?

JAN B DE WET: Nico Prinsloo and Leon van der Merwe.

MR LANDMAN: Where is Nico Prinsloo today?

JAN B DE WET: I do not know where he works at all Mr Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Is he still a member of the AWB?

JAN B DE WET: I do not know.

MR LANDMAN: Are you a member of the AWB?

JAN B DE WET: At this stage, no, not at all.

MR LANDMAN: Why not?

JAN B DE WET: I am in prison and I do not mean anything for the AWB.

MR LANDMAN: Do you believe they have abandoned you?

JAN B DE WET: No, I would not say that they have abandoned me, there are some AWB members who still visit me in prison.

MR LANDMAN: Has the leader ever come to visit you?

JAN B DE WET: Yes, he has.

MR LANDMAN: Has he ever admitted that the AWB was responsible for planting those bombs?

JAN B DE WET: Yes, Mr Chairperson, in prison he at various times admitted that his Generals deserted him.

MR LANDMAN: Sir, that is not an answer to the question.  My question is did Mr Terreblanche say to you directly that he and the AWB is responsible for the bombs that were planted?

JAN B DE WET: Yes Mr Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Why did you never ask Mr Barnard whether he is the one who planted the bomb at Bree Street?

JAN B DE WET: Mr Chairperson, I assumed that it was him and the group at Koesterfontein who made the bomb, I never asked him personally.

MR LANDMAN: My question to you is why did you not ask him?  You know him well from Headquarters?

JAN B DE WET: I did not ask him Chairperson.  I do not have a reason why I did not ask him.

MR LANDMAN: Because you never really knew who had planted that bomb, did you?

JAN B DE WET: I knew who planted the bomb in Bree Street after I was at Koesterfontein.

MR LANDMAN: You knew or you had a suspicion?

JAN B DE WET: I had a very good suspicion from what I saw at Koesterfontein, and I accepted it was them.

MR LANDMAN: But did you know whether Mr Barnard was acting on orders of the AWB or whether this was his own adventure?

JAN B DE WET: Mr Chairperson, I accepted that it was instructions from the AWB Head Office and that he wouldn't have done things on his own because General Nico Prinsloo and the people who were at the game farm, they knew about this.
	Therefore I accepted that it carried the approval of the AWB, Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: When on the game farm did somebody say that the AWB gave the order for the Bree Street bombing?

JAN B DE WET: At the game farm those words were never spoken Chairperson, the fact that the AWB gave the instruction.
	I accepted it because Nico Prinsloo and Leon van der Merwe was there.

MR LANDMAN: But they weren't at Koesterfontein, were they?

JAN B DE WET: They weren't there as far as I know Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: When you went back to the game farm, did you tell anybody that you had seen Barnard and others making a bomb?

JAN B DE WET: I spoke to Nico Prinsloo about it Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Did you tell anybody else?

JAN B DE WET: Not that I can remember Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Why would you want to tell General Prinsloo about this bomb?

JAN B DE WET: Because I made my vehicle available to Prinsloo, I asked him about the vehicles that he promised Barnard.

MR LANDMAN: But why?

JAN B DE WET: I made mine available.  To me he was the General present there.

MR LANDMAN: What was your motivation for telling him, just tell us?

JAN B DE WET: Please repeat?

MR LANDMAN: Why did you tell General Prinsloo about the bomb at Koesterfontein, what was your reason?

JAN B DE WET: Because I accepted that it was the AWB who was responsible for it.

MR LANDMAN: But why tell him?

JAN B DE WET: Because we were busy with a freedom struggle.

MR LANDMAN: Why tell him?

JAN B DE WET: He was there.

MR LANDMAN: Don't you think General Prinsloo would have known about it?

JAN B DE WET: Most probably yes, he would have known about it.

MR LANDMAN: Why did you tell him?

JAN B DE WET: I do not know Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Why didn't you tell the other people on the farm?

JAN B DE WET: It was not an instruction that what you see and hear you should convey to other people, Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Did Mr Barnard tell you that?

JAN B DE WET: No Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr De Wet, after the bomb exploded, wasn't there talk at the base camp and said we succeeded, we made the bomb explode and the battle has started?

JAN B DE WET: There was no question of talk about the Bree Street bomb, only talk about the  pipe bombs and the Germiston, only after that there were talk about the bombs at the base.  Before that, not at all.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you whisper this or did you talk about it in the open?

JAN B DE WET: After the Germiston bomb and the pipe bomb missions, we openly talked about it.

MR LANDMAN: Mr De Wet, you say you saw on television that there had been a bomb in Bree Street, is that correct?

JAN B DE WET: That is correct Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Where was the television set?

JAN B DE WET: Inside the place where we lived Chairperson.

MR LANDMAN: Is that at the game farm?

JAN B DE WET: At the game farm, that is correct.

MR LANDMAN: What did the people say when they saw this on television?

JAN B DE WET: The feeling was that the war had started.

MR LANDMAN: Was there any discussion about who might have been responsible?

JAN B DE WET: We asked each other I wonder who did it.

MR LANDMAN: But you knew by then?

JAN B DE WET: No, I did not know at that stage.

MR LANDMAN: When did you find out?

JAN B DE WET: Only the evening I went to Koesterfontein, then I assumed that it was them who were involved in this.

MR LANDMAN: What time did you see the news, was it on television?

JAN B DE WET: Yes, it was on television.  Seven o'clock or eight o'clock on television.

MR LANDMAN: Did you then go to Koesterfontein after that?

JAN B DE WET: The evening if I remember correctly, between eight o'clock and ten o'clock, that is when I went to Koesterfontein.

MR LANDMAN: You see it on television, you see people making a bomb at Koesterfontein, why didn't you ask Mr Barnard, the person you know well, do you know anything about that bomb in Bree Street?

JAN B DE WET: I did not ask questions at all and I cannot give a reason why I didn't ask questions either.

MR LANDMAN: Were you scared of Mr Barnard?

JAN B DE WET: No Chairperson.