Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-13

UNKNOWN: Now this is now August 1989, in March '89, Peaches had agreed to arrange Adv Omar's assassination for R15 000 and he wouldn't even shoot him himself.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: Split into three.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: We know that the going rate for sabotaging, burning down a printing press or burning out a kombi, seemed to have been - well certainly less than R3 000, correct?

MR VAN ZYL: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: We know that the price to assassinate Gavin Evans is R5 000.

MR VAN ZYL: I gave evidence in this regard.

UNKNOWN: You were agreeing to pay Gakkie double, or more than double the costs of assassinating Omar, to place a limpet mine which wasn't even going to injure anyone.  That's your version.

MR VAN ZYL: That is what I've testified.

UNKNOWN: Alright.  Now was it discussed at the meeting?

MR VAN ZYL: What?

UNKNOWN: At the in-house.

MR VAN ZYL: What?

UNKNOWN: This price of R30 000.  I would think - I would expect Mr Staal Burger to have said "But Mr van Zyl, why so much money?"  I mean if Peaches is willing to murder Omar for half or less than half of that, why in heavens name would you want to pay this man R30 000 for this job?

MR VAN ZYL: No, that is definitely the case that we discussed the budget and that consensus had been reached, but your insinuations that R30 000 had been paid because people had to die during the bomb explosion, is so far removed from the truth that I do not even want to comment on it.

UNKNOWN: All I'm asking you is whether Mr Basson or Mr Burger at the meeting questioned the amount.

MR VAN ZYL: It is possible.

UNKNOWN: You can't remember whether there was any debate as to whether your budget was acceptable?

MR VAN ZYL: No.

UNKNOWN: Now your version is that you personally proposed the use of a remote control device.

MR VAN ZYL: Correct.

UNKNOWN: You agree with me a remote is a fairly technically complex device, in the sense that in the first place the limpet had to be modified so that it could accommodate a remote, correct?

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: Normally you would use a remote so that the bomber can time an explosion with exact precision.

MR VAN ZYL: True.

UNKNOWN: So that when you press the button the bomb explodes.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: Now this seems to have been a fairly complicated in-house meeting, how long was this one?

MR VAN ZYL: I do not know, probably the same as the others, an hour or maybe more.

UNKNOWN: And just summarise for me the ultimate conclusion at the end of this meeting.

MR VAN ZYL: I have already given evidence in this regard, that a limpet mine that would be set off by means of a remote control, would be provided to me, that I would give it to Gakkie and that he would place it in the hall and that he would have done the activation thereof later in the evening.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you get information as to the range of the remote?  Did you have within 30 metres or could you be a kilometre away?  Did you have any technical information regarding what the range of the remote is and whether the remote could work through a brick building, a cupboard, that sort of thing?

MR VAN ZYL: No, that information I only obtained the day that I received the limpet mine and the device and then it was demonstrated to me and this distance was explained to me.

CHAIRPERSON: And could it work through a brick wall, you didn't have to have a direct ...(intervention)

MR VAN ZYL: Not line of sight, no.

CHAIRPERSON: So it was better than the TV remotes you get.  You don't have to actually have the sensors, the radio remote.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so, Sir.

UNKNOWN: At the in-house was it discussed what story would be given to the press after the explosion occurred?

MR VAN ZYL: Not at all.

UNKNOWN: Did you not discuss that at all in the sense that you said the object of the exercise was to give the impression that the explosives ...(intervention)

MR VAN ZYL: No, Sir.

UNKNOWN: No, no discussion.

MR VAN ZYL: I don't want to interrupt you, but I mean we were a covert operation, so I don't see how we would have spoken to the press at any stage.

MR LAX: Well just on that issue, I mean it something that puzzled me, you wanted the police to actually catch these guys, you wanted them to be directed towards this bunch of people that you thought were bombers, correct?

MR VAN ZYL: That was our secondary aim, that's correct.

MR LAX: But you didn't plan anything other than the fact that you used a limpet mine of a specific origin that might be associated therefore with revolutionary forces?  Other than that you didn't think of phoning the local police station and saying "Hey, here's a tip, look for certain people in relation to this mine", or drop a note off through Isgak at the police station, or leave the names in the vicinity, on a piece of paper, like copies of the letter that you had, or something like that?

MR VAN ZYL: No, Mr Chairperson, that was not discussed at all during the presentation or at any other stage afterwards.  Not by our cell, by my cell.

MR LAX: You'll concede those are the most obvious ways of achieving your secondary purpose.

MR VAN ZYL: Not necessarily, but I think it is once again a matter of one trying to obtain your primary goal.  In other words, regarding the destruction of the hall.  I would concede that the argument is valid but I mean it was not done and I cannot comment on this any further.

MR LAX: Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Mr van Zyl, wasn't it part of the general modus operandi of the State Security Forces at that time, that when an incident happened in which they were involved, what was referred as a "dekstorie" was planned in advance so that it would generally be disseminated throughout the media that, for instance, these terrorists had blown themselves up?

MR VAN ZYL: It was not the plan with this specific project, but yes, I have heard of it, I think it's general knowledge and especially in the past in cases where handgrenades were used.  I know of no other case where a limpet mine was used for this purpose.

UNKNOWN: When Khotso House was blown up and when Cosatu House was bombed stories were spread blaming these explosions on the liberation movement.

MR VAN ZYL: That is true.  I actually have to tell you that the evidence that has been available up to today is that those were SAP actions and that might be why they used that propaganda.

UNKNOWN: You're not suggesting that they were more sophisticated operations than yours?

MR VAN ZYL: One can see them as more sophisticated than us.

UNKNOWN: Could you go to page 110 of bundle A, and just read paragraph 49 of your statement into the record.

MR VAN ZYL: Paragraph 49?