Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now if you could turn to page 91 of bundle A, paragraph 31, you deal with the stage at which you leave the Police Force and you go and work for a company called Matthysen Busvervoer.  You go on to stress in paragraph 31
"... I also wish to state that Matthysen did not have any knowledge of any of our activities or projects, not as far as I know."
	Correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And I have seen, you have given evidence on a number of occasions in various forums, on each occasion you have stressed that Mr Matthysen had no knowledge of the activities of the CCB members that were now linked up his business?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why?  Why are you so keen to protect Mr Matthysen?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It is not an instance of me protecting him, it is the truth.

MR KAHANOVITZ: How many buses did Mr Matthysen have?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Approximately 80 at that stage.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now you were "employed" from May 1988 to March 1989 at Matthysen, approximately a period of 11 months, you were on their book, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, the following activities are taking place at Mr Matthysen's bus company, suddenly Mr van Zyl, Mr Burger, Mr Maree, Mr Botha become his employees, but he doesn't have to pay their salaries, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: In fact these people do no work whatsoever for him?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: He gets R30 000 deposited into his bank account to buy you a BMW, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And I assume in similar fashion money was deposited into his bank account to buy cars for the other Region 6 members?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That may be.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Matthysen was also a good friend of Staal Burger, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is indeed so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yet, all these things are happening over a period of 11 months and Mr Matthysen has no knowledge of the activities of these people who are apparently working for him?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Mr Chairperson,  I just want to explain it in the following way.   What I said here is that I mentioned that Matthysen had no knowledge of any of our activities or projects, I specifically referred to the projects for which I am applying for amnesty and also the other projects mentioned in my statement.
	Mr Matthysen was very aware of it that we were working for the Army, he was one hundred percent informed about this, but he was not, he did not have any knowledge about the specifics of what we were busy with, in other words the project regarding Min Omar, or the project regarding the monkey and that is what I am trying to say to you.

MR KAHANOVITZ: In other words he knew that you were involved in covert activities on behalf of the South African Defence Force, but he didn't know of the details of those activities?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I never discussed anything with Mr Matthysen regarding my activities, being covert, or whatever aspect of the work it might have been.  I can admit that Mr Matthysen did know that we were working for the Defence Force, but the degree to which he knew about it and what he knew about it further, I cannot say.  You will have to ask Mr Burger about it, they were good friends.  Maybe he told him more.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, could I just ask a question.  Do you know whether Mr Matthysen received any benefit for facilitating your organisation in the way that he did?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: None, Mr Chairperson, not that I know of.

CHAIRPERSON: He just did it, just let people come onto his employ, because there would be some ramification, you cannot just employ people like that, you know, you've got to enter Paye As You Earn, tax    returns and Workman's Compensation, all that sort of stuff that an employer has to do to comply with certain regulations?  It is not just so easy to write names in a book and say "okay, they are my employers", it goes further than that.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I agree with you Chairperson, but I once again want to sketch it out for you that our employers' tax and our UIF, I don't know if they subtracted it back then, but our tax was already deducted by the Army before we received our salaries.
	It was not the function, as I understood it, of Mr Matthysen to subtract this amount of money.  Mr Matthysen in all probability, as I see it, only facilitated us by giving us cover.  In other words myself and Staal and Calla and Chap, could give our then colleagues at Brixton and other people that we knew, in a fraudulent manner, pretend to be employees of Matthysen and Matthysen would then confirm this.
	We didn't do any work for him, for which he had to compensate us.  We got our compensation or our money from the Treasury.

CHAIRPERSON: So, he would at least have benefited indirectly in the sense that your salaries, payable by him, would be reflected in his books, as operational costs, which would reduce the profits that he had made, and therefore he would pay less tax, because of the bogus salaries for all those people being paid?  There would be some benefit like that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No Mr Chairperson, not even in this case, because we received our salaries in cash and the salaries did not go to Mr Matthysen and was deposited into his bank account and he gave us a cheque.  The only money that I know of that went directly to Mr Matthysen was the R30 000 that the State had approved, or the then Department of Defence, had allocated for me purchasing my vehicle.
	That R30 000 as far as I know, was deposited into his account, by him and then he wrote out a cheque so that I could purchase the vehicle, and that is all that I know of.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kahanovitz?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, have you seen Mr Matthysen since your days in the CCB?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I saw Mr Matthysen about two years ago, over a period of about 12 years.  I saw him regarding a business transaction, because of the work that I am doing at the moment, and he had a problem and I saw him relating to this and since then, not.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So he was a client of yours at some stage?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes, if you want to call it a client, then you may call it a client, but I did not do any investigative work for him, it was only a conversation regarding a potential investigation.  At the end of the day I did not do any investigation for him and I did not send him an account.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.  Do you know if Mr Matthysen is still in business?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I understand that Mr Matthysen did retire at a certain stage, and I do understand that he is involved in business again, also a bus company.  From where he functions, I do not know.  This is what I hear.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Do you know where Mr Matthysen lives at the moment, where can we find him?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You don't know where?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And his business, where is it located?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not know.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And the original Matthysen bus company, where is that located?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: The original Matthysen bus transport service was sold to Unitrans, the Unitrans Group.  They bought it, although the buses are still operating under the name of Matthysen Bus Service, they bought the whole service.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, your first project that you dealt with in the Western Cape, was a project to burn a microbus.  Now, you deal with that at page 95 of bundle A, paragraphs 36 and 37 and the crux of what you say is that you went down to the Cape in March of 1989 and Peaches had recruited two other people who were going to work for you?
	You say also that you had received information about a SWAPO member, from Peaches, this SWAPO member had a microbus which he was using to transport ANC and UDF members to a terrorism trial that was on the go in the Cape.  Correct so far?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.