Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — UNKNOWN

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes you will find it strange but I can't remember if you asked me what C-1, C-2, C-3 were.

MR JANSEN: C-2.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I suspect that you are referring to the unit specialising more in interrogation of suspects in order to obtain information from where tourist camps were across the borders where the terrorists, how their movements were, etc, if you are referring to that.

MR JANSEN: I am just refreshing your memory.  I am referring that to your own division.  There was only a C-1 and a C-2, would you agree with me?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I don't doubt that.

MR JANSEN: C-2 specialised in interrogation, amongst debriefing, was that C-2?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes on their level regarding the intelligence they required which was more geared towards external information; overseas information regarding where certain camps were situated;  where overseas certain terrorists were moving; which camps they were moving to; also intelligence regarding identification of photo albums.

MR JANSEN: All I am putting to you is that you are acutely aware that there were specialised interrogators in the security forces.  Was interrogation a specialised function, you are aware of that?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I regard it as specialised.

MR JANSEN: You are misleading the Committee ...(intervention)

MR DE JAGER: Were there trained psychologists?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No I don't know of trained psychologists, I don't have any knowledge of psychologists.  If there were psychologists I don't know about them.  That was during the time I was involved with Security Police.

MR JANSEN: I don't want to carry this too far but at least there were people who had specialised knowledge regarding specific aspects of the enemy?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR JANSEN: Good.  You will also concede that if you look at your application, if you read through it and if you read Mr du Plessis' application that there are certain parts which agree?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, I won't deny that.

MR JANSEN: The statements that were signed on the 2nd of May 1997, correct?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Correct.

MR JANSEN: So you waited until the very end?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, my application was handed in to my legal representative before the 14th of December 1996, and I can't remember, I think the period was extended, I can't remember the correct facts why it only arrived there then.

MR JANSEN: I also want to put it to you that the political motive as you have explained it here, and as Mr du Plessis has explained is exaggerated and that the truth is probably closer to what Mr Coetzee says you told him.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No that is not true.

MR JANSEN: If I read the section dealing with the political motive it reminds me a lot about what you said with regard to the Motherwell incident, in other words people who had the knowledge, the total network of the Security police that they were endangering this whole network.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: You know what I said and you are seeing what I am saying here.

MR JANSEN: Because I want to tell you it seems to me as if there is a pattern in your applications and those of a few of your colleagues that your political motives are exaggerated and that you incriminate people who have either applied for amnesty or have already died.  Do you have any comment on that?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I suppose you will say that on behalf of your client.

MR JANSEN: You also deny that you had any contact with Mr Flemington?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I deny that.

MR JANSEN: Did you know Mr Flemington well?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I knew him quite well.  I did not have a great deal of contact with him.

MR JANSEN: The point where Mr Kondile was murdered is very close to the Lebombo border post?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I do not know exactly how far, but it's not far.

MR JANSEN: Mr Coetzee says five kilometres, could that be correct?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I don't know, I thought it was further.  I did not measure so I do not know.

MR DE JAGER: Is that the same post where Otto was stationed before he went to Evander?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR JANSEN: I just want to rectify this, the place where you met the cross-roads was five kilometres from the Lebombo border and the place he was burnt is a further ten kilometres from there.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I won't doubt that.

MR JANSEN: Did you know Mr Otto?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I did.

MR JANSEN: And you are also aware of the rest of Mr Coetzee's version as to who was there?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, it's not always clear to me whether I always understand correctly when Mr Coetzee says who were all there, I think that somewhere I read that he said there was a Mr van Dyk as well and the two people from Ermelo ...(intervention)

MR JANSEN: From Lebombo.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: But from Ermelo there were two as well. We can get the exact detail of Deetlef's and Rorich's involvement, we can check that, but your version and Mr Coetzee's they don't agree.  And you can, with reasonable confidence say that Mr Coetzee must be telling lies?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR JANSEN: You are not making a mistake regarding so many differences or..

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No.

MR JANSEN: Mr Coetzee also says that there can be no doubt that the so-called sleeping drug would have been discussed that evening.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I said that Mr Coetzee approached me about it.

MR JANSEN: Yes but did your curiosity not lead you to ask him what exactly it was?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: He said it was a sleeping drug. I accepted that it was an ordinary sleeping drug that one could buy at the chemist which was in drop form.  I cannot recall whether he said it was drops or a sleeping drug as such.  At that stage I was a person who had never used a sleeping drug so I didn't know which form it took.

MR JANSEN: In any case Mr Coetzee also says that there can be little doubt that during the course of such a discussion he would also have told you the origin thereof, that it came from General Neethling's laboratory.  What is your comment on this?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's totally untrue.

MR JANSEN: How do you know that it's untrue?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I'm saying it's untrue that Mr Coetzee would have told me that.

MR JANSEN: Was it your idea that the car be left at the Barberton border?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: It could have been my idea, it could have been that Mr du Plessis and I took the decision together.

MR JANSEN: But you knew that area very well?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Not that specific area.  I wouldn't say that I knew it very well, I knew how the roads went but I did not know the area.  I didn't work in that area when I was stationed at Ermelo.

MR JANSEN: Yes but du Plessis knew nothing about the area.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes. According to what I understood it was a strange part of the country to him.

MR JANSEN: If there had been somebody who knew more or less where the border was then it was only you?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct. But I am talking about the decision that it should be close to the Swaziland border. I think we more or less agreed upon that but it is possible that I would have said yes, close to Barberton is the right place more or less.

MR JANSEN: Which security branches were responsible for Swaziland?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Ermelo.