Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not know.  I do not know him, so I do not know.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Even as you sit here now, you cannot tell me?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.  I am not interested in him.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I am not asking you if you are interested in him, I am asking you whether someone higher up in the hierarchy of the CCB than you, you bothered till today to find out what his function was?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Not at all.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So you still, you are saying that if Ferdi Barnard says that he was tasked to come to Cape Town in May 1989 by someone code-named Louis, you cannot say whether that information is true or false?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I cannot.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Let's go back to your version.   When you called on Mr Barnard, what did he have to offer, why were you going to rely on Mr Barnard to come down to Cape Town, what special skills and qualities did he have?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Ferdi at that stage, as I have said in my statement when I met him, that was approximately February of that same year, he mentioned to me that from an intelligence side, he could play an important role to me, so it was about the information aspects.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Are you saying that it was his quality of a  gatherer of intelligence that you were interested in?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: At that stage, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And the fact that he was a convicted murderer was besides the point?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That was.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, was his job to monitor Peaches or monitor Omar or both?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I think it was a combination of the two.  The first would have been primary, in order to see that the information that I received from Peaches, was indeed the true version, and in order to enable him to do that, he had to monitor the movements of Omar.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, what is Peaches telling you about the problems, what the problem is, the reason behind the delay?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Firstly it was mentioned that Min Omar on various occasions would arrive at his home and he would be accompanied in most cases, by persons who were with him in the vehicle and that circumstances did not allow the project to be executed.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now you are wanting to send Mr Barnard to see if this was in fact so?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So in other words, Mr Barnard would have to spend out some time, outside of the Omar's house?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But, isn't it so that it would make no sense to use Mr Barnard for that purpose, because Mr Barnard was a white person, sitting in a car in Athlone outside the Omar's house is going to stick out like a sore thumb?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not agree, and this made sense to me.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.  So the statement which I am making that it doesn't make sense to use Mr Barnard in those circumstances, is an untrue statement?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Can I refer you to bundle G, I think the new bundle that we have received.

MR MARTINI: Sorry Mr Commissioner, just for the record, this bundle was given to us this morning in two pieces, none of us have had an opportunity of considering it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Martini.  Just let me get hold of it, Mr Kahanovitz.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Chairman, this bundle, it is not paginated like the other bundles, but what you have is the first portion contains part of the record in the matter of S v Barnard where Mr Barnard was prosecuted with amongst other things, the attempted murder of Dullah Omar.
	The second portion of this bundle contains, I don't know if it is the full ...

MS COLERIDGE: The judgement.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I am going to refer to the, as far as the evidence is concerned, I will use the original pagination from the court record.
	Mr van Zyl, you can confirm that you indeed gave evidence as a witness in the trial of S v Barnard?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And you were offered an indemnity in return for your evidence?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Could you turn to page 1884 of your evidence.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Page?

MR KAHANOVITZ: 1884.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I haven't got 1000 pages here.

CHAIRPERSON: It is bundle G, the typed page.

MR MARTINI: Mr Chairperson, ours is numbered 179, the   front portion?

MS COLERIDGE: Look at the index.

CHAIRPERSON: 1884.  Have you got it?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, at this stage you are being asked evidence by Adv Ackerman who was leading you on behalf of the State?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: ... from line 18 on page 1884.  Sorry, this is cross-examination by Mr Coetzee, on behalf of Mr Barnard.  Can you just read into the record what Mr Coetzee puts to you and what your answers are, "my instruction"?
MR VAN ZYL
"... My instruction furthermore from the accused was that the problem that he experienced with the monitoring of Adv Omar, which he also gave to you was that in the area where Mr Omar lived, he as a white person would stand out, that people came to have a look to see what he was doing and that was one of the reasons why he could not monitor the house of Adv Omar, successfully.  That is so."

MR KAHANOVITZ: The next important thing that happens is that David Webster is assassinated on the 1st of May 1989?  Sorry, you say, this is before Mr Barnard is sent down, David Webster is assassinated, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so, correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Didn't Mr Barnard tell you that he shot David Webster?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, he did not.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You see, I want to put it to you that everyone in Region 6, knew that Mr Barnard had shot David Webster, I am going to tell you why.
	On the day after Mr Webster was shot,  Mr Barnard went to tell his then handler, Lafras Luitingh, that he had shot Webster and that Calla Botha was driving the car, are you aware of that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I am not.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Luitingh went to report this to Joe Verster.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not know of that.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Emergency meetings were held because the hierarchy in the CCB was attempting to discover what had happened and why it had happened.  Do you recall you were called to emergency meetings because your superiors in the CCB were concerned about the assassination of David Webster?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I did not attend any emergency meetings.   With the course of time, there were some enquiries by Joe Verster as well as Staal as to who was possibly responsible for it, but that was pure speculation, but I did not receive any call to attend any emergency meeting, where it was discussed.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You see the information that Joe Verster received from Lafras Luitingh was that a member or a person associated with Region 6, in the form of Mr Barnard and Mr Botha, were involved in the Webster assassination, strike you as the kind of thing, assuming it wasn't an authorised project, strikes you as the kind of thing that Mr Verster would be rather concerned about?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I cannot comment about that.

MR MARTINI: Sorry Mr Commissioner, I thought that the exception, you had ruled that we would be confining ourselves to the issues relating to amnesty.  I don't want to object all the time, and I have given a lot of leeway, but we are hearing questioning now on Webster, Webster, Lubowski and I thought the issues are confined to the acts of amnesty?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Chairman, this is, it will emerge from the cross-examination, these questions I am asking, are directly related to certain submissions I am going to put to the witness later about the Omar matter and the use of Mr Barnard in that project.

CHAIRPERSON: You may continue Mr Kahanovitz.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Barnard's representative can correct me if I get this wrong, but according to the evidence that was led at the criminal trial, there was certainly, I think it was 12, there were certainly more than 10 people that gave evidence there concerning Mr Barnard coming to tell them that he had shot David Webster?