Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

<UNKNOWN>: Can you just briefly give the background and
2a	the /...
MR JANSEN	22	D J COETZEE
the facts relating to the other colleagues involved in the matter?

ANSWER: Mr Chairman I received instructions from Brigadier Schoon, Section C, to go to Kopfontein hek border post to a nearby farm.

<UNKNOWN>: Was that farm known to you?

ANSWER: It was not personally known to me, it was the base from where the Vlakplaas group that operated in the Western Transvaal under Captain Koos Vermeulen, who worked under me, operated from, very near to Kopfontein hek border gate, a kilometre or three away.

CHAIRPERSON: How do you spell the name of this place?

ANSWER: Mr Chairman no, it was a friendly farmer, it was on the first, it's fairly a straight road coming from Botswana through to South Africa, the road makes, after a kilometre or three, a turn towards Zeerust and on that turn is a high ridge on your left-hand side of the road running across I would say the direction in which you are travelling, that road is travelling.   I know in the 1981's there was a shoot-out between freedom fighters and the police in this ridge right behind the farmer's house, but I can specifically go and point out this farm, I will still get it, it is as I say it was used as a permanent base by one of my groups, the Western Transvaal group, led by Captain Koos Vermeulen.   The border gate into Botswana at that point is called Kopfontein border gate.
MR JANSEN (contd)

<UNKNOWN>: Yes, you may proceed.

ANSWER: I proceeded to the border accompanied by Paul Van Dyk, Tshikalanga, David Tsekelanga and at the time I mentioned also the name of Almond Nofomela, where I met up
2a	with /...
MR JANSEN	23	D J COETZEE
with Captain Rudy Kraus of Zeerust security branch, under which security branch the area of Gaberone fell as far as ANC collecting of information and the electing of targets in the area is concerned.   I also met up with Captain Jan Coetzee, the officer who took over from me at Vlakplaas, but at that stage was still with West Rand Security based at Krugersdorp under the Regional Office of West Rand.   The Zeerust Security Office was under the Western Transvaal Regional Office which is Potchefstroom.   With them was Joe Mamasela and Koos Vermeulen was on the farm.   At the farm the target house was explained the exact place where this house was in Gaberone, was detailed to us by Captain Jan Coetzee and Rudy Kraus and also a layout of the house, a plan of the house where each bedroom is and where Rola apparently slept.   In the south-eastern corner was a bedroom where he slept and it was also told to us that if a bakkie, a 1 400 Datsun bakkie was parked in front of the house or next to the house, then Rola would be home.   I then first sent Almond Nofomela and Joe Mamasela in with a police bakkie, a Cortina 3 litre bakkie, with false registration plates which I thought at the time.   They went for a reconnaissance during the daytime, in the afternoon of 26 November 1981.   When they returned I then went in to do a reconnaissance of the area and the house and came back to the farm.   At 7:45 that night, the border post closes at 8 o'clock, Koos, I instructed Joe Mamasela to take the bakkie through the border gate into Botswana and drive to Gaberone, coming back at about 9 o'clock to pick us up, after the rest of the team would have crossed over the border fence.   The team consisted of myself, Captain Koos Vermeulen, W/O Paul Van Dyk, Captain Rudy Kraus and Captain Jan Coetzee as well
2a	as /...
MR JANSEN	24	D J COETZEE
as Joe, Almond Nofomela and David Tshikalanga.   Joe was already in at that stage then.   We crossed the fence as discussed and at 9 o'clock that evening, Joe came back and picked us up.   At the point where he picked us up, Captain Rudy Kraus and Captain Jan Coetzee stayed behind as markers so that we could coming back flashing our lights they would get into the road and show us the way where we could branch off to the right of the border post coming from Botswana to South Africa and cut the fence and get back into South Africa through the cut border fence.   As we entered into Gaberone, I left Paul Van Dyk and David Tsekelanga with the bakkie about one and half street blocks away under a tree, from the target house, whilst Koos Vermeulen and myself with Almond Nofomela and Joe Mamasela proceeded to the house on the corner, right next to the target house.   At that stage, right in front of the target house was a disco or a party going and there was a lot of people in the street and the dogs at the corner house were barking at us and I then saw that a storm was building up and decided to wait for the storm to break and use that as a cover for after the people have been chased into the house and the dogs into the kennels by the rain.   This happened round about midnight when thunder and lightening broke out and heavy rains.   There was a power failure in the area in the town and we got up and walked down the street into the front gate, past the bakkie which was parked at the back of the little verandah at the back of the house.   I've asked Koos Vermeulen to take position at the south-eastern window of the bedroom and fire towards the street, away from us, whilst we would go into the house and fire in the other direction.  As we were still discussing of how to, how next would we break the door
2a	down /...
MR JANSEN	25	D J COETZEE
down now two women entered the kitchen with a lit candle and opened the back door.   Joe grabbed one of the women and closed her mouth and shot at her at point blank.   I heard someone drop to the cement like a bag of bones and the other woman turned and ran into the house.   Shots were fired at her in, and at a stage I pushed Almond and Joe Mamasela aside, entered the house and shot with a sub-machine gun, a HMK with which Koos Vermeulen also had one issued, with a silencer on and a canvas bag to pick up, to pick up the empty shells that they don't drop on the scene.   With that I then fired.   Koos Vermeulen was also instructed to hurl a hand grenade through the bedroom window and after the shooting then we started running towards the back fence of the house, past Koos Vermeulen and at that stage he didn't fire one shot as yet.   I don't know whether he then did a small, a few rounds on the room but for sure he did not throw the hand grenade.   We got over the back fence into the street, into the street at the back of the house, ran to the bakkie and left for Kopfontein border gate whilst it was heavily raining.   I should just mention also that Joe Mamasela and Almond Nofomela was armed with a Tokarev and a Makarov, if I remember right, respectively.   Approaching the border gate, flashing the lights, Rudy and Kraus and Jan Coetzee came out of the veld, stopped us, we branched off to the right of the road and eventually found our way through the mud and whatever, cutting the border fences, three of them, there were three - the main border and then on each side of that specific borderline was also a smaller fence.  Cut the three and went back to the farm where we re-grouped.  Joe Mamasela was sure that the woman he shot was Joyce Dibali and it was that she was dead.   My conclusion would
2a	be /...
MR JANSEN	26	D J COETZEE
be after reading evidence in the end, a statement by Mrs Dibali that she was actually the one who ran into the house and that the one that collapsed on the cement on the back verandah must have fainted or something, or emulated a fainting, and that is why I was so sure that she was shot, because Joe was so sure.   It later proved that Mrs Dibali ended up with three wounds, I don't know whether it was actual bullet wounds or shrapnel wounds and I don't know exactly what the injuries was of the woman that fell on the back verandah which was held in Joe's arms.