Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-23

MR WILLS: Well I put it to that had you done so, that would have appeared in your papers today, in your second affidavit at least.

J A STEYN: The way I remember it is that irrespective of what I put on paper in my application in my application, that which I'm testifying to today orally also forms part of my application.  There are very few people who can remember exactly what happened 10 to 12 years ago, it's not easy.

MR WILLS: You see, I would have thought that because you'd got such a high-level order, that you would have spoken to the person who gave you that order, i.e. Gen van der Merwe directly and not gone through anybody else and phoned Gen van der Merwe.  You would have got him out of anywhere he was at the time and insisted on speaking to him personally, immediately, within 5 minutes of the knowledge of the arrest and said to him, "Gen van der Merwe, we've got the position where Siphiwe Nyanda has been arrested, the other people are going to flee, I want you to change the order, I want you to say - I think the best thing for us to do is arrest the other people immediately before they flee."

J A STEYN: No, I wouldn't necessarily have spoken to Gen van der Merwe, I would have spoken to a senior person, a general or somebody else who was available and I would have made an arrangement with that person, it's not necessarily so that I would have spoken to van der Merwe because as I said earlier, after Nyanda's arrest, other arrests followed, if I remember correctly, very shortly afterwards up until that evening.

MR WILLS: Did you tell your troops on the ground, or Botha at least, to wait until you had communicated with this so-called mysterious third person?

J A STEYN: No.  After the arrests started, matter simply could not be contained any longer.

MR WILLS: Why not?  Wasn't the police a military organisation where if you said to your seniors on the ground "Hold fire until I've got permission from my superiors", they would have been obliged to hold fire?

J A STEYN: After the first arrest took place, we could no longer turn back.  People would have fled and everybody would have been aware of what was going on, this operation had a very sophisticated communications network, which would have alerted people within minutes of a possible arrest, or two or three arrests.

MR WILLS: Nyanda was alone at the time of his arrest.

J A STEYN: I don't know, I can't remember.

MR WILLS: Well I put it to you that he was.

J A STEYN: I can't dispute that.

MR WILLS: Now you decide to go and discuss this matter with people in Pretoria the following day and again you take Botha.  Now I'm referring to the meeting of the 13th.

J A STEYN: Yes.

MR WILLS: Now why at that stage?  Now you know that arrests have taken place, the whole thing has been exposed, the whole world knows about the fact that certain prominent ANC people have been arrested.  Why at that stage, didn't you raise the issue with your superiors that you already had Shabalala and Ndaba?

J A STEYN: No, we deliberately didn't mention it.

MR WILLS: I'm asking why?

J A STEYN: We didn't want anybody to know that they were with us.

MR WILLS: Now my understanding is, and fortunately this isn't from personal experience, my understanding is that as a Security Branch routine procedure, is that if you have an informer, you keep that informer and you use him to corroborate the information you get from other suspects, so for example if, let's take the position with Mr Gordhan, you've arrested him on the 12th, my instructions are at about 10 in the morning, you question him and you get certain information and then you will go to your informer Ndaba and you will say "Gordhan says this, what have you got to say about that?"  Is that not true?

J A STEYN: Yes, any information which we would gather in the field during this investigation would be contacted, or dealt with by the handler of that particular informer, depending on the nature of the information.

MR WILLS: Yes and put to the informer to get his input because that's how you create the big picture, not so?

J A STEYN: Yes, that is true, depending on what you need and depending on what was still outstanding or unclear, things that you were still dubious about.

MR WILLS: And you knew that you were going to be holding these people for some time and obviously you were going to be asking them questions and you were going to be seeking information from them, not so?

J A STEYN: Yes.

MR WILLS: Well then why do you kill?  Why do you kill Ndaba within two days of the arrest of these people, if you say he's an informer who can help with the corroboration of information?

J A STEYN: At that stage there was a confiscation and seizure at various houses of documentation and we had volumes and volumes of documentation exposing this operation.  Armament was seized, computers etc, so we had a lot of different kinds of information at our disposal and for all I know, Botha did have some contact with Ndaba in this period, for all I know.

MR WILLS: Isn't it true Mr Steyn, that you killed Ndaba and Shabalala to cover your tracks?

J A STEYN: That's not true.

MR WILLS: Well, why did you kill him?

J A STEYN: We found ourselves in a situation where it was very difficult because Shabalala had been arrested unlawfully and detained unlawfully.  We were running out of time, we'd been detaining him for quite some time, since the 7th.  He'd become aware of Ndaba's position vis a vis ourselves and to release Shabalala would immediately have made it known that Ndaba was in our possession.

MR LAX: Surely, with respect General, why would Shabalala care if he knew Ndaba was an informer?  If he knew he was a sell-out he wouldn't give two hoots at that stage if the man disappeared.  I mean he - so far as we understand it you're relying on the fact that this man was an informer and you're relying on the fact that Shabalala, through his conduct and through what he said, indicated that he was now aware of Ndaba's role. If that was the case, he wouldn't regard him in a very favourable light, he wouldn't give two hoots what happened to him.  This was a man who had turned against him.  Why should he worry what happened to Ndaba at that stage?

J A STEYN: If he was released, he would be able to notify the structures and networks of Operation Vula that Ndaba was in our possession.

MR LAX: It wouldn't have mattered at that stage because you already had uncovered the whole chain yourself anyway.  You were in the process of observing these people and maybe even arresting them.

J A STEYN: We had detained a man unlawfully for a couple of days.  Negotiations at the highest level were taking place between the Government and other parties.  This information was to be revealed that we were unlawfully detaining somebody, it would have a major impact on what was happening in the country at that stage.

MR LAX: Surely there were bigger fish to fry in the country at that time?  One small little unlawful detention is not going to break the whole negotiation process?

J A STEYN: That's how I saw it, it would have created an embarrassment.

CHAIRPERSON: But if you had released Ndaba at the beginning of it all and apologised and said, "Sorry, it's a misunderstanding", what embarrassment would there have been?

J A STEYN: We were not certain, according to Botha, what Ndaba would do after release.  He could have gone to his colleagues and told them that he'd been in custody, he could also have made a clean breast with them.  So we were not certain.

MR LAX: But even so, how would that be a major embarrassment to you?  I mean, you arrested the wrong man and then he goes and admits that he's an informer anyway.  I mean, it's common knowledge that different people use informers for all sorts of purposes.

J A STEYN: Could you just repeat the question please?