Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

MR JANSEN: (Inaudible) ... Neethling trial you had difficulty in placing an exact date of the killing of Mr Khondile.  In your application now you place it in the beginning of November.  Could you just explain to the Committee how you've tried to reconstruct the date of Mr Khondile's killing?

WITNESS:   Yes, Mr Chairman.  Quite a

MR JANSEN: /time

MR JANSEN: time elapsed according to what I can - according to my memory, and the first time that I picked up poison from the - and knock-out drop, what we call it, from the police forensic laboratory, and specific from General Lothar Neethling, was on the 11th of October 1981, when Selby Mavusa was released from Brits Prison police cells after I got the instructions to get rid of him.  With Vusi, as we called him, there was another askari, Peter Dlamini, which we were also instructed to take out at the same time.  So I can remember picking up knock-out drops and poison from General Lothar Neethling for the first time on the 11th.  The poison did not work.  Koos Vermeulen, Captain Koos Vermeulen, went back the second day, after we administered it near Kopfontein Gate on a farm, which Koos Vermeulen used as a base whilst operating in the area.  He went back on the 12th to collect some more poison from Lothar Neethling, a double dose, which also did not work, and then General Lothar Neethling left for overseas.  At a stage - I think he returned on the 24th of October.  He went over twice in a short time, but on the 24th of October we were in the Groblersdal area, and that was the day that General Lothar Neethling came back from overseas.  We went to his house ... (intervention)

MR DE JAGER: You said the 24th of October.

WITNESS:   That's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR DE JAGER: That was before the 11th of November.

WITNESS:   The 11th of October Peter - did I say he was released on the ... (intervention)

MR JANSEN: The 11th of August, Mr Chairman.

MR DE JAGER: Oh, sorry.

MR JANSEN: When he was officially ... (intervention)

MR JANSEN: /---   He

MR JANSEN: ---   He was officially released on the 11th of October.

MR JANSEN: August.

WITNESS:   No, it was October.

WILSON J: That was what he said in his first ... (intervention)

MR JANSEN: Sorry.  Sorry, Mr Chairman, I am confusing it with the Khondile matter, yes.

WILSON J: He was picked up, I think, on the 11th of August..

WITNESS:   At the police station at Brits, at the 11th of October.

MR DE JAGER: Yes, but you had knock-out drops for the first time obtained from Neethling on the 11th of November.

WITNESS:   No, I must - a slip of the tongue.  It must be October.  That was the day that Vusi was released from Brits Police Station.

MR DE JAGER: Okay, thank you.

WITNESS:   On the 24th of October we were in the Groblersdal area after the shooting incident a day or two earlier of two guys in a caravan near Ogies by so-called ANC insurgents, and that Sunday morning, the 25th of October, I went back to General Lothar Neethling's house in Pretoria from Groblersdal, myself and Captain Koos Vermeulen, picked General Lothar Neethling up at his house, and he then doctored another dose of poison for us, which again didn't work.  We then on the 26th of October, the Monday, went down to Komatipoort, where we met up with Major Archie Flemington at that stage, who was branch commander security, Komatipoort, and two of his men, and in my car it was myself, Captain Koos Vermeulen and Warrant-Officer Paul van Dyk, with the two people that we've killed, Peter and Vusi.  Now, after that incident, because that was the first instance that I'd picked up knock-out drops, I accept that it was towards the end of

MR DE JAGER: /October

MR DE JAGER: October/beginning November that I got instructions Brigadier Skoon to meet up with Colonel Nick van Rensburg at Komatipoort with Major Archie Flemington and his men.  I knew that the operation involved that we had to get rid of the man that I'd seen in Jeffreys Bay, and I asked him to arrange with the forensic laboratory, specific with General Lothar Neethling, for knock-out drops for me to be picked up.  I continued, myself and Paul van Dyk from Pretoria, down to Komatipoort, where we met up with Major Archie Flemington and two of his junior men, sergeants or warrant-officers - I can't remember the names unfortunately - and went to a piece of ground about 10 kilometres outside Komatipoort on the border gate road, on the farms where they join up, Avonstont and Constanopoulos.  Whilst we were there we turned left off towards the mountain.  It's very close to Lesotho border - ag, to the Mozambican border, and at the point where the old wagon route went over the mountain.  Three cement slabs is still left there up until this day, which I was able to detect a few months ago, and in line towards the road, from the mountain to the road - it's a very short distance, I would guess about one kilometre, if not less -it was an open veld with a few trees around, quite a distance from the main road.  Colonel Nick van Rensburg arrived with a Cortina vehicle with Captain Herman du Plessis, with the Sergeant Jan, and with Sizwe Khondile in a Balaclava and handcuffed.  They took the Balaclava off when he got out of the car.  I supplied the knock-out drops to - I can't remember which of his men administered it.  There were - and in what drink, whether it was a beer or a cool drink in that specific instance.  The drops have

MR DE JAGER: /the effect

MR DE JAGER: the effect that if you put in four drops for a not too big person it was supposed to knock him down as if he had been administered chloroform or anaesthetic - what do you call it?  If you would administer more, so it was told to me by the general, then he would eventually fall into such a deep sleep that he would die.  Now, drops were administered to Sizwe Khondile in a drink whilst we were sitting around drinking ourselves, opening beer and whatever other drinks - alcohol, and after about 20 minutes to half an hour Mr Khondile started - he was sitting down and uneasy.  He looked quite normal again to me when he arrived, as I said, not like someone with serious brain injuries that I could pick up.  He eventually fell over backwards and lie on his back, and at a stage either Colonel Nick van Rensburg or Major Flemington said, "Well, chaps, let's get on with the job."  In the meantime the two junior officers of Major Archie Flemington, with a Land Cruiser bakkie, brought dense bush veld wood, big logs of it, with tyres, and one of Major Archie Flemington's men, a sergeant or a warrant - a slender-built tallish man, light hair - took a Makaroff pistol with a silencer on, and whilst he was lying - Mr Khondile was lying on his back, shot him on top of the head.  There was a short jerk and that was it.  The four junior non-commissioned officers, Paul van Dyk, Jan, Sergeant Jan from Colonel Nick van Rensburg's branch, and the two Ermelo men, each grabbed a hand and a foot, put it onto the pyre of tyre and wood, poured petrol on it, and set it alight.  Now, of course during - the burning of a body to ashes takes about seven hours.  It is - and whilst that happened we were drinking and even having a braai

MR DE JAGER: /next to