Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-04-15

MR RAUTENBACH: ... that you observed - I mean you were under the impression that here is a man who lost his wife and a man that was in a state of shock because of that, you now know that he was in fact the man who made the news.  Now knowing that now, my question is this;  do you not agree with me that he is an extremely good actor, that he can fool you like this, his sister?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I don't know that my brother was actually acting.  I saw him over there and as far as I am concerned, whether it was just a case of letting out emotions and that, what I saw from my brother, my brother was totally distraught at that time.

MR RAUTENBACH: Was that the type of reaction with hindsight, you would have expected from someone who planned, who meticulously planned a murder and who then brutally executed that murder?  Was that the type of reaction you would have expected from a man doing that or not?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Well I don't know that I'd like to have to put myself in a position to have to answer that.  I know what I saw and I know what I experienced with my brother, and those were genuine feelings that I saw coming from my brother.  Whether it was relief from it or whether, as you put it, that he was acting, I really don't think my brother was acting at the time.

MR RAUTENBACH: Mrs White, did he tell you that after his first meeting with, or - ja, after his first meeting with Steyn, the very early meeting, that's in the first couple of days, that Steyn actually informed him "dat daar fingers na hom wys"? - as Steyn put it in his investigating diary.  Did your brother tell you that?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: No, he did not.

MR RAUTENBACH: Are you saying, Mrs White, today in all, - are you serious when you say today in this forum that you had no idea, no inkling that your brother was a suspect in that first week after the murder?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: No, I had no idea my brother was a suspect, none whatsoever.

MR RAUTENBACH: You said to me earlier on that you thought it was the Security Police who were responsible for this deed, correct?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: That's what I thought in my own mind.

MR RAUTENBACH: Can you just repeat and tell me when did you form that, if I may call it a suspicion or belief, rather call it your belief at that stage?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I think that built up over a matter of a couple of months, when I started looking back on things and looking at things and from the time when Detective ...(intervention)

MR RAUTENBACH: I would like to get a bit closer to it.  When did you, when did you start, when did this idea start forming in your mind that it, firstly it may be the Security Police, then I believe it's the Security Police, but the thought that the Security Police may have been responsible for this?  I want to know when that ...(intervention)

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I can't give you an exact time on that, it's a ...(intervention)

MR RAUTENBACH: Well tell me, give me an estimation.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: ... it's a process.

MR RAUTENBACH: Give me an estimation, first week, second week, three weeks, four weeks, a month, when?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I don't know.  Let's - I don't know, just for arguments' sake let's say I started thinking about it, let's say a month afterwards.

MR RAUTENBACH: Let's say a month after this.  What made you, what caused that thought to be entertained?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Little things to me, the fact that they knew about the murder before one of the other family members had phoned my brother they phoned my brother, the fact that they were at the airport to collect my brother and take my brother away, the fact that you know, they'd come up to Johannesburg, his colleagues had come up to Johannesburg before him.  I did not ever think that my brother had committed the murder, but because of all the political sort of things involved in this, I put it down to the fact somebody needed her out of the way.  And that is where I started formulating my own opinions about that.

MR RAUTENBACH: When did you see - you talk about a meeting where Steyn came to see you, when was that?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I think it was the meeting - we had quite a number of meetings, but I think ...(intervention)

MR RAUTENBACH: Mm, tell me about the first one.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: ... it was the meeting in the January of '92.

MR RAUTENBACH: You say the January meeting was probably the first meeting you had with Steyn?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Yes.

MR RAUTENBACH: Now at that stage, January was approximately how many months after the murder, about four?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: It's about four months afterwards.

MR RAUTENBACH: Ja.  At that stage you already told us you entertained the thought, as early as approximately a month after the murder, that the Security Police were probably responsible for this murder, correct?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Well I was sort of formulating, you asked for a time, I gave you a time.

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.  No, you said to me approximately a month, Mrs White.  In January he came to speak to you, you knew that Steyn was investigating the murder and that Steyn was not from the Security Police, is that correct?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: That's correct, yes, he was Brixton Murder and Robbery.

MR RAUTENBACH: That's right, he came to talk to you.  And at that stage you already told us that you yourself were not aware of the fact that your brother was responsible for the murder, number on and number two, you didn't have the faintest idea, as you put it, that he was suspect, correct?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: No, sorry, that was in December when - the first time they came and took a statement was a Detective Beyleveld.

MR RAUTENBACH: Oh, are you saying to me ...(intervention)

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Detective Beyleveld.

MR RAUTENBACH: Let me correct myself immediately.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Yes.

MR RAUTENBACH: Are you saying to me that when they came to see you, you still believed that ...(intervention)

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Oh yes, at the, yes I did.  I believed - until they actually informed me, I believed and I carried on believing afterwards that he was innocent, but I had no idea he was a suspect until the police actually came and saw me themselves.

MR RAUTENBACH: When was that?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Detective Beyleveld came in the December ...

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: ... to take a statement from me.

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: And then when Detective Beyleveld and Steyn came together, they actually confirmed with me that my brother was a suspect in the murder.

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.  When he came to take the statement from you, when was that do you say? - December.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Yes, in December.

MR RAUTENBACH: And that was Beyleveld?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: That was Beyleveld.

MR RAUTENBACH: And that was the first time you became aware that he was a suspect?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: That's correct.

MR RAUTENBACH: Did he say to you I want a statement, I want to take a statement from you?  ...(intervention)

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: He came and ...(intervention)

MR RAUTENBACH: ... and you obviously asked him why?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: Yes, I did.

MR RAUTENBACH: And he then said to you well, your brother is a suspect.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I actually asked him.

MR RAUTENBACH: Is he a suspect?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: I asked him: "Why are you doing this"?

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: "Why are you doing investigations down here"?

MR RAUTENBACH: Yes.

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: And I asked him have they got any suspects and he said he to me, he hinted at my brother and that they were looking into other, obviously avenues.

MR RAUTENBACH: And that's when you made your statement to him?

COLLEEN JUDY WHITE: That's when I made my first statement.