Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-13

UNKNOWN: I don't need the rest read, but I'm open to ...

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but you can read it, Mr van Zyl.

MR VAN ZYL: That paragraph's entirely false.  It was done under Section 29 and that's all I can say.

UNKNOWN: And that's after telling the Committee yesterday that apart from the errors that you'd pointed out, everything else in these statements was a hundred percent correct?

MR VAN ZYL: I do not think that this is the main statement I made and to which I had referred, I think this is one of the brief statement which was made at a later stage, maybe right at the beginning.

UNKNOWN: Oh, are you now saying that when you gave that answer yesterday, you weren't referring to this statement?

MR VAN ZYL: To my main Section 29 statement.

UNKNOWN: No, Mr van Zyl, I asked you - we were talking about the statements that you made and I made it very clear which pages I was referring to in the bundle.

MR MARTINI: Sorry, Mr Chairperson, that's not correct, when we ended last time my client was asked to compare his Section 29 statement, and I even noted an objection for this very reason, I said this would be an ambush to say well, go refresh your memory and then he's going to say well, you assured us it's all correct, now it wasn't correct.  That was the very objection I raised.  His statement which my client said he read was his main Section 29 statement.  Now maybe there was method in my madness to suggest to Mr Kahanovitz to go through the statements issuably in order to avoid this dispute.

CHAIRPERSON: So what statement are we looking at here?  Which statement is this that begins at page 47?  Is this the main Section 29 statement?

MR VAN ZYL: No, Chairperson, this ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Is this a secondary Section 29 statement?

MR VAN ZYL: If I am not mistaken, this statement was a brief statement that was first taken on the 21/2, it was taken after my chief statement, and I refer to my chief statement which went from page 11 to page 45.  My Section 29 statement.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, can I just short circuit this, because before we broke up on the previous occasion the record will show that I referred Mr van Zyl to three statements that he'd made.  I then asked him whether any facts contained in any of those statements, were false.  Mr Martini raised an objection at the time and the arrangement was that Mr van Zyl would return on a subsequent occasion and then point out which portions of the record - sorry, not of the record, which portions of the statements were false or incorrect.  The word plural was used, the record will reflect - when the plural word statement was used, the record will reflect when we started off yesterday the plural was used on the previous occasion.  He was also asked on the previous occasion
"Have you read these statements?"
And he said:
"I have read these statements hundreds of times."
Can we just get a version maybe from Mr van Zyl at this stage.
	Are you saying that if I had referred you to the statement in the plural, then you would have come and told the Commission that the paragraph you've just read was untrue?

MR VAN ZYL: Definitely, because I was looking at my Section 29 statement, referring to pages 11 up page 46 or 47, and I would like to refer you to paragraph 44 on page 27.  In my main Section 29 statement that I made is exactly what I testified here.

UNKNOWN: So are you suggesting that when you left on the previous occasion with a view to coming back here and pointing out any errors in your statements, you and your lawyer only looked at that one statement?

MR VAN ZYL: I personally only looked at this statement.

UNKNOWN: Did your lawyer not come to you and say "Mr van Zyl, you must look at pages so and so to so and so"?

MR VAN ZYL: No, he did not.

UNKNOWN: Alright.  Won't you look at what you told the Court about those three statements in State vs Barnard.  Please go to bundle G, page 1838.  You're asked on the tope of the page, you're being led by the State Prosecutor, you're asked about Section 29 statements.

MR VAN ZYL: Statement.

UNKNOWN: Statements.

MNR VAN ZYL: "Het u 'n afskrif van die verklaring voor u?"  "Is u daarso?"

UNKNOWN: Yes, but carry on down the page, Mr van Zyl.  You were asked whether you'd made such statements, you said
"During the month of February 1990, I was detained in terms of Section 29."
then you said:
"And there I had made a Section 29 statement."
then the prosecutor says to you:
"More than one?"
and then you say:
"Two to be exact."
		"Two, yes.   And the particulars therein, are you prepared to tell us whether that is the truth?"
then you say:
"Your Worship, as far as I know the particulars in the Section 29 statements and which appears on this statement, is one hundred percent the truth."

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: In other words, you were aware that you made more than one statement while in Section 29 and you were saying that everything contained in them was a hundred percent correct.  And one of the statements that you were referring to must be the statement that we've been dealing with now.

MR VAN ZYL: No, if I read that statement then I would have picked up the difference, I would have testified to that effect in the Ferdi Barnard matter and I would have pointed it out to you.  I only had a look at my chief Section 29 statement.

UNKNOWN: No, what you were telling the Court in State vs Barnard is quite clear, you say "There is more than one Section 29 statement, I know about the existence of these statements and what's contained in these statements is hundred percent correct."

MR VAN ZYL: According to my knowledge.

UNKNOWN: "Ja, volgens jou kennis."  Now you on a previous occasion before this Committee, testified that you had met with Mr Gavin Evans and that you'd apologised to him, correct?

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: And I assume that what you said to him was that you apologise to him for what you or the CCB had tried to do to him, ie to kill him.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: And I assume you said to him you didn't think that that was justified, that you were sorry.

MR VAN ZYL: That is so.

UNKNOWN: And I assume what you did not say to him was that if you could live your life over again, you would even with hindsight, have still followed the same path with the CCB.

MR VAN ZYL: That's how I felt at that stage.

UNKNOWN: You did feel that at that time.

MR VAN ZYL: Yes.

UNKNOWN: But then you would hardly have apologised to him and said that you were sorry and that what you had done was wrong.

MR VAN ZYL: At least I apologised.

UNKNOWN: Now you recall a tape recorder was running at that meeting?

MR VAN ZYL: It could be.

UNKNOWN: I want to put two newspaper articles in front of you, in which your exact words at that meeting are quoted, for your comment.

MR MARTINI: Sorry, Mr Chairperson, do we have to accept that those are the exact words, that the press in fact correctly quoted them?

UNKNOWN: Mr van Zyl can comment.

CHAIRPERSON: He can comment on that when ...  Are these part of - they're not part of the ...(indistinct)

UNKNOWN: No, I'm going to hand them up now.

CHAIRPERSON: We can make arrangements ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: I've made copies.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh have you, thank you.
MACHINE SWITCHED OFF
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: You say there are two?

UNKNOWN: There are two newspaper articles.

CHAIRPERSON: So we'll call those Exhibits H1 and H2.

UNKNOWN: H1 is an article from the Sunday Star or 25 March 1990 and H2 is an article which appeared in the Weekly Mail of 12 March 1990.

CHAIRPERSON: So H1 is the Sunday Star and H2 is the Weekly Mail.  Yes, I think the one is a continuation of H2, is that right?  Is H2 two pages, Mr Kahanovitz?

UNKNOWN: ...(indistinct - no microphone)

CHAIRPERSON: No, "Face to Face with Slang".

UNKNOWN: No Judge, H1, the Sunday Star article, consists of two pages.

CHAIRPERSON: Starting with ...