Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

ANSWER: Mr Chairman during the McNally and Harms Commissions of Enquiry after the revelations of Almond Nofomela on 19 October 1981 and after I then went into exile to support the allegations of Almond, Joe Mamasela denied, with his superiors involved - Jan Coetzee then at Vlakplaas, Brigadier Schoon and the police upper echelons, that Joe Mamasela knew me at all.   They said at the time he never came to Vlakplaas and it was impossible for me to have known Joe Mamasela in 1981 because he only came to Vlakplaas in February 1982, more than a month after I've left.   I then described this incident of the Lindley shooting to demonstrate the fact that they were lying and misleading the Harms and McNally Commissions and that Joe did in fact know me, but the whole lot was covering up from top to bottom.   Now this incident at Lindley happened whilst we were working at the Lesotho border, again in the Ladybrand area, and at the time I think it was also in October if I'm not mistaken there is some more specific times, dates available, we were requested to all pull up from all directions, Koos Vermeulen from Western Transvaal, myself from Lesotho, Paul Van Dyk wherever he was and to meet in Middelburg with the Eastern Transvaal regional commander, who was then Brigadier Schalk Visser, after two men were shot in a caravan near Ogies by a so-called ANC cadre.   On our way I drove in my official car, a Datsun, followed - alone - followed by Almond Nofomela driving his bakkie and Joe Mamasela as passenger on the left front seat.   As we came down the hill approaching the Lindley turnoff I could see a yellow and blue two-door Ford Escort vehicle turning in from Lindley town into the
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main road in the same direction that we were travelling, in other words north to Johannesburg, towards Johannesburg.   The vehicle was swerving viciously over the road, the driver had his fist out the window shaking and I pulled up next to him and put on my vehicle's siren to try and pull them off because I could immediately see there was five black men, occupants in the vehicle, two in the front, three at the back and that they were heavily or had been heavily drinking.   As, just after the Lindley turnoff, you come up a hill where they threatened to go over the white line to the right of, in front of oncoming traffic, I gave way to the right for them to enable to come back to the left of the road and the next moment just heard shots and glass flying into my vehicle as I was next to the Ford Escort.   Looking over my shoulder I saw Joe Mamasela hanging out the left front door, emptying his Tokarev pistol on the vehicle.   Eventually on top of the reach at the same gravel turnoff to the left where they took the Lesotho diamond dealer and killed him, the vehicle turned to the left and as I learned later from the passenger, he pulled up the handbrake.   The vehicle came to a standstill and I stopped at the T-junction while Joe and Almond pulled the people in the vehicle out of the car.   Joe of course in a normal manner, kicking karate and fisting them down.   At the time, a Pastor, an Afrikaans Dominee stopped with his wife and asked if everything was okay and I was just worried to get this member of the public away and I said there was nothing to worry about, everything is under control, I was the police and then I stopped the assault and then immediately realised there was trouble.   We got the inhabitants into the car, the bakkie, and we started collecting all possible Tokarev shells that were
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lying next to the road.   I then handed Almond my 9mm pistol and asked him to pull off a few shots, rounds, and pick up the empty shells and bring it with to the, where was this town, Lindley police station.   We drove to the police station together with the car that was shot at and the inhabitants, I asked Joe to keep a low profile it was already then turning dark, whilst I went into the charge office with  Almond Nofomela and the occupants of the vehicle and arranged for blood tests of the driver to be taken for the injuries, especially the man in the middle back seat, that was sitting in the middle back seat he was wounded in the back to be attended to by the local district surgeon or the doctor who acted as district surgeon.   The left front passenger and the right back seat passenger just light flesh wounds, bullet wounds under the chin.   I immediately rang Brigadier Schoon, reported the matter to him and asked him, and already told him what I did as, if he agrees with what I did by picking up the empty shells and let Almond fire off a 9mm pistol.   He agreed with the suggestion that to keep Joe's identity secret and his involvement that Almond should pretend that he was the guy who actually shot at the vehicle.   I then prepared at the Lindley police station my and Almond's statements and a docket.   We charged the driver of the vehicle for drunken driving.   The back seat passenger was transported to hospital and after that we left for Middelburg where we joined up with the rest of the group.   After I left Vlakplaas on 31 December 1981, and whilst being with Narcotics Bureau in Pretoria, drug squad in Pretoria under Colonel Basie Smit, I was called early January if I'm not mistaken in 1982, maybe towards February, by Brigadier
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Schoon and Brigadier Jan Du Preez at this stage and instructed that I should accompany..(end of 1b)...Van der Merwe, in my manuscript I couldn't remember his name, who had close contact or good contact, whatever one wants to call it, with the Free State Attorney-General, who was Advocate Tim McNally.    This resulted, happened as a result of the Attorney-General of the Free State that decided that Almond Nofomela must be charged because of his shooting on a vehicle where he knew he could have injured innocent people and not specifically the driver.   Almond then refused to take the brunt for Joe.   We went to Welkom police to the Divisional Commissioner's office, we spent the whole day there making some statements, I'm not sure exactly what went, what happened but I know it was in the line of terrorists, possible terrorists in the area and that this was confused with possible terrorists and so, and this was forwarded to the Attorney-General's office in the Free State.    Eventually the case was squashed against Almond, it was withdrawn, the passenger in the middle back seat was paid an amount of R1 500 round about I think and the driver of the vehicle was found guilty of drunken driving.   In documents that I've seen later, I know that is now the Attorney-General's decision to prosecute Nofomela and that happened middle December I think, 1981.

<UNKNOWN>: Mr Coetzee is it true that in your initial statements at the Lindley police station you lied about the fact as to who did the shooting, is that correct?

ANSWER: That is correct Mr Chairman, I lied covering up.

<UNKNOWN>: Then at a later stage you, after the decision was taken to charge Nofomela, you then again lied by giving this whole incident some kind of a colour relating to
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security police operations?

ANSWER: Well I can't remember whether I again made any statement at Welkom police station, unfortunately the sweepers in the Harms Commission has removed that docket but I'm sure there will be some copies or reports to that effect in the Attorney-General's office of the Free State, but it's quite possible that I did yes.   But it was also quite clear Mr Chairman that things were arranged and we had very little to say, we were actually just waiting outside in the sun for hours on end after a very short meeting with Brigadier Van der Merwe, the Divisional CID Officer.