Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1998-01-28

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Can you please repeat the question, I cannot hear you.

MR VALLY: Do you want to wear the headphones?  At the time you left the Soweto Security Branch, on the 31st of December 1987, you were a Detective Major?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: This was a fairly senior rank in Soweto?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: Therefore a lot of the information that came through to the Security Branch, especially if you were involved in Intelligence gathering, would have been directed to you?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: I would like to explain here with regard to the Information gathering component.
 The following aspects will be highlighted, that there were Officers in charge above me in rank who acted at that stage as Information Managers.  We had a specific role, task and function and we operated within that role, task and function at that stage.

MR VALLY: What specifically was your role, task and function?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: My role, task and function were the gathering of military or MK structures' activities.

MR VALLY: Did you gather intelligence information that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was in any way involved with MK structures?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: No.  We had no access.  My Unit and myself, not my information network had no access to that.

MR VALLY: After you left Soweto and went to Pretoria, were you still monitoring Intelligence gathering in Soweto?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: That was not primarily my function and role, but I was allowed to do it.

MR VALLY: Did you in fact do it?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: I continued, yes.

MR VALLY: So you would have had information from Intelligence sources in Soweto even after 1987?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: At the time that you were in Pretoria, did you get any Intelligence, any information from your sources or from your intelligence gathering capacity in Soweto regarding MK activities around the Madikizela-Mandela household?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Negative.

MR VALLY: So you knew nothing about the Oupa Seheri case?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Negative.

MR VALLY: You weren't even aware that a trained MK cadre had murdered two people and that a Scorpion machine pistol was found in Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: My task, role and function after 1987 was more training oriented and at that stage I only placed agents and informants from a training point of view operationally with a view to court oriented activities.  I was a low profile agent with very limited access, an explanation.

MR VALLY: I will get some clarity on that just now, it sounds rather confusing.  What you said is you were still monitoring intelligence reports coming from Soweto.  You are now a Detective Major, you are sitting in Police Headquarters in Pretoria.
 Here is a matter which went to court, here is a matter where there is a machine pistol found in Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house, here is a matter where there is an allegation that a trained ANC cadre had at some point been in Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house.  Are you telling you that this information was not forwarded to Pretoria, to Police Headquarters?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: At this stage I want to say it is possible that I might have had such information notes, have read such notes upon occasion, but my role and function after 1987 were more trained oriented.  Training agents and informer handlers.  I want to correct your impression.
 In a very limited way only was I allowed to continue monitoring certain court oriented investigations.  These matters that you refer to did not fall within those specific monitoring actions.

MR VALLY: Mr Coetzee, I specifically chose a matter which went to court.  I will  chose another one which went to court, the assault on the Makanda brothers.  This is the case where they were allegedly carved up with certain slogans and they had battery acid put into their wounds, and this incident allegedly took place in Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house.
 This matter also went to court.  I have now cited two matters, were you aware of this matter at all?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: No.

MR VALLY: So nothing actually reached you?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Involvement wise and collection wise, no.  I may upon occasion have read information notes around these specific aspects, but I would like to point out that at Head Office there was a Desk Supervisor from an Information Management point of view and my role, task and function were directed more at training, recruitment and placement of agents and fellow handlers.

MR VALLY: Let's talk about that.  I will come back to the former question in a short while.  Did you train specific informers for specific tasks?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: I trained informants not in specific fields, training is training generally.  Let's say groups or military structures have to infiltrated, the same methods are used.

MR VALLY: Who was the most prominent political activist in Soweto at the time?  At the time that you were in Soweto?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: There were various.

MR VALLY: Was Mrs Madikizela-Mandela one of the most prominent political activists at that time in Soweto?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: I would say yes.

MR VALLY: Would you want to place an informer in her household if you could?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: Did you train someone to be an informer to be placed in her household?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: No.

MR VALLY: Why not?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: There is a reason, since I arrived in Soweto I was part of the West and my information was from the west.  There was also a group of persons responsible for the eastern side of Soweto and I would like to refer to Colonel Claassen, Colonel Grundling and members.  These persons were responsible primarily in that area.
 In other words they would have been responsible for the gathering of information relating to suspects in their area.

MR VALLY: You are confusing two different issues.  I will come back to this issue as well, but my question is you are now sitting in Police Headquarters in Pretoria.  You are specifically training agents or informers.
 You have told us that one of the most prominent activists, political activists in Soweto was Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.  My question to you was specifically this, did you train any informers to be placed in the Madikizela-Mandela household or close to her?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: No.  The training of agents is the pre-phase of placement and when you have trained your agents, you place them on a ground level for connection purposes with a non-active information phase.  These agents then transferred to other units which continued placement of them according to analysis, needs analysis in a specific investigation.

MR VALLY: We know that the Soweto Security Branch infiltrated a number of MK units which were infiltrating Soweto from Botswana, are you aware of this?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: And did any of these Units that you infiltrated from Botswana, wherein you had informers, did any of them had contact with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: No, according to the best of my knowledge, negative.

MR VALLY: As a Major in the Security Branch and being responsible for intelligence gathering, you would have had regular briefings together with your colleagues who are responsible for the eastern part of Soweto, would you not?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Sorry, I missed the question sir.  Could you please repeat the question.

MR VALLY: Sure.  You stated a number of times that you were responsible for the western part of Soweto and Mrs Madikizela-Mandela lived in the eastern part of Soweto.  Is that correct?

WILHELM JOHANNES COETZEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: Now, what about the time when Mrs Madikizela-Mandela lived in Orlando-West, did that fall under your area?