Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  Mr Moodley do you know that the sister of the handler of, the alleged handler of Jerry Richardson made a statement to the Commission where she alleged that her brother had been set up in this incident where the MK operatives had been shot?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I am not aware of that.

YASMINE SOOKA: How did you establish conclusively that Jerry was entitled to the money that you handed over?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Okay I didn't, I jointly did it, but I didn't myself come to this conclusion.  From what Jerry had told us Henk Hesslinga went and drew the dockets, from the information from there he went to Soweto Security Branch and made enquiries from certain people and he can explain how that whole thing came about.

YASMINE SOOKA: So we can assume that he was paid these funds for work that he had done already, not for work to be done?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: No, no, we only paid him for what work he is going to do for us. He would talk to us on condition we give him for what he was owed.

YASMINE SOOKA: I am sorry I have not been able to come to the bottom of this - was paid the sum of R10 000 and this was done jointly by you and Col Hesslinga, now was this for services rendered or services to be rendered?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Services to be rendered, but he wouldn't talk to us unless we gave him that money, in other words his indication to us is that I don't want to talk to you because the security branch owe us this money.

CHAIRPERSON: How can you be owed if you have not done work?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: No, no, no, he told us what he had done, and we wanted him, he said he will talk to us and we must test his information from Kuki Zwane's information and if we pay him he would cooperate with us.

MR KADES: Mr Chair I can resolve an awful lot of what is going on very quickly.  What is the Superintendent is saying is not in dispute, I can say more but time does not allow.

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, no what these English words mean, he claimed money and I mean you can't just put a claim.  He's not done work for you.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: No.

CHAIRPERSON: He says I will do work for you if you get these people to pay for what I did.  Now at least the kind of English that I studied says  I am paying you for work that you have already done so that you can maybe - he's saying probably it is to trust you, if you pay me for work done I am going to do work now for you.  But you see your Commissioner, I mean I think that this is the point, your Commissioner says no we paid him for work to be done and you are saying the same thing.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You paid him for what he said he was owed, how can you be owed for something you have not done.  I mean it makes no sense.  Yes it was your turn, yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: You see I have a problem because then I would like to know what were the services that he actually did render before, or rather at the time he alleged that the security branch owed him this money?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: From what he had told us, the information that he had alleged that he had given the security branch was informing that these two people were in his house.

YASMINE SOOKA: So he then arranged for the execution of these two people by the police?

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I am telling you what he told us, that he informed, the execution I don't know about.

YASMINE SOOKA: Let's leave that.  You see I have a problem because the three names that run constantly through all these cases, from the police side, is Mr Dempsey, yourself and Colonel Hesslinga.  Again when we look at the Asvat matter, Dhlamini alleges that on his way from the cells in Lenasia to where he was taken where I think his first statement, he was beaten in the vehicle by yourself and Colonel Hesslinga, and in fact from the records that we have a trial within a trial takes place to in fact the question of these allegations.  Of course the court finds that neither you nor Colonel Hesslinga nor any of the other policemen who handled this man could have beaten him, so one isn't able to take it further.  But again your two names crop up.
 Then in his statement Dhlamini alleges that right at the beginning he makes this statement, sorry Mbatha was beaten up by you and Hesslinga, he made the allegation, but Dhlamini says that -
"In my statement I admitted that Dr Asvat was killed by me and Cyril".
he makes his first statement on the 18th of February to this Lt Zeelie, but it's kept away from the court.  Now one begins to find this pattern almost that you can't touch, you can't get to any kind of proper conclusion in any of these matters, and when you analyse it either the dockets are missing, we can't track them down, your three names come up.  What are we here to conclude?  I don't know and I would really like to get an answer from you on that matter.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I can't help you there because if you can't conclude this then I can't help you on that.  What I am trying to say is it just so happened that we had to be, or we were the investigators at the time.  There is an allegation that we, to get a confession as you, is it the confession, that we beat this man. It was a trial within a trial a Judge sat there and he decided that was untrue.  I can't comment on that, okay.  This statement that you are talking about I am aware of, it wasn't used, it's not my fault it's the prosecution.  You must ask the Attorney General and say, why didn't you use it, maybe he will be able to explain why he didn't use it.  It's no good asking me, with respect to you Mr Chair, we give all the statements to the Attorney General.  He sends them sometime and say actually this statement is not full enough, get me another statement, get me an addition to what has been said here, I need clarity.  I go and I get it.  He decides what he wants to use and what he doesn't.  We don't dictate terms to the Attorney General, they dictate terms to us.

YASMINE SOOKA: You see I am just very worried because in 1995 this unit is put together with you, Col Hesslinga to re-look into these matters and yet nothing happens after that, so it is quite a difficult issue to comprehend. ...(intervention)

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Sorry Mr Chair through you can I ask, what do you expect to happen if there's no evidence?  What would you expect to happen?  Tell me and then we can help.  I am prepared to help, I am prepared to go back and do everything again if you tell me where to go back and start again.  We tried everything.  I tried to the best of my abilities with the Asvat family, everything I could do, I had sleepless nights over these things, I slept in my (...indistinct) we did a lot of things in this thing, but what I am saying is you must come back to me as an investigator and say HITE go back here and this guy can tell you, and let him tell me the honest truth.  We look into it.  I went back to Dhlamini, I took I think about six or seven page statement from him, but it didn't go take me anywhere.  I went to Cebekhulu and the same story.  What I am asking you, through the Chair ...(intervention)

YASMINE SOOKA: Sorry with respect, no ...(intervention)

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: ...you must tell me with due respect to you ...(intervention)

YASMINE SOOKA: I want to stop you there with respect, you are deciding whether it has any value.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: I don't decide that, no, no, stop again ...(intervention)

YASMINE SOOKA: But that's what you said now.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: Now you must stop again ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, order.

HOOTHRA MOODLEY: If I give it to the Attorney General then he decided.  I have got a letter from him that he decided, that letter, a copy of it was given to the Asvat family, a copy was given to the Minister, he addressed the letter to the Minister.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  Thank you.  Dr Boraine.