Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-19

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) ... I to C and J at pages 58 and 59.
"On the 18th of November 1988, the applicant and his co-accused, Kevin John Woods and Michael Anthony Smith were convicted in the High Court of the crime of murder and sentenced to their ultimate punishment.  It was found that they with others had conspired to kill by means of a Renault 5 motor vehicle, booby-trapped with explosives, six persons believed by them to be members of the military wing of the African National Congress of South Africa who happened to be residing at 16 Jungle Road, Trenance, Bulawayo.  The plan was put into operation on the 11th of January 1988.  The deceased Obed Muanza, an unemployed person who was engaged for reward to drive the Renault 5 alone to the address in question.  He was totally unaware that it had been primed with a powerful explosive device.  Upon arrival at the front of the premises he sounded the hooter and then drove to the rear.  When the hooter was blown for the second time, there was a huge explosion.  It resulted in the instantaneous death of Muanza, whose body was mutilated beyond recognition and one of the residents sustaining the loss of an eye.  Their house was extensively damaged.  Adjacent to it was a crater about 2 1/2 m in diameter and 20cm deep.  Pieces of the bodywork of the Renault 5, as well as remains of the human flesh and clothing worn by the deceased, was scattered over a radius of 50m."
Now the relevant - this is what happened:
"The situation altered drastically however, following up on the conviction of ...(indistinct) Charles Beenen(?) on the 28th of June '89.  He was found guilty of having conspired with others to forcibly effect the release from lawful custody of Woods, Smith and the applicant and remove them from Zimbabwe."
That was a CCB project, was it not?

EDWARD WEBB: Not as far as I knew.  I've already said that all I knew about was that Mr Roos was appointed to continue with negotiations to be able to have these people released.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who paid for it?

EDWARD WEBB: The South African Defence Force.

GEORGE BIZOS: The CCB?

EDWARD WEBB: The South African Defence Force.

GEORGE BIZOS: Not the CCB?

EDWARD WEBB: Not the CCB.

GEORGE BIZOS: Basson says that the R5 1/2 -million came from the CCB.  Is that incorrect?  Or didn't you know how R5 1/2 -million got out of the CCB account?

EDWARD WEBB: Chairperson, when was that R5 1/2 -million approved?

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, maybe if I could just try to clear up something.  As far as you were concerned, was the CCB part of the South African Defence Force?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: So when you say it was paid by the Defence Force, you're not necessarily excluding the CCB?

EDWARD WEBB: No, no, no, look funds were allocated to Special Forces, under which fell the CCB, to which funds also went.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, now the question was, do you know whether those funds, that R5 1/2 -million, whether that went through CCB books?

EDWARD WEBB: Well that's why I'm asking on what date it was approved, because the budget was approved a year ahead of time.  It could be that my predecessor had already approved that amount of money.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) fees being paid whilst you were in office?

EDWARD WEBB: Funds for what?

EDWARD WEBB: For the person that you wanted to release, if not by negotiation, springing him from the prison.

EDWARD WEBB: I repeat, I don't have any knowledge of the arrangement of any release or springing from jail.

GEORGE BIZOS: ... deal with the Joubert matter because the affidavit was faxed to us, Mr Chairman.  It's in handwriting because, if I remember correctly, it was taken - and it's a bad copy, Mr Chairman, I don't know whether ...  But anyway, this is it.  Perhaps we will ask somebody to transcribe it.  I'd better do it that way, otherwise we will waste a lot of time trying to figure out what the words are.  But my learned friends can have it, the Committee can have it and we'll come back.  We'll try overnight to decipher it, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And we'll call it - I think perhaps if we could change the last exhibit to L1 and we'll call this L, seeing as it was an annexure.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So we'll call the hand-written affidavit, the affidavit L and then if you could just change the last digit number, which was L, to L1, that is the annexure signed by Meerholtz, which apparently referred to ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: L1 and this will be L2?

CHAIRPERSON: No, this will be L and the annexure L1.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you, yes.  Well we'll try and get - I think it was read into the record and perhaps we'll try - I'm sorry I didn't know that it would come out so badly, but we'll deal with it.
	Now in relation to the extent of the activities of the CCB, you told us that you had weekly meetings with Mr Verster.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: You must have had approximately 50 meetings with him.

EDWARD WEBB: Except for the times when we were on leave, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well making allowances for all that, you must have spent over 40 hours with him during your period of Chairmanship of the CCB.

EDWARD WEBB: It's quite possible, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Very well.  And also, did you see him informally from time to time?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was he a - you had to authorise the expenditure, whatever it may have been used for, didn't you?

EDWARD WEBB: Except as I said this morning, where it wasn't necessary.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, but the expenditure, could they spend millions on damaging a kombi, or did you have control over the expenditure, how much money was spent?

EDWARD WEBB: For operations, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: You had authority in relation to the expenditure of every operation?

EDWARD WEBB: All approved operations, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And monitoring somebody would be an operation because you needed money to monitor people.

EDWARD WEBB: No, but that was one of the things which was delegated to the Managing Director.  As far as monitoring was concerned he didn't have to inform me, he could proceed.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, but what about the money that you spent?

EDWARD WEBB: Money was budgeted each and every year to provide for these things, so that he could for instance, draw the money without having my signature.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  But now internally Section 6 was operating from the time of its appointment to the time of the bursting of the bubble at the beginning of 1990, it was in existence for over a year.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And are you saying that throughout this period the only times you were approached by Mr Verster, was in relation to Bishop Tutu and the Early Learning Centre?

EDWARD WEBB: No, that's not what I'm saying.

GEORGE BIZOS: What are you saying?

EDWARD WEBB: There were other operations launched by the CCB, not Region 6, which were external operations.

GEORGE BIZOS: I'm talking about Section 6.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Those are the only two?

EDWARD WEBB: Correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: You didn't discuss Section 6 with him at any other time?

EDWARD WEBB: In respect of what?

GEORGE BIZOS: About anything.  What are they doing?  What are they busy with?  Where are the results?  What am I paying all this money for?

EDWARD WEBB: We had a weekly meeting.

GEORGE BIZOS: Except for those two projects that you have applied amnesty for, did you discuss any other activity of Section 6 with Mr Verster?

EDWARD WEBB: There was the monitoring of Anton Lubowski that was done internally.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why was that discussed with you?

EDWARD WEBB: Because he was such a high profile person.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you have to authorise money for it?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Verster proceeded.

GEORGE BIZOS: And why was he more high a profile than Dullah Omar?