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

MR DE KOCK: Let me give you a clear example : you are in Oshakati and Jan Potgieter was one of those people.  Another person was called Sakkie van der Merwe and those people came to me on different occasions.  They tell me the man in a different place must go off.   Cell 4.   Now the question is whether it came from the General and then the next day one took that man, you shot him and you buried him.  So it's not a novelty, it's not something new to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr du Plessis, you're on your last five minutes, hey.

UNKNOWN: Chairperson, with respect I took the exact time my learned friend, Mr Hugo, had time to cross-examine, (that was 20 minutes).  According to my time estimate I've got another five minutes and I beg your indulgence to deal with that, please.

CHAIRPERSON: You get on with it.

UNKNOWN: Colonel de Kock, I want also to put to you and you know that Colonel Potgieter testified as such, that the conversation that took place at the de Deur Police Station took place next to the police station.

MR DE KOCK: No, that's not true.

UNKNOWN: And van Niekerk was also present.

MR DE KOCK: No, van Niekerk was not there.  He was 5 or 600 metres away from there, but I can categorically tell you that Potgieter was alone at the police office, and perhaps this will give you peace of mind.  I know we diverting but still.
 This was not the only request that Colonel Potgieter gave to me around the death of an Askari.

UNKNOWN: Yes, I know, we know.  It was in your testimony.

MR DE KOCK: If you would like to ask me about that, I will give you an answer.

UNKNOWN: We don't have to go into that now, thank you.  It's not necessary to go into that. I am aware..

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry  can we get on with the questioning?

UNKNOWN: Thank you, I know of that.  Colonel, the people dealing with the operation I assume that they were, they knew what went on.  What I find strange is that my attorney, Mr Rossouw, his firm works for Lionel Snyman and Brits in their amnesty applications and in not one of their amnesty applications (and I am saying this on the basis that I didn't see those myself), in not one of their applications is anything mentioned of the fact that Mabotha was killed because it was a request from Potgieter.   They only mentioned that he was a person who had deserted and that was why he was shot.

MR DE KOCK: No, it is a situation where the action and the decision were between me and Colonel Jan Potgieter to kill people for deserting, shoot them for deserting, was not necessary.  There's nothing that Mabotha could have done to prejudice Vlakplaas.  He was not a sensitive Askari to us in the sense that he was involved in covert operations.  The other Askaris, I think a group of two or three, asked to be dismissed from Vlakplaas and they got that.  There were others who were sources, they committed misconduct so that we actually fired them and they left.  They weren't killed.  So the desertion aspect has nothing, didn't play a role in this sense.  It's just their excuse, their only excuse.

UNKNOWN: You said that after the last discussion with Potgieter that you knew that Mabotha had to be killed.  I put it to you that from all your testimonies it appeared that there were two conversations from Potgieter and it was not in that last conversation that that suggestion could have been made to you.   What I'm also putting to you is your testimony with regard to the planning outside the de Deur police office, all those things that you directed about and the cars waiting and so forth weren't put to Colonel Potgieter when he was cross-examined.  It's not in your testimony and so forth.  While I'm forced now to put that to you.

MR DE KOCK: Sir, I have no problem with it.  If Colonel Potgieter says that then his witness is false.  I am not trying to be facetious here.

UNKNOWN: One last aspect that I would like to put to you about the question of the assault.  I want to put it to you that the testimony with regard to the assault is not found in your testimony in the criminal case nor in your amnesty application that it came on the table today and I want to put it that it came out today because Chappies Klopper places you there.

MR DE KOCK: No, sir, the aspect of Johannes Mabotha and what happened to him is the most important one, and I will put it to you clearly that in many of the other applications lots of other information is going to come out that has not been taken up in the amnesty applications because people forget things or they don't quite explain things or they don't bring, link certain points to others.   I remembered something yesterday for which I was supposed to have applied but I decided that  assault is not my most serious problem at this stage.  I want to say to you that many of those Askaris went on a month or six weeks binge and if each of them had to be killed for desertion I would not have had a Vlakplaas.

UNKNOWN: Colonel de Kock, I would like to put it to you and I would say that during your amnesty hearing as well that Brian Nyalunga and Moses Ntaleng were used.

MR DE KOCK: Moses and Nyalunga Brian did not desert.    I think you need to, I mean this well, you must go and do your homework.   None of those two cases had anything to do with desertion.   It was not desertion although there were two Askaris - Askaris have died as early as '87 and '79 and '80. They wanted to defect and were then killed but it's not about desertion, it's more complicated than that.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, the Commission will now put questions forward, Dr Randera.

DR RANDERA: Mr de Kock, let me say I don't want to go away confused at the end of this day, but really today has been quite confusing, so my first question and I want you to clarify this for me.  First question, you've been very good, you've been very ... sorry, Mr Mabotha is interrogated, tortured in your own words in Marble Hall and the farm and we are told that he comes back to Soweto, there's a statement made, in fact his girl friend sees him at Protea Police Station on the 24th.   Now can you just explain to me what happens to him between the 24th and the 4th of April when it seems Mr Potgieter takes over in terms of the Section 29?

MR DE KOCK: This is a case of which I only hear today and it's completely in contravention of Section 29 to arrest a person.  He should be detained and such a detention should be done by a person of the rank of lieutenant-colonel or higher.  That's why I found this very strange really.

DR RANDERA: Sorry Colonel, so you don't know what happened to him?

MR DE KOCK: No.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.  My second question is really related to, I think you said you had a phone call from Mr Potgieter.  This was at the end of the six months period of detention, saying, and you used the word that there were many euphemisms used, but there wasn't much else said and you understood what needed to be done and therefore you took the action.   But you also said it in such a way as if to imply that this wasn't the first time that such a request came from either Mr Potgieter or from the security branch in Soweto.   Is that a reasonable interpretation on my part?