Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-14

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: (s.u.o.)

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct, yes.  At some stage he was manager of Region 1 and I think he managed Region 3 as well.

GEORGE BIZOS: What did Region 1 deal with?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think in the documentation that was supplied yesterday, Region 1 is mistakenly given, Region 1 was the Botswana Region.  I think it is not minuted here.

GEORGE BIZOS: Would you say Botswana was or was not?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Region 1 was Botswana, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: And who was in charge of that?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It was David Fourie.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes and we know about Mr Wouter Basson.  What was his position?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: He was the Co-ordinator of Region 6 and he also performed certain other functions.  I think he was always also the Co-ordinator of Zimbabwe Region, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: What stage was he in charge of Zimbabwe?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: He was never in control of any region, he was the Co-ordinator.

GEORGE BIZOS: And ...(indistinct) Kruger, what was his function?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: He dealt with finances, he was not involved in any activities with us.  He also functioned from another Head Office, Special Forces Headquarters, that's where he worked from.

GEORGE BIZOS: And Lafras Luitingh?

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos, could you please spell that name?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, L-A-F-R-A-S  L-U-I-T-I-N-G-H, Mr Chairman.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson, Mr Luitingh was the Co-ordinator in this regard of Mr Ferdi Barnard.

GEORGE BIZOS: We read in the documents that there was a "binne kring", is it, or inner core were the persons whose names I mentioned in addition to you members of that inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Members whom you have named now were, as we put it, aware members, in other words members who knew each other and they knew that they were part of Special Forces and were attached to the South African Defence Force.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you refer yourselves to the inner core, as the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, if I recall correctly, one of the members of Region 6 in his statement started speaking of the inner circle, but one may see it as such.  Those were the aware members and I was part of them.

GEORGE BIZOS: You are happy with that.  And in addition, was Christoffel Nel part of that inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chris Nel was also an aware member.

GEORGE BIZOS: Part of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: The inner circle was a non verbal term that we used so he was an aware member of the structure.

GEORGE BIZOS: I don't want to become too involved in semantics with you, Mr Verster, but where you were referred to as the Managing Director, would they be regarded as the members of the Board so to speak, because you were holding out that you were a sort of commercial undertaking?  Could we refer to them either as the inner core or the members of the Board?  You can choose.  I just want a frame so that I don't have to repeat myself all the time.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: If we may call it in English, one can call it the inner core.  It sounds easier.  In Afrikaans I refer to the aware members.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Inner core.  Alright we'll speak about the inner core.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos.  When you say you're comparing the inner core to the aware members, we heard yesterday that there were over 100 aware members, I've forgotten the exact figure, but there were many, many of them.  Were all of those aware members that 100 plus, or 200, whatever it was, part of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: So I think it's something, what Mr Bizos is talking about is something more than just the aware members.  It's decision - people involved in management or decisions.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson it may be on various levels.  It is Management, the management of the structures and Mr Chris Nel was in the Intelligence structure.  He was part of the inner core there.  Let us say, the core management there.

GEORGE BIZOS: And Mr Charl Naude, was he part of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: In the initial stages of the CCB, he was the Regional Manager of Region 1 before Mr Fourie came in and thereafter he retired.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did he thereafter become a member of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No Chairperson, he then quit.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was he never a member of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: When he was the Regional Manager of Region 1 in the initial stages, he was part of the inner core.

GEORGE BIZOS: And Corrie Neerholtz, was he a member of the inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct.  He was also a Regional Manager.  If I recall correctly it was Region 2 and Region 4, the Angola Region.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now this inner core, how often did it meet?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: There were weekly meetings, co-ordinating sessions, I think once a week and thereafter the regions elements which were needed for projects met, Chairperson, so it varied from one group to the other and not all of them together.

GEORGE BIZOS: If you were to estimate, would you say that this inner core met at least weekly?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Once a week, yes, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos if I can just inter ... these names that we've been talking about now, Neerholtz, Chris Nel, etc., were they code names or were they ...?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: In certain instances - the two names that have been given now are their proper names, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Are all of them correct names?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: The ones that you have given so far are correct names.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now please tell us specifically did this inner core have to study the information that may have become available in relation to a specific proposed victim?  Did they get the information, this inner core?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: We functioned in a cell structure, Chairperson, only when it was applicable to him, so there was no discussion of all the projects by everyone together.  The weekly meetings dealt with co-ordination and if it was applicable to him, he did the planning on the information which he had and he processed the information in order to glean intelligence from it.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, well let's just take as an example the proposal made to kill Minister or then Mr Dullah Omar.    You would have been informed because you were the Managing Director.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: And would you take this proposal to a meeting at which the other members, the other persons that I have mentioned were present in order that each one of them can make a contribution in relation to the proposal that Mr Dullah Omar was a legitimate target?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No Chairperson.  We functioned in cell structures, so only Region 6 knew who the targets were.  Not any of the other regions knew of it, for example in this case, because the other regions did not know the Regional Manager of Region 6, therefore for example Mr Staal Burger was never present at these meetings.

GEORGE BIZOS: We're not talking about Mr Staal Burger at the moment, we are talking about the other people here.  You say that you operated on a cell system.  Would it be wrong to say that the inner core was a cell in itself?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, it was the core management who dealt with the co-ordination of the management.

GEORGE BIZOS: And for the purposes of co-ordination you needed to discuss the finance, you needed to discuss the financial - the administrative production and you needed intelligence, so each one of these persons that had a specific function and was a member of the inner circle or the core, the inner core, obviously had to be present in order to have an input as to whether Mr Omar was a legitimate target or not.