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

MR HUGO: If I could put this euphemistically Mr Du Toit this is dynamite that you are now finding with him.  Is that not true?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I suppose so.   It gives you something to work on but if he was not going to testify what would happen to that information.  So I can't see why you use the word dynamite.

MR HUGO: Mr Du Toit, you find a document which refers to Mr Stompie Seipei which could be very important in the investigation into the death of Stompie Seipei.  Do you agree?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: It could help the investigating officer.

MR HUGO: Yes it could help a hell of a lot, couldn't it?   Do you agree?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Mr Chair I regard it in a sense as hearsay evidence.

MR HUGO: No, Mr Du Toit there is no talk of hearsay evidence.  You found it with the suspect, in his pocket.  Who else would you want to make a statement on it other than you?   This is now very important evidence according to yourself.  Now if I understand your version correctly you move from Groblersdal to Marble Hall, is that correct?  Now if I understand you correct further there is liaison with the officer commanding of the Askari, namely Mr De Kock and he also arrives at Marble Hall.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I think I testified that I am not sure whether he did join us.

MR HUGO: Let me put it to you he did arrive there.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Then it is so I suppose.

MR HUGO: Now you transport Johannes Mabotha from Marble Hall to a farm outside Marble Hall.  Can you remember that?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I don't know that.  I know nothing about it.

MR HUGO: Is it possible?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: No, if we went to a farm I think I would have remembered it.

MR HUGO: Let me tell you that Mr De Kock is going to testify that he was taken to a farm.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: If he took him to a farm then I suppose it is so, Mr Chair.

MR HUGO: Whether it was on the farm or on other premises, which is not really relevant at the moment, what to the best of your memory took place, whether it was on the farm or on the premises?  You must now bear in mind that Mr De Kock has also arrived and the other six people are also present.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Present where?

MR HUGO: Well on the farm or on whatever premises where you held Johannes Mabotha.  Now I am asking you what now takes place at that place?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I cannot remember what took place.  I know we waited for a while for De Kock to arrive.  What happened I can't remember.  I know at a stage we returned to Johannesburg.  From my own memory I can't remember whether we took him along to Johannesburg or not.

MR HUGO: You just now said you would give straight questions and answers.  Was Mr Mabotha viciously assaulted during the interrogation or not?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Not in my presence and not by me, Mr Chair.

MR HUGO: Let me tell you that Mr De Kock is going to testify that it was one of the worst interrogations that he ever attended.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I have no knowledge of that, Mr Chair.

MR NTSEBEZA: Can I just ask a question to you.  You know when a person says I don't remember it sometimes means a number of things. When you say you don't remember are you saying?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Mr Chair there were allegations of assault but I was never found guilty.

MR NTSEBEZA: The question that I am asking you.  You are being put a proposition by a representative of Col De Kock.  He says to you at a place which you admit is the place where you took a witness to, whether that place or at a farm, he says to you one of the most gruesome assaults took place on the person whom you had arrested.  Now you say you don't remember.  Now I want to be fair to you.  It may well be that what you say is that it may have happened except that because of the passage of time I don't remember that incident or that it never happened at all.  What is it?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: I did not assault the person, Mr Chair.

MRNTSEBEZA: I am not asking if you personally assaulted the person.  When you say you don't remember are you saying that attack which De Kock through his lawyer describes as the most gruesome attack, are you saying that never happened or are you saying it may have happened except that you don't remember?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Mr Chair I don't understand.

MR TSEBEZA: It doesn't matter Mr Du Toit please I am trying to be very calm about this.  Doesn't matter.  The question is you are being told that there were about six or more - on your own evidence there were six of you who took this man.  De Kock comes there and the lawyer patently took (...indistinct) says we now reached the stage where an assault takes place which he describes as one of the worst assaults that he has ever participated in.  Now he says you were there.  You also could have been there on your own evidence.  Now where it is about is where you say you don't remember.  Now when you say you don't remember sometimes you say I don't remember because this thing happened such a long time ago, it is possible it could have happened except that I don't remember now.  Or sometimes people say I don't remember because what they actually mean is that it never happened.  Now which of the two is it that you don't remember?

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Mr Chair, I don't know how to answer but what I can say is that if Colonel De Kock was there and we were a group and we waited in front of Marble Hall's offices I didn't see an assault and I didn't participate in one and I cannot - I don't think that the assault was as terrible.  If we took him to Soweto and he was detained in Soweto in the cells then those injuries would have been recorded.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now must we draw the inference from what you say, that when you say you don't remember you are actually saying it never happened.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Hugo.

MR HUGO: Mr Du Toit, the same document which was given to your legal representative was given to me as well and I am telling you now that it forms part of the amnesty application of Mr Chappies Klopper where he is asking for amnesty for the Johannes Mabotha case.  Let me add that Mr Vally is careful in the sense that he doesn't want to make names known.  I am going to be less careful for the simple reason that it is this specific incident which was gone through in great detail during Mr De Kock's criminal hearing.  The information in here is already public knowledge.   It is part of a document of 20 000 pages.  These things are already general knowledge.  Now I am reading to you. We accept for a moment that Mr De Kock is a blatant liar, he is in jail with a very heavy sentence.  He is the only person in South Africa who is now in jail for what he did in the apartheid era.  Let's not believe what he says but let us say what the state evidence against Mr De Kock says on your actions on this occasion.

JOSEPH HUME DU TOIT: It seems to me as if there are allegations that I was involved with the assault.  At this stage then I am not going to go on testifying.  I prepared this statement and this is the first word that I hear of that document and I haven't seen that document of Mr Klopper's mentioning names.