Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-19

CHAIRPERSON: As I understand your evidence and I was going to ask you about this later, but I can ask you now.  You say that he appeared to be facing you in the process of throwing a hand grenade at you?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: He was looking in my direction.  Later on I heard that I had hit him at the side of his head.  I do not know why, he might have turned his head, but he was looking at me.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, the evidence is that he was hit on the back of the head and the bullet came out of his left eye and he would have had to have turned his head at a, as I understand the evidence, at an angle of 135 degrees.  Do you remember that evidence being given?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, I remember the evidence.

CHAIRPERSON: It was referred to in the judgement at the Weaver Trial.

JUDGE MILLER: Sorry, just while we are dealing with this, sorry, Ms Patel.  Mr Bellingan, is there any difference between a Chinese hand grenade and a Russian hand grenade?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, the Chinese stick grenade is a long stick with a knob on the one side.  There is a difference between that and the other Russian hand grenades.

JUDGE MILLER: Because in your application affidavit on page 35 you say that this person you shot, Mr Konile, he had a hand grenade of Chinese origin in his possession.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I thought it was a Chinese hand grenade.

JUDGE MILLER: You, that is what you thought.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes.

JUDGE MILLER: Yet, in the affidavit, which was deposed to yourself, shortly after the event on the 26th of March 1986 at page 383, you say that, let me just find about, you talk about a hand grenade of Russian origin.  Third paragraph from the bottom,
"The object which the Black man had in his hand and which I thought was a Russian hand grenade ...",
Now, if they are different, how can there be this, can you explain this difference.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: In my statement I said that and they said at that stage it looked as if it had a stick and he said, I tried to give an explanation.  I thought it was a Russian hand grenade which was used as a Chinese hand grenade, a stick hand grenade.

ADV MOTATA: Whilst we are at that, after you shot them man, did you find that he had anything in his hands?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: No, I did not look at that stage.  I moved it round, I tried to control what was happening at the intersection and only later I realised that he had nothing with him and that little stick was lying further bit away.

MS PATEL: Mr Bellingan, can you perhaps just, if you can recall, describe in a little bit more detail the stick that was found closer to the body of Mr Konile?  Was it just an ordinary stick?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I cannot explain where it had come from, whether he had it in his pocket or whatever, I cannot explain.

MS PATEL: Is it, the question was could you describe the stick?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: It was a long stick, thick and long, pitch black with a knob at the one end.

MS PATEL: And is this the same instrument that you thought was a hand grenade?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, that is what was presumably the hand grenade in his hand.

MS PATEL: If one accepts that this was a group of armed people, dangerous, according to your opinion, properly trained, how probable is it that the person would then jump out of a van carrying a stick of that nature that surely could not protect anyone?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I cannot give an explanation what he was thinking at that stage.

JUDGE MILLER: Sorry, is there evidence somewhere that there was a firearm found in the vehicle from which he got out of?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.  I do not know whether fingerprints were taken to compare the two ... (end of tape 2A), whether that firearm belonged to him.  I only later heard about this firearm, this weapon.  Later on they told me there was a weapon in that vehicle.

JUDGE MILLER: So, you do not know where precisely in the vehicle, whether it was in the front seat or the back seat or lying on the floor or wherever in the vehicle?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MS PATEL: I want to put it to you, Mr Bellingan, that the manner in which Mr Konile was shot accords with the forensic evidence that was led at the inquest, at the Weaver Trial, sorry, at the Weaver Trial, and that it does not accord with your version of how the person was killed.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, that is my version, how I had shot this person and I stand by that.  I do not know how they testified in the Weaver Trial.

MS PATEL: Okay.  I want to put it to you, further, Mr Bellingan, that this group of young men who were massacred were done so at your instance, that the matter was planned from the start and that if one looks at the way in which people were placed at the scene, at the manner in which the entire operation was carried out, that it accords, that it accords with the fact that these boys were lured into that area and then brutally killed.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I do not agree with Ms Patel.

MS PATEL: And I want to put it to you, further, Mr Bellingan, that you have come to this Committee on the off chance that a crime may have been committed.  Here is your crime, Mr Bellingan, as you have stated in your original application, conspiracy to murder.  That is exactly what has happened here.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I am not a legal person and at that stage when I applied for amnesty, I heard certain rumours of who had said what.  I do not know what crime was committed and I just felt that this whole thing should be placed on the table and my version of what had happened and that was why and that is how I had applied.  That could have been an error, there was no conspiracy to murder.  Generals, from the top to the bottom, should be involved in a so-called conspiracy, but that was not the case.  The Generals had turned their backs on us, but it is no use to tell stories here, there was no conspiracy.  It was, perhaps, something, a wrong phrase I used in calling it conspiracy.

MS PATEL: Regarding your contention, Mr Bellingan, that you are not a "regs geleerde", as you put it, let me refer you to page 19 of the first bundle.  It is your affidavit.  If one looks at the second paragraph on that page.  It says,
"During that time de Kock instructed me to give the following instruction or training to the askaris and some White members.",
and you list, you list.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, I agree, Mr Chairman.

MS PATEL: "Laws like, like Safety legislation and Criminal
Procedure Act".

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I have never studied Law.  The only Laws I have studied is the Law I have done at Police College.  Later on they said they were going, this would be conspiracy and I thought I would contact a legal team.  If I can remember correctly what the details or the description of conspiracy is, I am not a legal person.

MS PATEL: In as much as you may not have a Legal Degree, Mr Bellingan, your superior saw it fit that you were suitable experienced and qualified, without the formal certificates to prove that, that you were formally qualified to actually instruct people in terms of appropriate Criminal Legislation.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: They had the necessary confidence in me and this legislation said you should always look at the various notes attached to the legislation and I always advised them rather look at the notes or at the memorandum of the legislation.

MS PATEL: You will accept that conspiracy to murder is not such a technical term that an average person with a bit of legal knowledge would not understand and appreciate the full import of?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: It was told to me at the Holiday Inn by the TRC people, that was before the cut-off date, I wrote conspiracy there, because it is not my meaning, opinion today and that is why we have used different terminology.