Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-09

ADV SIGODI: The problem I'm having is that there are a lot of things that you cannot recall and that gives me a problem with your application insofar as full disclosure is concerned because I find it difficult to say to what extent was your role in this whole episode.  For instance if you mention certain people by name and then you come now and say to us that you cannot recall or you're not sure that those people were there and yet you have mentioned them by name in your application.

I D BOSCH: Chairperson, that's correct, it would also make it much easier for myself if my memory was of such a nature that I could remember everything and that I could tell the Committee everything and I also then knew that it was 100%, but I'm unfortunately only human and I can forget things.

MR MALAN: Are you sure that you were there that day?

I D BOSCH: I was there, Chairperson.

MR MALAN: You're dead certain, you've got no doubt about it?

I D BOSCH: I'm dead certain.

MR MALAN: When you read your statement and specifically 9(a)(iv) on page 37 of your application, page 14 of bundle, round about the middle you say
"It was still morning when we got to the relevant place."
Can you see that?

I D BOSCH: Yes, I do.

MR MALAN: When you read this bit you read
"It was early in the morning when we got to the relevant place."
So somewhere in your mind you thought that you were there really early or do I understand you incorrectly, did you only read it wrong?

I D BOSCH: Yes, I read it wrongly but it felt like it was a very long day to stay there.

MR MALAN: Do you think you were there early in the morning?

I D BOSCH: Not 6 o'clock but maybe 10 or 11 o'clock.

MR MALAN: There is also evidence which will also come to the fore which says that Bhila was indeed interrogated.

I D BOSCH: Chairperson, as far as I can remember he was not interrogated, he only sat there.

MR MALAN: So when he was not being interrogated, didn't you ask anybody: "Look are we going to ask him questions or not"?  What did you do?

I D BOSCH: I was not part of that investigation, the investigation into Bhila.  I do not know how to explain this to you.  I am the technical person on the farm, at Vlakplaas, I don't know why they sent me there.

MR MALAN: What do you mean you were the technical person?

I D BOSCH: I took the photographs, I made videos, I helped with the listening devices etc.

MR MALAN: Oh, I thought you said on the farm meaning at the shooting place.

I D BOSCH: No, Vlakplaas.

MR MALAN: Who gave the instruction then to go to the farm?

I D BOSCH: Colonel de Kock put me in the group that had to come to Durban.

MR MALAN: But the whole group who came to Durban didn't go to the farm or rather did not go to the shooting range.

I D BOSCH: We were only three white members.

MR MALAN: Were only white people members part of the group?

I D BOSCH: No, Chairperson.

MR MALAN: I ask you again, why did you go with to the shooting range?  Who said you must go there?  Your answer is: "The whole group went".  It seems as if the whole group did not go.  I repeat my question, why did you go to the shooting range?

I D BOSCH: Because McCarter told me to come with to the shooting range, he told me I had to go with them.

MR MALAN: And you never asked him why?

I D BOSCH: Not at that stage, Chairperson.

MR MALAN: What was your relationship, what was the relationship between you and him?

I D BOSCH: It was very good, a good relationship.

MR MALAN: Were you also friends?

I D BOSCH: Yes.

MR MALAN: Did you also get together socially outside of work?

I D BOSCH: Yes.

MR MALAN: And you never asked him: "McCarter, why are we here, Frank what are we doing here"?

I D BOSCH: Chairperson, this is what I've been trying to say the whole day, I cannot remember when they told me, whether it was on the way to the mountain, on the mountain, back, I cannot recall.

MR MALAN: Let me just put it to you this way - maybe  you've got to page through your application, please open up on page 14 of the bundle.  If you look at 9(a)(iv), if you can just quickly scan that and look at what you are saying there and what you've, you've contradicted yourself in cross-examination.  All you say is you cannot remember, you do not know whether it was correct, that's how you thought then, so there is very little that remains here.
	I do not know what I should consider to be your version, I suppose we'll have to look at the record bit for bit.  You say that not one of you were informed about what your instructions were when you went to Durban, do you stand by that?

I D BOSCH: That's how I've written this thing two years ago, that's the way I remembered it.

MR MALAN: But how do you remember it differently now?

I D BOSCH: Chairperson, Mr McCarter spoke, he gave his evidence, so this is freshening my memory.

MR MALAN: So what do you remember now, what would have been your instruction then?

I D BOSCH: Chairperson, I cannot remember whether I was present when Bhila was picked up.  I cannot remember that at all.  And that we'd transferred him into another vehicle I cannot remember that.

MR MALAN: You say Spyker and Mhieza were there, both of them?

I D BOSCH: Yes, that's the way I remember it.

MR MALAN: I do not want to know where you might be wrong, I want to know what you remember.  You remember that both of them were involved?

I D BOSCH: That is correct.

MR MALAN: And you also remember that there was a black man who was cuffed who was with you during the course of the day?

I D BOSCH: That is correct.

MR MALAN: And now I'm turning the page, page 15, you waited there the whole day and no-one ever told you why you were there, or rather your presence?

I D BOSCH: That is correct.  When I wrote this that is what I thought.

MR MALAN: Mr Bosch, I'm asking you what your thoughts are now, what do you remember now.  So these are still your memories?

I D BOSCH: Yes, Mr Chairperson.

MR MALAN: And then Sergeant Aubrey Mgade, as far as you can remember he was there, is that how you remember it?  Is that the way you remember it two years ago, that's how you remember it today.

I D BOSCH: That is correct, Chairperson, but I might be mistaken.

MR MALAN: Yes, surely, you can make mistakes about everything but I want to know how you recall it now, do you recall him to be there?  And then as you continue when you got out of the vehicle after the puncture you had, the flat tyre, you still did not know what the plans were and what you had to do.  Then you said that you suspected - now this is only after you got out of the bus, you suspected that he possibly could be killed.  Is that still how you remember it?

I D BOSCH: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR MALAN: At no stage earlier on in that day did you have the suspicion that this person might be killed, is that correct?  As you remember it now.

I D BOSCH: As I remember it now yes.

MR MALAN: And it wasn't strange to you that no interrogation took place?

I D BOSCH: No.

MR MALAN: And that - and I'm using your words, you had a long day, you sat there the whole day and no-one did anything and nothing happened?

I D BOSCH: That is correct.

MR MALAN: Now if you look at page 16 of the bundle, right at the bottom you say that you tried to find out what the reason was why they detained him but you were only informed that he was an ANC terrorist.

I D BOSCH: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR MALAN: Is this still the way you remember it?

I D BOSCH: That is how I remember it when I wrote it down, yes, Mr Chairperson.

MR MALAN: You don't remember it differently?

I D BOSCH: No.

MR MALAN: And then you also wrote down on page 17 what you political objective was.  Why did you write about your political objective so elaborately?  If you had no information where did you get all of that from?  Because you are referring to your own political objectives here, a political objective linked to an act that you were involved in.