Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

MR JANSEN: distance between Piet Retief and Ermelo, and on our way to Ermelo, shortly before Ermelo, it was dawning.  It became daylight, but we were still driving our lights on.  As we drove away from the scene - which I can also point out, and the remains of the vehicle at this day is still at that specific spot, I visited it over the weekend with my lawyers - we could see the vehicle burning.  We arrived back at headquarters, and on Monday morning when I reported for work Brigadier Skoon's only question was concern again, "Have you left any possible traces or evidence at the scene," without discussing anything that had happened   At a stage - I can't remember whether it was during that same day - Brigadier Jan du Preez walked in and suggested that bounty money of R1 000,00 be paid to everyone involved.  After asking a report from me, just in short what happened, with other words who did the killing and who not, I said the only people that was reported to me that did the stabbing of Mr Mxenge was Joe Mamasela, Almond Nofomela and David Tshikalanga.  Brian Ngulungwa had just stood by with a gun, but never did any stabbing. The authorities then, Brigadier Jan du Preez and Brigadier Skoon, decided that only the three of them, namely Joe Mamasela, David Tshikalanga and Joe Mamasela - Nofomela, the three of them would receive R1 000,00 each.  Brian Ngulungwa did not receive any money.  I shortly afterwards received R3 000,00 in cash, which I did not sign for, and Brigadier Jan du Preez said they would make it up with a claim of the Kufoot Unit(?), which fell directly under Security Police Headquarters.  In this '81 directory too it's indicated as Oshikathi Special Unit.  Through a claim 	/in what

MR JANSEN: in what way, whatever, I have never seen that.  And I've

MR JANSEN: handed the R1 000,00 then to the individuals that were involved.

MR JANSEN: If I could just return to your exit from Durban at the time.  Who gave the orders for you to exit the Durban - for everybody to leave the Durban area?

WITNESS:   On the Friday morning, the 20th of November, after the murder, at the half past seven meeting Brigadier van der Hoven said the orders from headquarters was to pull up immediately and get out of town and get back to Vlakplaas.

MR JANSEN: And on the probabilities who would those orders have come from from headquarters?

WITNESS:   He told me it was orders from Brigadier Skoon to immediately pull up.

MR JANSEN: You said previously that you didn't know Mr Mxenge prior to November 1981.  Who was responsible for gathering information about Mr Mxenge as far as you knew?

WITNESS:   Captain Andy Taylor and one or two of his men, black colleagues that worked with him.  He was main - the chief investigating officer on Mr Mxenge, who intercepted his mail, bugged his phone, and gathered the information on him.

MR JANSEN: And, as you stated, you weren't responsible for the assessment of a specific person's threat to the country's - or the Government's security.  Who would have done that assessment of Mr Mxenge?

WITNESS:   The final decision would have been with Brigadier van der Hoven, who would have relayed it to headquarters in consultation with Andy Taylor, and then would - after he would have decided would have taken it up with Security Police Headquarters.

MR JANSEN: What did you understand by van der Hoven telling you that they were trying to build up a case against Mr

MR JANSEN: Mxenge,

MR JANSEN: Mxenge, but they couldn't succeed in that?

WITNESS:   That he

MR JANSEN: was a thorn in the flesh to them, but he was sticking to the rules of the law, and by doing that they couldn't get a charge built up against him, a case built up against him to charge him in court criminally within the law available to them.

MR JANSEN: According to your understanding of what they told you did the money that was received by Mr Mxenge originate from the ANC at the time?

WITNESS:   That's correct.  It was also reported in that way in the next morning's Afrikaans newspaper, I think it was Beeld.  General Johan Coetzee made a statement to the effect that it was the ANC, and it was because of some quarrel between Mr Mxenge and the ANC.  I can't exactly remember, but I'm sure we'll get that newspaper and one will see that, as always, the actions were blamed onto the ANC.

MR JANSEN: And what was the purpose of burning the car near the Swaziland border?

WITNESS:   To give the impression that the murder was committed by ANC cadres as a result of the quarrel between Mr Mxenge and the ANC, and then they fled back to Swaziland and burnt the car before crossing the border, because it was right next to the border.

MR JANSEN: Did you regard this request or instructions from van der Hoven to kill Mr Mxenge as an order?

WITNESS:   That is correct.  In short, yes.

MR JANSEN: Did you regard it as - in that Security Police culture as an order which emanated after an assessment of the necessity thereof had been done?

WITNESS:   That's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR JANSEN: Do you still today believe that those were necessary or lawful orders?

WITNESS:   Absolutely not.

MR JANSEN: /Why do

MR JANSEN: Why do you think differently today?

WITNESS:   Well, at

MR JANSEN: the time, yes, but with hindsight absurd and absolutely - I mean unjustifiable.

MR JANSEN: But why do you think differently today?

WITNESS:   Well, I think after I left the environment that I worked in, the security environment, after I left the country and I met up with these people that was portrayed to me as monsters of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, JJ Njele and these people, after I saw the human kindness, the warmness, the heartiness, the - just normal human beings, I couldn't believe that I've ever done this against these people, that this was my attitude towards these people.

MR JANSEN: Yes.  Just for background, for the sake of the Commission, could you just explain how it came about that you left the country?

WITNESS:   After I've left the Security Police on the 31st of December 1981 I didn't even think of exposing what I was involved in, because up against a wall I just know that there was no ways that I could do it inside the country.  Then, Mr Chairman, on the 19th of October 1989 an ex-colleague of mine, Almond Nofomela, spoke from death row on the eve of his execution about these Government-sanctioned hit squads that he was involved in.  It was widely published in the news on the 20th.  On the day on which the McNally Commission of Inquiry was reported, the two-man commission, on which Advocate McNally, then Attorney-General to the Free State, and Lieutenant-General Albyn Konradie, the CID chief were presiding, and Brigadier Krappies Engelbrecht was later incorporated on it, and I was then placed before a choice.  I heard then that all my other former colleagues, Paul van Dyk, Koos Vermeulen, even Gene de Kock, who wasn't at

MR JANSEN: /the farm

MR JANSEN: the farm in my time, Brigadier Skoon, Joe Mamasela, all