Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR VAN VUUREN: On occasion there would be sensitive informationgained.  If this person was then released this information wouldhave become known, it would have leaked.  So it was necessaryto eliminate the person to ensure that that information only wasavailable to the Security Police  and not also to the ANC.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: ... if that person is released or he is notkilled then the information that was already  in your  possession,in your custody, would leak out, is that what
2B you/...
MR MPSHE 385  J J VAN VUUREN
you are saying?

MR VAN VUUREN: If this person was released then the informationwhich we obtained by means of interrogation would be of no valueto us because he would go and tell that  he gave us this informationand that we know about particular instructions and so forth. That is what I tried to say.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: ... the very first paragraph
  "The identity of the informants and sources of the SecurityPolice had to be protected".
You have already said that you did not study the law, but I amasking you this on the basis that you are a senior  police officerand what I am going to ask you forms part of your studies at collegeas policeman.  Don't you think in order to avoid disclosure ofinformers,  or your informers, you were covered by the CriminalProcedure Act in that regard?

UNKNOWN: Mr Mpshe, if this person, Sefola for  instance,the next day went to town and said Mr Masamela, he is an informant. I've seen him last night, he interrogated  me, he has been joinedby these police officers, wouldn't that be a disclosure of aninformer's name and the identity of him and isn't that what thewitness is trying to convey?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: That would be, Mr Chairman, members of the Committee,and I stand indebted on the answer given for the applicant bythe Committee.  I will leave that question there.  Mr Chairman,that is all I had  to ask the witness.  Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MPSHE

JUDGE WILSON: Mr Currin, can I ask you some questionsbefore I ask the applicant.  Firstly, he asked at the
2B commencement/...
386 J J VAN VUUREN
commencement of your cross-examination whether there was a photographavailable of the deceased.  Do you know if there is?

MR CURRIN: Yes, we in fact have now got a photograph available.

JUDGE WILSON: So is it possible to ascertain that youare talking about the same person or not?

MR CURRIN: We are not sure whether it is going to be possiblefrom the photograph, he was quite a lot younger at the time.

JUDGE WILSON: So you haven't got a photograph at aboutthat period?

MR CURRIN: We have one when  he was two years younger,and obviously  16 to 18 does  make quite a big difference.  But,however, we thought it might  be  appropriate to ask the  applicantwhether he recognises the person.

JUDGE WILSON: And have any enquiries been made about thislicence?  Whether there is a photograph available in the records,presumably  ....(intervention).

MR CURRIN: We've got somebody working on that.  We heardabout it for the first time an hour ago and we'll certainly -we are working on that.

JUDGE WILSON: I will leave it for the moment.  And a finalquestion in this regard is, the  young man you were talking aboutwas at school.

MR CURRIN: He was at school.

JUDGE WILSON: Are his school records available?

MR CURRIN: We are investigating school records as wellas church attendance records.

JUDGE WILSON: Can I just ask you one  question, Mr VanVuuren.  As I understand it you went to headquarters and
2B obtained/...
387 J J VAN VUUREN
obtained the printout  of the computer  file  dealing with MrSefola.

MR VAN VUUREN: That  is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: What was contained in that file confirmedwhat you had been told, it was the same information.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: So headquarters knew that he was a greatANC supporter, an activist, an organiser, a trained terrorist. That was all on record.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: He was not in your section area, he wasin  another area in Witbank.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is also correct.

JUDGE WILSON: That night you went to Witbank,  pickedhim  up, took him away, tortured him and killed him.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: ... information that was already availableto your headquarters, is that correct?

MR VAN VUUREN: Not so, Your Honour.  We wanted to confirm simply that Mr Makope, when he implicated Mr Sefola, we want to confirm that such a Mr Sefola actually existed and that hewas this great ANC activist.  That is why I went to the head office.

JUDGE WILSON: ... confirmed that.  I want to know why you suddenly decided to take action against Mr Sefola when theinformation was available to your headquarters and they had nottaken action.  Why did you do it?

MR VAN VUUREN: This was after interrogating Mr Sefolaand  after he made certain admissions to us with regard to his acts.

JUDGE WILSON: ... what you had already told us was onthe
2B file/...
388 J J VAN VUUREN
file, that he had been concerned in landmine explosions,  thathe had been concerned in the murder of a policeman.

MR VAN VUUREN: This is correct.  This was reports frominformants on file at head office.  We could not ever prove thisin a court of law.

JUDGE WILSON: ... enquiry from head office or from the officers responsible for the district in which Mr Sefola wasas to what should be done to him?

MR VAN VUUREN: No, I did not.

JUDGE WILSON: So you took it upon yourself.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is so.

JUDGE WILSON: ... obtained as a result of torture to goout and kill this man.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is correct.   I want to repeat thatmyself, Hechter and Mamasela, this unit was created to combatthese people with everything in our power.

JUDGE WILSON: ... for your area, you told us earlier. Now you say you had a general discretion, is that so?  You toldus that your unit operated as a hit squad in your area.

MR VAN VUUREN: That is the case.

JUDGE WILSON: ... in Witbank, outside your area.

MR VAN VUUREN: We acted outside of our region becausewe thought it necessary.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Where was your office based?

MR VAN VUUREN: It was in the old musuem.  This musuemwas in the bottom and our offices, the Security Branch officeswere on top, in Pretoria at the old museum.  This was the oldPolice Museum.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ... to go and interrogate Mr Maake in PienaarsRiver.

MR VAN VUUREN: We were looking for a property where we
2B could/...
389 J J VAN VUUREN
could work with this person far away from anyone else.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: (Inaudible) away from your office?

MR VAN VUUREN: This I can't answer.  It was in our area.It was the closest available place that just came to mind.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Pienaars River is many kilometres, in theregion of about ....(intervention).

MR VAN VUUREN: It is about 70kms.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And the nearest available place to you.

MR VAN VUUREN: I want to explain again.  At that timeI knew that area and it was the closest available place that cameto mind at that time.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ... the statement you made to us that initiallythere was no intention at all to kill these people.  Do you remembersaying that?

MR VAN VUUREN: That was right at the start.  We only wantedto interrogate him.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: If there was no such intention to do that,then I don't understand why you had to take this person so faraway to so isolated a place.

MR VAN VUUREN: This person was an informant.  We did not want to take the risk that should it turn out that  he was nota double agent that other people would  be able to see  him andrecognise him.  That is why we were looking for a somewhat distantplace.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ... that initially the intention was notto kill Mr Maake.  When you picked up Mr Makope and later Mr Sefola,was the intention to kill each one of them already there, or didit come later?

MR VAN VUUREN: We only decided this at a later stage.