Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-02-13

MR VISSER: All right.  Now I want to refer you to page 93 and it will now become clear why I asked you this last question.  And now Mr Coetzee you've pointed out how badly I count but I'll try again.  In paragraph iv from the bottom, seven lines up, what do you read there after the words
"His body was then cremated"

DIRK COETZEE: I organised the poison which I received from Brigadier Lotnal Neethling of the forensic laboratory in Pretoria.

MR VISSER: So it won't help me asking you what you meant by that because you don't know what organise means, is that right?

DIRK COETZEE: I presume in your context, yes Sir - yes Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: But jokes aside Mr Coetzee, you are telling the Commission in your application for that you're the man that organised it.

DIRK COETZEE: I think a big scene is made about small little words.  I went to pick up poison after it was authorised by Brigadier Schoon to General Neethling that he could give it to me, as plain as simple as that.

JUDGE PILLAY: And you're the one that asked Schoon about it initially?

DIRK COETZEE: Yes, that's correct.

MR VISSER: Let's make a big scene about another word, the word poison.  When did you decide for the first time, that in relation to Mr Sizwe Kondile what was supposed to be used would be poison?

DIRK COETZEE: Well, my understanding of the knock-out drops is, if an overdose is given to this person he will eventually die, his nerve system will collapse and he'll just fall into deeper and deeper sleep until ....[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: Did you give him the knock-out drops?

DIRK COETZEE: No, one of the junior officers present at the scene, I didn't give it to him.

ADV DE JAGER: So you handed it to a junior officer and instructed the junior officer to pour it into his drink?

DIRK COETZEE: It wasn't necessary to instruct, they knew what it was there for Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: So it was simply handed to him and he knew what to do about it?

DIRK COETZEE: He knew what to do about it, that's right.  If it was ...[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: To whom was it handed?

DIRK COETZEE: It was one of the junior officers, either Paul van Dyk or one of Komatiepoort men, I would suggest it was Paul van Dyk but I can't say for certain.

CHAIRPERSON: ...[inaudible] the question that's being put by Mr Visser to you is that he's seeking to draw a distinction quite clearly between what is poison and what is a mere knock-out drop.

DIRK COETZEE: Well, poison is something that will kill you in the end Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and you are saying if the knock-out drop is administered in sufficiently large quantities it will eventually kill you, is that what you're saying?

DIRK COETZEE: That's correct Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Now my question to you is, why do you refer in your application form to poison when you really mean knock-out drops?

DIRK COETZEE: Well, I think it's a matter of word choice Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: No, now Mr Coetzee, you were cross-examined at length in London about this distinction, please don't think we've forgotten about that ...[intervention]

DIRK COETZEE: Well, I ...[intervention]

MR VISSER: You said - please, you said
"The powder was the poison, the knock-out drops were the anaesthetic"
And you confirmed it again today.

DIRK COETZEE: That's correct Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: How then do you come about mentioning poison in your application form?

DIRK COETZEE: It was a choice of word, it's a word that I've connected to the knock-out drops that day - in this amnesty application of mine and it is clear it was knock-out drops.  Whatever you want to call it, it was knock-out drops, poison ...[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: But then he wasn't poisoned Mr Coetzee.  There's a great difference in killing somebody by poisoning him and killing him by shooting him or giving him knock-out drops, an overdose or whatever it may be.

DIRK COETZEE: I very clearly indicated Mr Chairman, that he was given a fair amount of knock-out drops which eventually made him fall over and he was then shot.

ADV DE JAGER: So he wasn't poisoned?

DIRK COETZEE: No, he wasn't poisoned.

MR VISSER: Now is that your last answer on this subject to Commissioner de Jager? He wasn't poisoned, you didn't administer poison to him?

DIRK COETZEE: No, knock-out drop or whatever you want to call it.

MR VISSER: All right, fine.  Will you look at the top of page 93 of Volume 2 please?  A1, what does that say?  - Acts, omission or offences.

DIRK COETZEE: Abduction and murder, administering poison, assault.

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Coetzee.  Can I then refer you to page 29 of Volume 3 to see where this whole story of your comes from.  Here is the man who is now making a clean breast of it, telling the world for the first time about the atrocities which he committed.  29 of Volume 3 and we are now going to learn who gave you the instructions.  At the second (c), that's the last paragraph
"In any case I left and later I was sent"
And then there are words with we couldn't decipher from or which the transcriber couldn't decipher from the tape recording.
"I do not know whether it was at Schoon's stage or Fikter stage at head office"

DIRK COETZEE: That's what I said in Mauritius.  I put the statement in context, I wasn't at that stage sure where I was standing with what happened at what time but after having a little bit of luxury of sitting down and thinking I was 100% sure and it can be checked.

MR VISSER: So Fikter was my previous commander and Brigadier Schoon took over from him and at that state at Mauritius - unsettled state, I just couldn't place the commander who gave the order.

MR VISSER: Were you in your unsettled state under the palm trees on the beach in Mauritius, prepared to make a statement without thinking, is that what you're saying?

DIRK COETZEE: No, no, no, ...[intervention]

MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman, with the greatest of respect, those words are simply not even a remotely fair reflection of what Mr Coetzee has said up to now and it's certainly not even a remotely fair summary of what Mr Coetzee has just said.  So maybe my learned friend should just stick to the facts.

MR VISSER: Mr Coetzee, can I ask you this?  You say you didn't think, that's what you said, is that correct?

DIRK COETZEE: No, I didn't say I didn't think.  Think about what?

MR VISSER: Think about who gave you the instruction.

DIRK COETZEE: I did think and I couldn't recollect at that stage what time of my - in what period of my working in Vlakplaas did this incident happen.

MR VISSER: Are we then to derive from that that you could not place the situation where you obtained this instruction to go and murder Kondile, you couldn't place it in your mind, is that what ...[intervention]

DIRK COETZEE: At that point in time I couldn't place at what period of time it happened.

MR VISSER: And could you place that situation in your mind afterwards?

DIRK COETZEE: Yes, I could Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Yes.  And the last reference Mr Chairman - I'm not going to deal with the witness with it, is the London record and that is Volume 3 at page 89 to 90.
	Mr Coetzee, just very briefly, this issue of the alleged diving out of the window as you say you were told by Mr van Rensburg, very briefly I put it to you that originally you stated that he dived out of the window during an interrogation and that was that.  Would you agree with that?

DIRK COETZEE: If it was said that way I will agree with it.

MR VISSER: And I want to put to you that later it became embroidered to the extent that he dived out of a window to escape an assault, a serious assault on him.

DIRK COETZEE: To escape from his interrogators.

MR VISSER: No.

DIRK COETZEE: It's exactly the same.  Whilst being interrogated, whilst - to escape from his interrogators, whatever happened he dived through a window and landed on his head.

MR VISSER: So interrogation in your book means the same as being seriously assaulted?