Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-03

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: My suspicion was that it was about the organisation and more specifically, Dr Webster.

MR WESSELS: And you were quite concerned that Mr Barnard should be taken care of.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And you were not prepared to do anything which could place Mr Barnard in a negative light or cast any suspicion upon him, is that correct, although you knew that he was involved with the Webster incident?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: So you would have tried to protect him at all costs.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And the protection that you foresaw for yourself and for Mr Barnard, you could obtain this protection from within the ranks of the organisation.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: We were in service to the organisation, so by nature of the situation they were our employers and I appealed to them for assistance.

MR WESSELS: Precisely.  And you placed your entire future with the organisation, you were promised that they would see to your interests and you performed your instructions within the structure of the organisation and you believed that the same would be of application to Mr Barnard.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry just before you proceed Mr Wessels.
	You say that it was a shock that you were detained in terms of Section 29, you've also said that about two weeks before your detention Mr Barnard was detained, did you yourself have any suspicion that your detention might have been a consequence of Mr Barnard having said something to the authorities while he was in detention that might have implicated you?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Only after the time.  At no stage did I think that Mr Barnard would speak about the incident which had taken place or my involvement with the organisation, given his nature, also the Webster incident.

MR WESSELS: ...(indistinct)

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.

MR WESSELS: You would not have said anything to the police which could have placed Mr Barnard in a negative light?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Or the organisation.

MR WESSELS: Or the organisation.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes, or the organisation.

MR WESSELS: And you attempted in as far as it was possible for you, to maintain the cover of the organisation at all costs?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Absolutely.

MR WESSELS: Because you still believed at that point in time, that although you were under arrest things would happen behind the scenes and that the organisation would look after you.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Very well.  Did Mr Barnard ever tell you that he was discharged from the organisation?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Mr Wessels, he mentioned at a stage but he didn't view it as a discharge per se, I think his interpretation was more that he was put on ice.  But it was mentioned.

MR WESSELS: Now you were also placed on ice.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And it is rather clear that you were not discharged.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And you understood it as such.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: To be placed on ice and to be discharged were totally different things.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: The modus operandi which was followed by the organisation with Mr Barnard's discharge was similar to putting him on ice, he still kept his vehicle and he enjoyed the benefits of his position.  So it didn't appear that he was actually discharged.

MR WESSELS: Yes so you never believed really that he was discharged?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.  Although I stated it in my Section 29 statement, I did not understand it that way.

MR WESSELS: But that's precisely what I'm getting at, why do you say on page 4 of bundle B, in approximately the fourth or the fifth paragraph, and this is after you had monitored Bruce White
"At this stage Ferdi was discharged by his Co-ordinator, Louis."

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I will explain it to you in light of the tempestuous relationship that they had, and that sometimes it would happen that one would say certain things which one would want to take back later and he conveyed it to me as such and I didn't know how to approach this during my detention, should I say that Ferdi was involved or not.  Once again it had to do with my state of mind during my 29 detention and I acted in accordance with this.

MR WESSELS: Please Mr Botha, let us not deal too much with your state of mind, you sat in your cell and you made a statement to the police.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Let us just struggle with it for a moment once again, because your client spent a few days under Section 29 detention and the reaction that he caused wasn't favourable, so person such as him who was a trained recce with many award, could not even handle that kind of pressure, what not to speak of someone like me who didn't have that much training, who was completely inexperienced when it came to that kind of pressure.  The difference in our training comes to mind here, so I would like to place that on record.

MR WESSELS: Yes, it is true, the pressure of that kind of detention is very high and one will talk eventually.  They will keep you there until you talk.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And you realised that and that's why you made the statement, because you realised that the sooner you spoke the sooner you'd be able to get out of the cell.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Partially, yes.

MR WESSELS: And it wasn't that you were in such a state that you didn't really know what you were saying anymore.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Emotionally I was very close to that point.

MR WESSELS: Perhaps you were emotionally unstable, but not to the extent that you didn't know exactly what you wanted to say.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It did influence my thoughts.

MR WESSELS: So it influenced your thoughts to the extent that you made a false statement, is that what you're trying to say?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Once again I didn't know whether I should link him to the organisation or whether I should protect him and say that he wasn't a member of the organisation.  I didn't know how to deal with the situation.

CHAIRPERSON: Just on that, wouldn't it have been in your interest to have, in that statement, bearing in mind the fact that you assisted Mr Barnard in the assassination of Dr Webster, to have continued to link him to the CCB, in the event that sometime in the future if the Webster bubble had to break, then it could perceived as being a CCB operation and not an operation carried out by an individual who you helped?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: In retrospect it sounds like the appropriate route to follow, but during my detention I wasn't thinking completely rationally and I have stated that I may have had my own agenda.

MR WESSELS: I beg your pardon?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I said that I did not act correctly during the deposition of my statement.

MR WESSELS: Why did you say that you did not act correctly?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: With regard to certain things that I said regarding the Athlone bomb, the whole idea of saying that Ferdi was definitely discharged, these were things that I should have approached differently.

MR WESSELS: But Mr Botha, the Honourable Chairperson has asked you about the point that I was planning to get to.  You stated that you were there and that your good friend, Mr Barnard, was also there and that the only protection that you had lay within the organisation, that you were not prepared to say anything about him that wasn't true and now according to your version you make a false statement about him which breaks the connection with the organisation at a time when he needed the organisation most.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes but at the same time I must also say the following.  Perhaps I distanced myself from him to a certain extent because I saw that he wasn't going to get any protection regarding Webster.