Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

MR DE JAGER: And do you know whether there was any political decisions about this?

WITNESS:   About ... (incomplete)

MR DE JAGER: About identifying targets, or instructing people to commit these deeds?

WITNESS:   Yes, for sure.  The political - if I understand you right, Mr Chairman, the targets were all people that were in some way involved with the ANC, either by supporting them or ... (incomplete - end of Side A, Tape 2) ... a military arm of the Government, and our operations were exactly performed in such a way to further the aims of the Government of the day, and to keep them in the chair.

WILSON J: Mr Coetzee, as far as I can see, and I'd like your views here, a number of these people who were eliminated were people against whom the police could prove no case.

WITNESS:   Most of the time, that's correct.

WILSON J: So if they couldn't legally do anything they decided to assassinate them?

WITNESS:   That's correct, Mr Chairman.

WILSON J: And this was a police decision to assist the police.

WITNESS:   That was a police decision.  How high up it went I can't say.  On an occasion or two I can prove Ministers' involvement, Mr Chairman.

WILSON J: /But the

WILSON J: But the general picture we get here of the people listed is that they were people who were not proved to have committed an offence, and couldn't be charged in court, so the police murdered them.

WITNESS:   That's correct, Mr Chairman.

WILSON J: They were people who were a thorn in the flesh of the police.

WITNESS:   That's correct, Mr Chairman.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Coetzee, I don't think you were on the same wavelength with Mr de Jager when he asked you the question that he - his last question.  What he wanted to find out from you was whether there were decisions taken by politicians that certain people be eliminated?

WITNESS:   I have no first-hand knowledge in my days of that.  I can only quote what subsequently came out and was said by the former Commissioner of Police, General Johan van der Merwe in public and in newspapers, when he reacted and said no policeman could have acted on his own in such a way that we did, and the Government of the day, the National Party during those days, should take collective responsibility for it.  And in the end his advocate was quoted as saying, "My client," referring to former General Johan van der Merwe, former Commissioner of Police, "My client has told me last night that the politicians has prostituted us."  And, if I followed newspaper reports correctly, General van der Merwe went on in public to implicate Adriaan Vlok, Minister Adriaan Vlok, the previous Minister of Law and Order, and the previous President of the country, President P W Botha.  To my own knowledge as I say, hearsay from my Section A3 colleagues, Craig Williamson and them, as far as the remark of General Johan Coetzee was concerned after congratulating me on the 	/Joe Pillay

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Joe Pillay abduction, before it became knowledge that it was a mess, and his saying that one of these days the ANC will be dealt with in London.  I subsequently learned from the individual, Peter Casselton, who personally was involved in the bombing, and Craig Williamson, that the explosives were smuggled in the diplomatic bag with the permission of the Minister of Police during those days, Louis Le Grange, because the military - the diplomatic bag goes through Military Intelligence offices.  All parcels in the bag is subjected to scrutiny except on the order of a Minister that it should not be scrutinised, and that is exactly what happened in the case of Peter Casselton's parcels.  So in that specific incident I knew of the Minister's - Minister Louis Le Grange's involvement.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Jansen, is there any re-examination of this witness?

MR JANSEN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR JANSEN: FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR JANSEN

MR JANSEN: Mr Coetzee, were there any channels, whether formal or informal, for you to check on the type of information that was gathered on somebody like Mr Mxenge?

WITNESS:   Not at all.  I was not the - as to put it quite bluntly, I was the hit link in the need-to-know chain.  How the information - the information they had I was only given what I needed to know about the specific case, or what they deemed necessary to give me for the operation.

MR JANSEN: Were you aware of any mechanisms for you to check on the validity of the target, or the so-called validity?

WITNESS:   I had no access to any files.  I didn't carry any files, and if you want a file, for instance in police headquarters, from the file room you had to ask for it in

MR JANSEN: /writing,

MR JANSEN: writing, and as a result of  my position I was not

MR JANSEN: entitled to ask for files to that extent, except for the general file - I think it was called S18, something - the general file on terrorist activities, so-called terrorist activities, which dealt with the formation or reforming of the structures at Vlakplaas from August '80 to August '81.

MR JANSEN: During your stay at - or during the period which you were the commander at Vlakplaas did any of your seniors, such as Skoon and some of the generals, visit Vlakplaas?

WITNESS:   Yes, they did.  General Johan Coetzee visited it on a few occasions, the Section C Chief - first Brigadier Victor, and later Brigadier Skoon - on a weekly, if not twice, three times a week basis.

MR JANSEN: As far as Mr Mxenge's car is concerned, would it ever have been considered using that car in the Durban area?

WITNESS:   Not at all.  Not at all.  The only possibility - we had called cars which we called askari cars.  Some of them were stolen vehicles fitted with false numberplates and false discs, and I know at a stage that -for instance, in Swaziland we stole cars, and Windhoek's Security Branch stole cars for headquarters, and specifically, more specifically Section C, when Brigadier Victor was there, for the Rhodesian Policemen then formerly.  They said it was to be used for - or replace vehicles that was blown up in land mines, but I later could detect that it was more for their police friends in Rhodesia.  Some of these cars went to them.

MR JANSEN: As far as the numberplates are concerned, can you remember whether the car travelled to Golel with the original numberplates on, or with different numberplates on?

WITNESS:   We fitted false numberplates on at the parking

MR JANSEN: /lot before

MR JANSEN: lot before the car left for Golel.

MR JANSEN: Why would that be?

WITNESS:   For possible identification on the road.  There might - someone might pass the car or drive behind the car who knows Mr Mxenge, and know the specific number of his car.

MR JANSEN: And can you remember whether the numberplates that you threw into the river, whether those were the ones that were the false numberplates fitted onto the car, or the original ones?

WITNESS:   I accept that it would have been the original ones.  I think to confirm that one should maybe look at the murder docket, because I know the policemen of the Murder and Robbery Squad in Durban did - they had no difficulty in identifying that that was Mr Mxenge's vehicle, and they took photos of that car at that scene the day after the burning, or that very same day, I think in the later afternoon.  That was reported to us by Frik Pienaar from Golel.  So maybe when one looks at that photos, and there was any numberplate still fitted to the car, one will be able to detect whether it was the - in fact the original numberplates that were thrown into the river, or perhaps then the false numberplates and the originals were then still on the car.  Or whether there were any numberplates at all on the car.

MR JANSEN: In answer to one of the questions you said that prior to being at Vlakplaas and thereafter you weren't involved in stealing of cars and the murdering.  Should that not have been a reference to your Security Police career as such?