Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I also approached the Attorney-General in Pretoria to give me insight into all dockets in possession of the Attorney-General relating to the aspects mentioned in the notice in terms of section 29 above.  I would like to divert here to say that the D'Oliviera investigation unit confiscated all the case dockets of the security branch police for more or less 1984 up to their investigation and all of that is in Pretoria.  I spent two full days during the week of 19 January 1998 in the safe at the offices of the Attorney-General to work through the dockets and to obtain the documents for this Commission appearance.  I would like to say that the Attorney-General and his personnel were very helpful under the circumstances and gave me access to all documentation in their possession as well as free access to the dockets and their equipment for the making of photostats.  I also checked the detention register of the Protea security branch office to check dates with regard to the detention of various persons to whom reference is made in this statement.  I also tried to correlate the dates with my diary of those dates, 1987, which I still possess and I could in certain cases give reasonably reliable verification of dates.

UNKNOWN: Let us stop on paragraph 22 please.  Before we go on, a few aspects to clear up please with regard to questions asked before, with regard to your investigation into Mrs Mandela.  One of the questions that was asked that you should deal with is the question of why no statements were ever taken from Mrs Mandela.  This question was put to various other witnesses.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Mr Chair, I think we need to accept it is a given that Mrs Mandela was a person of international stature.  At the times I spoke to her I had no problem with her but she definitely had the attitude that she was elevated above the law.  No statements were taken because she never found herself within a situation where she was found in possession of certain weapons or that she was involved in scenes on the scene.  We had information but we had no evidence, no proof.  My intention with the high treason case was if the Attorney-General decided to prosecute, that we were then either going to arrest her or to serve a subpoena for her to appear in court.  That is what Col Kritzinger said yesterday.  As he testified yesterday undoubtedly she would have shown one the door.  Her actions at occasions before that was quite negative and un-co-operative.  After the Sehere case on 25 January she was interrogated at our offices by members of my staff.   I always say they interviewed her.  They went through her correspondence, et cetera, in the steel cabinets in her presence.  They took a statement which is attached as Annexure JDP in the middle of my document.  However, she refused to sign the statement.  And she didn't even want it to be read back to her.  It is annexure JDP 10. You will see on the right-hand at the top it says A 98.  And that was a statement by her which was filed in the Oupa Sehere case.  This statement I took from that docket at the Attorney-General's office.  While we are on that topic I would also like to refer you to
JDP 9.   That is a statement under oath of her daughter Zinzi Mandela.  And that relates to the finding of the Scorpion pistol a month later, in February 1987.  Exactly a month after the Sehere case.

UNKNOWN: What was your conclusion with regard to the connection between the Sehere matter and the finding of the Scorpion pistol?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Those were two separate instances.  No connection.

UNKNOWN: Colonel were there any other conversations between you and Mrs Mandela regarding the investigation?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes, I had a conversation with her on 6th February.  Let me just check my diary.  With regard to a shooting incident in Soweto where an MK member known as V during a shooting incident under command of Colonel Grobbelaar was involved.  There was a blood trail to Mrs Mandela's house and my entry for that date was as follows.  It is cryptical but
"Soweto.  Accompanied Brigadier Coetzee ..."
He is now Lieutenant General Coetzee. 
"... to a scene of an explosion".
That is where the firing took place.  We visited the house of Winnie Mandela at 8h00. There were traces of blood in front of the gate, at the intercom.  These were photographed and removed.  Secondly Mrs Mandela denied any knowledge.  
"3. The intercom rang inside the house.
 4. No one was arrested.
 5. Denied that there was blood at the back door".
That is the entry for that day.   At a later occasion, on the 19th February 1989, when Col Dempsey and them searched her house and offices I was also involved and I searched Mrs Mandela's study in the Diepkloof house, confiscated a number of documents, ANC literature and so forth.  And during that time I also had a discussion with her but my conversations with her at that stage were not hostile, neither were they friendly.  It was part of my job.

UNKNOWN: Colonel, was there ever any instruction from head office to treat Mrs Mandela differently with regard to your investigation?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.  There were no such instructions but from my own experience it was clear to me that Mrs Mandela was a high profile person with venturesome politics and one has to distinguish between that and revolutionary politics and also because of her sensitivity regarding Mr Nelson Mandela, who was at that stage in detention, in that light we dealt with her in a careful manner.  Because that could easily have changed into a political embarrassment, questions in the parliament and so forth.  That she, as was said yesterday, was untouchable and that everybody feared her, that I think is nonsense.

UNKNOWN: Colonel, the investigative unit that you were involved in, that was not only to investigate her but to investigate internal security in general?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Can you tell us briefly the importance of the Mandela investigation in the broad picture.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Mr Chair, one has to look here at the situation in general.  The real threat for the National Party at that stage and for the establishment was the mobilisisation of the masses by alternative structures, peoples' sports, peoples' army, et cetera.  The mobilisation of the masses was a problem.  The role of an individual such as Mrs Mandela for instance, who was not involved in a specific structure at that stage, in proportion there were more investigations into bodies such as Cosas, Sanco, Potwa and so forth and members obviously of those organisations were detained.

UNKNOWN: Let's look at two other aspects.  There were questions regarding your link with Vlakplaas between Soweto security and Vlakplaas.  Can you give us ...

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: In the investigative unit if an MK member or an Apla member was arrested there were photos taken of the person or his number is identified in the terrorist album and then we would visit Vlakplaas, normally at the end of the month when their teams came back from their activities in other provinces and then we would search amongst the Askaris for persons who might possibly testify with regard to the arrested peoples' training overseas, their movements overseas, so that such statements could be taken and bound into the dockets for later testimonies.  Vlakplaas was at that stage therefore a very important source of evidence for us around people who had been arrested.  Then teams of Vlakplaas didn't often but sometimes deployed in Soweto for investigation purposes and sometimes their actions led to the arrest of certain MK members.

UNKNOWN: One last aspect.  There were also questions put to other people about your interrogation unit.  Please elaborate a little about interrogations and assaults during interrogation.  Let's begin first.  Were you ever yourself involved with assault?