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

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, it is not my style.  However, I have been accused of it.  There was an investigation in '76 of alleged assault.  The Attorney-General refused to prosecute.  Then during a high treason case one of the accused said that I hit the filling out of his tooth.  That allegation was rejected by the Court, without my even being called in to explain, and the PAC Mgumazulu, one of the main witnesses said that in Soweto he had to do very strenuous exercises and that I had as Moseleke put it, was the gym trainer and allowed it to happen.  We denied that allegation.  I am also aware that tortures and assaults did take place.  I know that people were accused of it and were found guilty of it.

UNKNOWN: Are these people that worked under you?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.  These are elsewhere in the country.  Various cases.

UNKNOWN: Let's first deal with people working under you because as I understand it when you were the chief you yourself didn't do the interrogation, people under you did it.  Do you know of people under you assaulting, people being interrogated?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.  At times I did the interrogation myself.  As you will see in the annexures it is not my style to assault people and my staff knew that it was not allowed and Coetzee himself is not a kind of person who allows that.  If people were assaulted, if that had happened I cannot dispute but that happens in the heat of the moment.  Purposeful torturing in my term of office I did not allow.

UNKNOWN: During your time as a security policeman were you aware of other divisions in the country who committed assault under interrogation?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: In the media one saw it and I believe it happened.  In this Commission we also saw that people admit to it.  That they abused their power.

UNKNOWN: So if I understand you correctly you don't dispute that it did happen in the broad sense?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, I don't.

CHAIRPERSON: Please proceed.  I just thought I would give you a slight warning light.

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Good Colonel.  I think we covered all of those aspects which I wanted of cover outside of the statement.   Let us go to the statement.  Paragraph 25. You may skip the rest.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: That is the death and the interrogation of Sizwe interrogation of Sithole.

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Mrs Mandela said in her evidence  the abovementioned was the father of one of her grandchildren and that it was killed by the police.  The situation with regard to Sithole and some of the other youths she has been with who had been killed or died in Soweto is as follows according to what I think.  Mrs Mandela, through what she said and confrontation and because of the fact that she didn't have respect for the NP and the government, entrenched herself amongst the youth.  The youth who had been with her have been influenced by her and they were untouchable because she has been seen as "the mother of the nation who should protect them".   Mrs Mandela also, because of her own evidence, allowed that a number of other military trained MK members visited her house and she also has been friends with youth who could be seen as militants and they had been seen as her big brothers.  In this regard especially I would like to refer you to statements which specifically relates to that.  We also don't have evidence to the effect that Mrs Mandela and the other youths who had been part of the football club could be involved in that.   I think that Mrs Mandela is responsible for the deaths of those individuals mentioned;  Sithole, a youth in the abovementioned category - I am not exactly sure about the date but another youth called Kenneth Dhlamine also known as Sithole was killed with an AK47 assault weapon.  Kenneth Dhlamini was during 1987 detained by the security branch in terms of section 29 in another case.  We can find this evidence in annexure JP 7, paragraph 7.  Persons who have seen the murder of Dhlamini, it identified Sithole as the murderer.  Sithole succeeded in not being arrested and got away during the time that he was still free.  There were a number of shootings in Soweto.  Those were on members of the S A Police and a number of those people were killed.  Ballistic investigations indicated that two AK47 rifles were involved in this.  One of the AK47 weapons was ballistically linked with the murder of Dhlamini.   A young man in possession of an AK47 rifle was arrested and at a later stage he seemed to have been Sizwe Sithole.  And he was taken to the Protea security branch.  As unit head I was told that he was arrested.  In terms of Act 51 everything was afterwards all right.  Sithole was further interrogated as far as I can remember.  He made certain admissions.  I can't remember detail.  The AK47 which was in his possession was taken by hand to the ballistic unit and we have been informed telephonically that that was the weapon with which Dhlamini was murdered and which was used in other shootings.  After my allowed 48 hours of detention he was freed in terms of section 29.  I can't exactly remember what was the reason for why he was detained in the John Vorster Plein police cells.  I suppose because of the constructural changes they were accommodated in other places.  I did not lead the interrogation but I did speak to him and I asked him how he was.  I didn't want to involve myself in the interrogation of those people because my staff are competent.  At this stage Sithole had no complaints with regard to his physical condition.  He was also not interrogated in one of the soundproof units but in one of the other offices.  He didn't seem to be depressed or emotionally unstable.  A few days after his arrest, at about 17h00, I was informed telephonically that Sithole died during detention in John Vorster and I was told so at home.  Because of the fact that he was linked with the Mandela family Mr De Klerk, the state president, then appointed a judicial commission for this purpose under Judge Goldstone.   We have written a briefing with regard to this.  Documentation with regard to notes by Mr Augustyn were shown to me and those indicate that Mr Sithole by misdeeds could be involved in those.   I also don't recall any involvement by Mrs Mandela by Sithole.  I would, however, like to refer to the investigation and the record of in camera evidence by Judge Goldstone in which it is being referred to Mr Augustyn where mention is made of Mrs Mandela and her daughter.  No further documentation in my investigation could provide any link between Mrs Mandela and her daughter on the one hand and Mr Sithole on the other hand and his criminal deeds.

UNKNOWN: I assume tht it's gpoing to take a long time to complete this declaration,  I propose that we ask Col Potgieter to concentrate on those issues which I know questions have been asked by the Committee.  If that is satisfactory to you.  Otherwise I will have to let Col Potgieter read everything and maybe other aspects are in the statement.  They addressed the issues but they may not be so relevant that you want to have it read out.

CHAIRPERSON: I would be grateful if you would follow that line and it is now half an hour.

UNKNOWN: Thank you Mr Chairman.  The reason for this is that we are trying to be as complete as possible.  Colonel, let us just move on to the second aspect, paragraph B and the handling of informants and Mrs Mandela.  I don't want you to cover the general aspects, I would just like to ask you one piece of information.  Did you at a stage find out that Gerry Richardson was an informant?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: When was that?