Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-16

BERNARD MWELASE: We didn't discuss about this in hospital.
Would you please address your question?  I need to understand your question clearly.

MS GABRIEL: Okay, what I'm trying to understand, if I heard your evidence correctly, will you please help me understand what you said earlier on?

BERNARD MWELASE: I am saying what happened in hospital is that Taylor was the one who was questioning the man and we also took a look at this man and we realised that we didn't know the person.  Taylor questioned him as to who gave him the limpet mine.  The man said to Taylor it was Ninela who gave him the limpet mine and Myeza there and then said to us he knew Mr Ninela and he was a troublesome man.  He said so in hospital.  This is the only thing which happened in hospital because Taylor couldn't assault the man who was in hospital, he was going to be arrested himself if he could have done that.

MS GABRIEL: But you mentioned somebody and you said,
"We had to then plan an abduction."
You said that if somebody was approached by the police this person would divulge everything.  What did you mean by that?  Who were you talking about?

BERNARD MWELASE: Are you referring to the person who was in hospital, or the person who was at home?  Which one are you talking about?

MS GABRIEL: I'm referring, Mr Mwelase, to what you said.  Now it may be that I was mistaken, but I made notes of you saying that the abduction had to happen because if Ninela was approached by the police, he might divulge everything.

CHAIRPERSON: So the abduction obviously did not relate to the man who was in hospital.

BERNARD MWELASE: I understand.

MS GABRIEL: Will you please tell me what that meant?

BERNARD MWELASE: Yes, I do understand now.  When we were planning, Myeza and Taylor, they said if Ninela was going to be approached by police, things were not going to go according to the plan, therefore ...(intervention.

MS GABRIEL: What plan was this?

BERNARD MWELASE: We were askaris, we were just taking instructions from the senior men and what we were told was that Stanley and myself were supposed to go and approach Ninela.

MS GABRIEL: So all you heard then was them refer to a plan?  Do you have any idea what plan this was?  When they said things would not go according to plan, what did they mean?

BERNARD MWELASE: Yes, they actually said so, that police should not be involved in abducting him and I don't know their reasons why.  I don't know why they came to this conclusion.  Maybe they were scared that people will know, maybe the people from the area are ANC people and they will know that the police are involved.  This is what I'm just thinking, I'm just speculating their reasons, but I don't know and I didn't know at the time why they wanted to use askaris.

MS GABRIEL: The people in the are would know that the police were involved, what do you mean by that?  Involved in what?  In the death of the boy?

BERNARD MWELASE: In killing him.  This is what I'm thinking, I'm not talking about his death because at the time I didn't even know that there was a plan of killing him.

CHAIRPERSON: Sometimes the whole problems arise as a result of interpretation.  Do you understand?

MS GABRIEL: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: The gist of it, as I understand it is, they'd already got the information that Ninela was the man who had supplied the explosive.  The question now was, should that be referred to the police to go and arrest Ninela or should we devise a plan and abduct Ninela, so it was decided that the police should not have anything to do with arresting Ninela and charging him with whatever they want to charge him.

MS GABRIEL: My concern, Mr Chair, is that I distinctly heard Mr Mwelase saying that he had to be abducted because if he was approached by the police he might divulge everything.

CHAIRPERSON: In other words, they didn't want the police to go and arrest Ninela, that might lead to complications which the police did not want.

MS GABRIEL: I see.  Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: So then they decided they'd make use of askaris and abduct Ninela.  That's a sense of the evidence as I understand it.

MS GABRIEL: Well, Mr Mwelase, let me as you.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that right?

MS GABRIEL: Is that correct?

ANSWER: ...(indistinct)

MS GABRIEL: Okay.  Mr Mwelase, just one final question, you said when Mr Ninela was - when you took Mr Ninela to this pre-arranged spot, the point at which he was arrested, he was searched and they did not find anything on him.  I just want to confirm that with you.

BERNARD MWELASE: Yes, nothing was found in his possession.  Nothing at all.  I don't know about money, but there was no weapon at all.

MS GABRIEL: Mr Mwelase, one final question, when you went to the hospital, how did you introduce yourselves to this boy on the bed?

BERNARD MWELASE: Col Taylor and Myeza, they are well-known police in Durban.  The only thing which we did was just to look at him and Taylor was the one who was talking to him and Taylor and Myeza were well-known policemen.

MS GABRIEL: Okay, thank you very much, Mr Mwelase.  I have no more questions Mr Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS GABRIEL

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Who in fact arrested Ninela?  Which policeman?

BERNARD MWELASE: We abducted him and we didn't force him to come with us, but when we arrived at the car, guns were pointed at us, all of us, they pretended as if they're arresting all three of us.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the question was, who was it?  Was it the army or was it the police in uniform, was it the police in private clothes?

BERNARD MWELASE: Security Branch, Myeza and the askaris who were under Col Taylor and other askaris who were also from Pretoria and they were just wearing their clothes, their personal clothes.

CHAIRPERSON: Any questions?

MS THABETHE: Just a few, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Certainly.

MS THABETHE: Thank you.

MS THABETHE: Mr Mwelase, you said in your evidence, you did not know that when Mr Ninela was abducted, he was going to be killed.  You thought that he was going to be arrested.

BERNARD MWELASE: Yes, I didn't know that.  That's exactly what I thought.

MS THABETHE: Right, I've got two questions arising out of your evidence.  The first question is, why do you think he was abducted?

BERNARD MWELASE: I wasn't in a position to dispute anything which was suggested by the police or the SB, I was just a cheap askari.  My duties were just to follow the instructions.

CHAIRPERSON: The question that is put to you is did you know why he was abducted?

BERNARD MWELASE: Myeza had already indicated that this man was a troublesome man and he said so after the explosion of the bomb, therefore we were not going to dispute it because we were also scared.  De Kock was torturing us and if we didn't follow their instructions, we were going to be hit by Mr de Kock going back to Pretoria.

MS THABETHE: Why I'm asking you this, it's because of your evidence.  I don't think you understand my question.  You see, in your evidence you said you're not sure why he was abducted but you thought - okay, you didn't think that they were going to kill him, but you thought that he was going to be arrested.  Do you remember saying that?

BERNARD MWELASE: I did mention that I was certain that he was going to arrested and interrogated, but I was not sure, or I didn't think that he was going to be killed.  I, as a guerrilla, I was also arrested and interrogated and turned to be an askari.

MS THABETHE: Okay, so you're saying you were sure that they were going to interrogate him?

BERNARD MWELASE: Yes.

MS THABETHE: And then interrogate him to do what?  What do you think the purpose was for interrogating him?  That's what I want to get to.  Why was he abducted and interrogated?  What was the purpose behind doing that?  Why do you think they needed to do that, for what purpose?