Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-10-06

MR RICHARD: How far did you think the bomb would be effective from the corner?

MR MCBRIDE: Well it would be sufficiently effective to do what I intended to do.

MR RICHARD: Do you think it would hit only the corner, or the building next door as well?

MR MCBRIDE: Car bombs, Sir, by their very nature don't do that.

MR RICHARD: Did you think at the time it would only go halfway down the building?

MR MCBRIDE: I wasn't interested in that, I was interested in hitting Why Not.  That's it, Sir.

MR RICHARD: But at this stage you knew that there was a pub next door to Why Not.

MR MCBRIDE: Is that a question?

MR RICHARD: Yes.  Did you know it?  You've said yes.

MR MCBRIDE: Yes.

MR RICHARD: Now did you know that people would be in there too?

MR MCBRIDE: People would be in there, yes, people would be in the next door places also, people might be walking on the street, going past.

MR RICHARD: Now you also have conceded that as a matter of fact you had nothing more than a perception of who was in the Why Not pub.

MR MCBRIDE: I don't think that is quite correct.

MR RICHARD: I asked you whether you had a factual knowledge of who was in the Why Not pub.

MR MCBRIDE: Yes, I had a factual knowledge.

JUDGE PILLAY: No, I think Mr - Sir, you asked had he had a perception how many people.

MR DEHAL: And Judge, that perception was relative to the time when he was at the door, he was not allowed to enter.  Perception confined to that moment.  The general perception gives a different picture.  Thank you.

MR RICHARD: We'll go through it again.  On the night that you parked the car did you see who went in and out the front door of the building?

MR MCBRIDE: No, I wasn't even looking there.  That is why I had Matthew with me to look around to see who was watching us and to give me cover.  That's the reason I had him there.  I was interested, I'm working 60 kilograms of explosives, each SZ6 charge has got a detonator in, I must be very careful.

MR RICHARD: Now is it also not correct that you and the driver of the getaway car parked the first car outside the building?

MR MCBRIDE: That's correct, yes.

MR RICHARD: At that stage ..(intervention)

MR MCBRIDE: I think I must just explain something to you, so that we don't, maybe I can circumvent some of the questioning.  When you do an operation you are trained, go and lay your charge, initiate it and retreat.  That's your frame of mind.  I had been doing that since then on about, more than 10 occasions, going, gaining entry and laying charges and retreating.  That's what it is.  That's what your mind is on.

CHAIRPERSON: I think what Mr Richard is getting at, Mr McBride - and just correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Richard, is on the night in question, when the actual bomb-laden car was parked outside and when the bomb went off, you personally were not aware of who was in the pub, the Why Not, whether there were any Security Forces, you were working on the law of probabilities from your reconnaissance, the fact that you, as you've said, had satisfied yourself that this was a place frequented by Security Force personnel and you were working on, let's call it the law of probabilities, that they would be there that night, you didn't that specific night know who was in there.

MR MCBRIDE: And also the evidence or the intelligence by Gordon Webster.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, no, what I'm saying is, you were working on the probabilities based on all the information that you had.

MR MCBRIDE: Yes, there was no way I had of knowing that there for example is the percentages Mr Richard talked about.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  Mr Richard?

JUDGE PILLAY: Further, you had no guarantee there was going to be a single Police Force member there.

MR MCBRIDE: Well at that stage ja, in all honesty I didn't know, but on a number of occasions people, the place was looked at on Saturday at that specific time.  It was a regular pattern of theirs.  We didn't have the billion rand intelligence budget that the government had and still made mistakes.

MR RICHARD: So to confirm what you've just said, on the night in question you had no way of knowing who was inside the building.

MR MCBRIDE: That's correct and that's why I raised the issue with my Commander.

MR RICHARD: Now what I was carrying on to say is that we know working backwards, you had earlier in the evening arrived with Greta Apelgren and parked a car.

MR MCBRIDE: About 15 minutes before, yes.

MR RICHARD: My proposition then went this way.  At that stage when you parked that car you did not have a bomb with you there.

MR MCBRIDE: No.

MR RICHARD: Now my next proposition is that you still had to go back to the bomb car to fetch it and bring it there.

MR MCBRIDE: That's right, yes.

MR RICHARD: Now my question then is, at that point in time, and I think you've answered it, did you look to see what was going on in and around the building known as the Parade Hotel?

MR MCBRIDE: I don't remember looking around and seeing who was around, I was preoccupied at getting back to the car and bringing it there.  That's what I was concentrating on.  If I saw people around me, I cannot recall specifically seeing people around me.

MR RICHARD: But it is ...(intervention)

MR MCBRIDE: ...(indistinct) that it would have played any part in the decision to go ahead with the instruction.

MR RICHARD: My point is that at that point in time you had every opportunity to look around and to see who was going to be hit by the bomb within the next 20 minutes.

MR MCBRIDE: Ja, I had the opportunity, but I was preoccupied with something else.  I was in an operation, in the middle of it.

MR RICHARD: Now it's also true that at that point in time you still had an opportunity to abort the mission.

MR MCBRIDE: We are going back again.  The decision was that we should go ahead with it.  For what reason would I abort the operation at that stage?

CHAIRPERSON: I think any operation could be aborted prior to it taking place.  I suppose you reach a point of no return once the detonator's set into action.  But we know that it can be aborted at any time, Mr Richard, prior to the actual setting off of the detonation device.

MR DEHAL: But in any case, more importantly, Mr Chairperson, McBride's evidence is that there was something significant about the day.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR RICHARD: Yesterday you handed out, through your legal practitioner, a document which is now numbered J.  Now from line 9 we hear that a person ...(intervention)

MR DEHAL: Sorry, we've got two pages to that.  Line 9 on which page?

CHAIRPERSON: ... on the front page of it, Mr Richard.

MR RICHARD: Page 262.

CHAIRPERSON: My J is 761, is it the evidence of Mr B R Erasmus, or Ms B R Erasmus?

MR RICHARD: Correct.
"Yes.  Have you done any service in the Police Force?"
And the answer was -
"Yes, I have."
And the answer ...(intervention)

MR MCBRIDE: Yes, I have that, Sir.
MR RICHARD
"When?"
		"I left in '80"
		"You left in '81 or '82"
		"Correct"
		"Now that was at least four years before.  Do you agree with me that at that point in time that person was neither an on-duty or an off-duty policemen, he was an ex-policeman?"

MR MCBRIDE: Yes.  Just to elaborate on the answer.  I was asked this yesterday by I think, the Honourable Chairperson, and I indicated that the reason for instructing the legal team to ask this question was that already at that stage these were my instructions.  My perception was that there would have been policemen and that's why I asked him to ask the questions.  Whether they were off-duty is another issue.

CHAIRPERSON: I think what you're saying is that this wasn't handed in to try to show that Mr Erasmus was ...(intervention)

MR MCBRIDE: Was a legitimate - no, no, no.

CHAIRPERSON: ... or the other ones that you handed in, the other exhibits.

MR MCBRIDE: No.

CHAIRPERSON: I think the other one was 1960-something the person was ...(intervention)

MR MCBRIDE: That is correct.