Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-21

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: It is not the reason why I am here today, I admit that I made mistakes in the past and I ...

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why didn't you, when you gave your evidence-in-chief, why didn't you tell the Committee that you lied at Webster and you lied at Harms?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I cannot think of the reason why I did it, but it will come up, it comes out now.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, is it your evidence that you had no contact whatsoever with Ferdi Barnard while he was a member of the CCB, sorry, while you were a member of the CCB?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, I never had contact with him.

MR KAHANOVITZ: When Calla Botha got into trouble about the Roland White incident, didn't you launch an enquiry to establish who he had been working with at the time that White was being monitored?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, at that point, at the stage where he had the order to monitor White, I was under the impression that he used his infrastructure members, because you had to work indirectly.  You don't do the monitoring yourself, it had to be done indirectly.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But Mr Burger, the man has compromised your security, the police have found him sitting in a motor car with another person, surely you would want to know "excuse me, Mr Botha, your security has been compromised, who was in the car with you at the time"?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Of course yes, I will get to that, I asked him.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, and what did he tell you?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: He didn't need to tell me, he and Mr Barnard were picked up by Brixton.

MR KAHANOVITZ: He told you Mr Barnard was with him?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And what was Mr Barnard's status at that time?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I don't know.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Apart from ...

CHAIRPERSON: I think if you could just be a little bit more clear about what status is, you know, whether he is single, married, or whatever, if you could just ...

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well, according to your understanding, was Mr Botha entitled to be working with Mr Barnard?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So did Mr Botha get into trouble for having done this monitoring together with Mr Barnard?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: We put him on ice.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why, because he was working with Mr Barnard or because Brixton Murder and Robbery noticed him watching Mr White?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, because he did not obey the guidelines.  It was a disciplinary step.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Which guidelines are we talking about?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: We are talking about Calla Botha?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, but which guidelines did he break?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Firstly, the indirect modus operandi, he had to use a non-aware member to do the monitoring, not himself.  That is the first point.
	Secondly that he used Ferdi Barnard where, and he knew he wasn't supposed to do that, and because of this method, his activities were summarily suspended.  And when I asked him why, he said he monitored him himself and that day he asked Ferdi to go with him, one person would have been more visible than two people, while they are talking and sitting.
	But it was not approved.

CHAIRPERSON: Why couldn't he use Ferdi Barnard?  If Mr van Zyl could use Peaches and Isgak who were gangsters, why couldn't Mr Botha use Mr Barnard?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I cannot recall all the facts, but what I do remember, they were aware of the fact that the use of Ferdi Barnard was  out of order, it was not allowed, they could not use him.

CHAIRPERSON: But why?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Because he was discredited at the CCB.

MR LAX: How did that come about?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Joe Verster told me.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I take it that you would have expressed yourself in the strongest possible terms at the time, that using Ferdi Barnard was so unacceptable that Mr Botha had to be placed on ice and I take it that the other members of Region 6 was aware of what had happened?  In other words Mr Maree and Mr van Zyl knew what had happened to Mr Botha?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.  Strange thing is that after you have now taken these stern disciplinary measures against Mr Botha for using Mr Barnard, Mr van Zyl then goes ahead and he uses Mr Barnard on the Omar project, he uses him to monitor Lubowski, he uses him on "Project Apie"?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And what do you have to say about that?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Well, I was not aware of that.  It was out of order, he was not allowed to do that.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But here you are, trying to run a disciplined unit, but the people who are falling under your command, to me, it would seem, aren't taking your orders seriously?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Well, at that stage, it was Botha and van Zyl who used Barnard without authorisation, or without letting me know.

CHAIRPERSON: The use of Mr Barnard by Mr van Zyl, was not a matter of just easy convenience, he had to fly him across the country to use him, incur costs as well, it wasn't just that he happened to be available, call him in for the next hour or so, it was flying him down to Cape Town, paying the airfare, putting him in the hotel, that sort of thing?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That is true.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And what is more, Mr Burger, Mr van Zyl must have had to lie to you on countless occasions because he would need to report back to you as to what had happened in respect of these projects, correct?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: He did.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So for instance when he is telling you that he's got people monitoring Omar or he's got people monitoring Lubowski and these people are saying this, that and the other, on each occasion that he is relaying that information to you, he is not telling you that the person that he is using, is Barnard, correct?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Moreover, what he then has to do, he's got to pay Barnard, because Barnard doesn't do this for free?  In order to pay Barnard, he's got to use money that is allocated to him by the CCB for other purposes, because he cannot ask for money to pay Barnard, do you agree with me?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, he cannot.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I want to place in front of you certain pages from the diary of Wouter Basson.  Mr Chairman, Mr Basson hasn't been called yet, but in other cases, he has already given evidence that this is his diary and that this is the diary that he used in his official capacity as the  Co-ordinator.

CHAIRPERSON: I think it was referred to when Mr Verster was giving evidence as well, there was mention made of it.

MR P DU PLESSIS: It won't be in dispute that it is his diary and that he did use it.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr du Plessis.  This we will call  Exhibit N.  Oh, yes, wait, I think it is Exhibit M, because we were going to have Exhibit M, we changed it to Bundle M or Bundle something else, so it is Exhibit M.  We can call it an exhibit, it is just one thing.  We will call it Exhibit M, I don't think it makes much difference.
EXTRACTS FROM WOUTER BASSON'S DIARY HANDED IN AS EXHIBIT M

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax has just mentioned to me, didn't we get a typed copy somewhere along the line, of this?

MR KAHANOVITZ: ... the typed copy, in the first place, there are a number of typographical errors in that and in the second place, you actually don't get the flavour of the document.

CHAIRPERSON: I see the writing is fairly neat and legible.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, it is fairly, and you need to see the entries in relation to other entries and in the original handwriting, to actually understand the impact.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, all right.