Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-03-30

ADV DE JAGER: Unless of course you could convince the Court by means of lies that you never assaulted him, and that he did so voluntarily?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: And there were cases in which the Police, or Security Police or some of them, actually succeeded in misleading the Court in this way?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were you prepared to start a chain of events which would - might, might - have led to Mr Jones taking the stand against Mr Biko, Mr Biko being convicted of terrorism and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 15 years?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That was possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: And you were prepared, presumably, to take a clean statement from Mr Jones under threat of further violence and put him in the witness box and as Adv De Jager says, warn Mr Jones before he goes into court, that if he deviates by one word from this - sorry, he didn't say it so, but suggested it - because as a practising Advocate, I think we all live, Advocates, we live through this, you would say that if you depart from this statement, you will get five years, and if Mr Jones was weak enough, you would have compelled him to betray his closest friend and send him to prison for 15 years?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: And you considered that as a thing which you could and should do in the interest of your country?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, at that stage.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, yes, at that stage.  But, before you went off, before you went off into this potentially dangerous exercise where the ends of justice might have been defeated, would you mind telling us what police work you did, you know other than beating people to give you information true or false?
	What police work did you do in relation to your investigation in relation to this pamphlet in order to get to its origin?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: What I can recall is that we went to King William's Town and we seized the typewriters.  I was present during the interrogation of some of these typists.  I was not present when a statement was taken because the inquest was already underway and we withdrew from it.

GEORGE BIZOS: These typists were detained for how long?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.  I think for the duration of those six months.  I don't know whether some of them were detained after that under Section 10, but I know that Mr Jones was further detained in terms of Section 10.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was any charge brought against anybody in relation to this pamphlet?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Not as far as I know.

GEORGE BIZOS: But hadn't these typists also made incriminating statements under duress?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No, I don't think so.  Not the statement which was taken by Lieutenant Hattingh.  I don't know, I wasn't present.  But I was present during the initial ...

CHAIRPERSON: Who was the Investigating Officer in this case?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Could I just explain something here Chairperson.  Major Snyman was in charge of the investigation.

GEORGE BIZOS: If he says the one or the other, how do you take it further?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I and Captain Siebert and Warrant Officer Marx, and after Mr Biko died, we were withdrawn and Lieutenant Hattingh took over to continue with the investigation.  People were already detained, and he was responsible for their interrogation, I was no longer part of the team then.

CHAIRPERSON: No, I understand all of that, but what I want to know is if Mr Jones cooperated with you, and if Mr Biko had cooperated and made confessions, etc who would have carried the docket?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Captain Siebert.

CHAIRPERSON: Captain Siebert?

GEORGE BIZOS: You see, the method that you chose to use even if one in retrospect might be able to say well, you felt under a duty to do it, surely it must have occurred to you when you set on this very dangerous course of obtaining statements from Mr Jones, that would not have the dangers of possibly innocent people being convicted and sentenced to prison for a long time?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is possible, I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, what about trying to get people to whom this pamphlet you say was given, was given out, as to who gave it out and where they got it from, and the possibility of calling them as witnesses?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: As I have said there were several people who were detained after Mr Jones gave us information.  People who were allegedly involved.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now, would it be beyond the imagination of ability of the Security Police to make up their own pamphlets in order to frame people?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know about that.  I know it was done afterwards, but I don't know what the position was at that stage.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, when afterwards were forged pamphlets given out by the Security Police?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was actually drafted by the JMC's and distributed, that is all I know about.  That was in the late 1980's.

GEORGE BIZOS: Purporting to have been issued by either one of the liberation movements or a community organisation for the purposes of discrediting them?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: You have referred to the JMC's.  I don't think all the members have previously heard of the JMC's, could you perhaps just give the full name for the record?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was the Joint Management Centre where all the Security Forces got together.  It was a division of the State Security Council which functioned on a regional basis and the Defence Force Component had Joffel van der Westhuizen as Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you.  But even before that, seven or eight years before, if you were prepared to defeat the ends of justice in the manner in which you had described, what would have prevented you from putting up a false pamphlet?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Well, I didn't do it at that stage.  I don't know whether we had the capacity to do that.

CHAIRPERSON: Why do you say that similar pamphlets were not distributed falsely, or false distributed in the 1977 period, not necessarily originated from yourself, but perhaps originating from some other source?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know, it is possible that it was done, but I just wasn't aware of it, and I don't know whether we actually had the capacity at that time to draft and publish and distribute such a pamphlet.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, it only needed a typewriter and possibly one taken from the organisation earlier on, reasonably competent typist, someone familiar with the jargon of the period, and a ronio machine, all of which the Security Police picked up at random from time to time.  What other facilities did you need for that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I am talking about ronio machines or photocopiers.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know, it just wasn't done and you must also bear in mind that the distribution could have been a problem, who would have done that.  There were riots in the country, I don't know who would have been able to do that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, you just had to give a few to the informers and they would bring them back to you and that would have been sufficient for you to file them and try and frame people with them.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I suppose it is possible, I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, because if Mr Jones' evidence is accepted, it would appear that this is the English and the phraseology and the style is so foreign to his and Mr Biko's and so close to the, to what the Security Police believed Black Consciousness was, that the inference may well be drawn that this was a self-serving pamphlet in an attempt to get Mr Biko into prison?