Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-07-14

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: If you an bear with me, dates and times, I cannot remember correctly.  I know you were arrested in the evening near the, I think it is the Western Province Tennis Club, near Rondebosch police station.  You were in a telephone box.

MR YENGENI: Can you remember the identities of the policemen who apprehended me?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I think I was the first person at the telephone, if I am not mistaken.  Where you were in the telephone, there was another person in the passenger seat of the motor vehicle, that you reputedly arrived with.
	At that scene was Liebenberg, then I think Sergeant Bellingham.  I was there.  I think Goosen.  I am speaking under correction.

MR YENGENI: Why were you there and what was the purpose of you being there at that time at that particular place?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: As members of the Anti-terrorist Unit, we had received information that you would be in that proximity on that evening.

MR YENGENI: Where did you receive that information from?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: From Lieutenant Liebenberg, who was my Commander.

MR YENGENI: Can you tell the Commission where Liebenberg got that information from?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Your Honour, I was never privy to the methods or where the information actually came from.

MR YENGENI: Okay.  Now, when we got to Culemborg police station, do you remember then what happened?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I know that I interrogated you and I placed the wet bag over your head and I smothered you.

MR YENGENI: Before you put the wet bag on me, do you remember what else happened Mr Benzien, other than the wet bag?  Do you remember my being molested by yourself and Liebenberg and other policemen?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That may have happened, yes, but I was under the impression that I was interviewing the other gentleman, but if you say that I assaulted you that day, I will concede that I did it.

MR YENGENI: Now, you have given the impression that your torture expertise allowed you to get information from your - those who were being tortured by you within 30 minutes.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: With respect, sometimes sooner, but not necessarily longer than 30 minutes.

MR YENGENI: Was this an expertise you acquired through practise or were you trained for this expertise?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I was never trained officially of it.  I had heard about it and whether a person can say you can apply this method well or not well, I would surely have to say myself, that I applied it well and with caution.  I was very cautious of the method and tried not to have party to somebody else doing it in my presence.

MR YENGENI: Why did the Security Branch choose you specifically to apply this method on MK guerillas?  Why you and not somebody else?  Why are you the consistent factor in applying these factors to MK guerillas and Commanders?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Mr Yengeni, today in a new South Africa I can sit here and tell you in all honesty, that I was used by the then Security Branch.
	Members of my Unit received recognition for their services rendered.  When it came down to getting the job done, I was the person who did it.  Maybe I was to patriotic, to naive or anything else that you would want to call it.
	But I think even you and the rest of your people sitting there, would admit that I was the person that rightly or wrongly knowing that the information that I could glean from you and your members, could take especially explosives out of the community, which would be used against the public at large.  Mr Yengeni, with my absolutely unorthodox methods and by removing your weaponry from you, I am wholly convinced that I prevented you and any of your colleagues and any one of them that ever had an explosive device in Cape Town, I may have prevented you from being branded murderer nowadays.
	The only person I can unfortunately not say to, is one of the comrades here whose methods led to the death of an innocent Black person who was foraging in a dirt drum for food.  For what I did to you and your comrades, I apologise.  I sincerely apologise.
	But in the spirit of reconciliation, we lived in a different era, we were enemies then.  I have not fled the country, run away from the Police Force, I am still a policeman and trying to serve my community to the best of my ability.  And that is the reason why I out of my own free will have approached this Commission to see if we can't build, and forget about the hardships.
	I know you've got hardships, the people in this hallway believe and now that I am older, I believe that you had - it was illegal, it was not sought for, each person had to have his place in the sun in South Africa and I sincerely hope that, but if I may just indulge the Commission for a further few minutes- I am married and have two children.
	Since my son was in Sub B, he was a little boy of six years old, my daughter was in standard 5, I think she was about 12, for weeks my children could not play in the normal ambit of other children.  Because of my work with the Security Branch, they had to travel under police escort to school, they could not play on the playground with the other children.  They had to be put in the principal's office all the time, under guard.  
	My house windows had to be barricaded with cupboards.  Every night a wet blanket had to be put in the bath, available where my younger children could get hold of that in the case of grenade attacks.  You are surely aware that I was transferred as the Station Commander at Stanford because not only were my nerves shot, my wife threatened divorce if I did not get out of Cape Town.
	That was after the African Youth League threatened to have demonstrations on my front lawn.  Yes, Mr Yengeni, I did terrible things, I did terrible things to members of the ANC, but as God as my witness, believe me, I have also suffered.
	I may not call myself a victim of Apartheid, but yes Sir, I have also been a victim.

MR YENGENI: What kind of man that uses a method like this one of the wet bag, to people, to other human beings, repeatedly and listening to those moans and cries and groans and taking each of those people very near to their deaths, what kind of man are you?   What kind of man is that, that can do that kind of, what kind of human being is that Mr Benzien?
	I want to understand really why, what happened?  I am not talking about now the politics or your family, I am talking about the man behind the wet bag?  When you do those things, what happens to you as a human being?  What goes through your head, your mind?  You know, what effect does that torture activity done to you as a human being?