Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-09-28

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, that is not what I understood, that that is what you wanted.  It was found through legal post mortem inquests that it was punishable manslaughter, certain scenes we manipulated, we took the weapons away, although we were shooting first, we planted weapons, we manipulated the system, we took the right officer to the scene, so that the scene can be dealt with in the right way from the beginning.  It was not a planned murder but we were guilty that afterwards we manipulated the events to suit us.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, is it possible that you were involved in murders outside of the police or in your capacity as a policeman?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I am sure I would have recalled it.

MR WESSELS: You would have recalled it?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, I would have.

MR WESSELS: And you say you cannot recall anything.  Then why do you say "no, I wasn't"?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I am saying now, as I just gave you the answer, take it or leave it.

MR WESSELS: Can you not recall if you were involved in murders outside your capacity as a policeman?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I say if I was, I am sure that I would have remembered it.

MR WESSELS: But you cannot recall it?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No.

MR WESSELS: I see.  That is also a remarkable answer.  Were you involved in serious acts of violence, serious assaults?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Sir, the life which I led, was a life of violence.   I do not know how to explain this to you, I live in the night-club life, I am a night person.  I went through the bouncer wars, since I left matric, I cannot stay out of a night-club.  I have been stabbed, I have stabbed people.  I have ended up in hospital after assaults on me, attacks that you cannot believe.  My whole body full of stitches, and in the process, I have also injured people in a violent way, yes.
	Sometimes in self defence and sometimes in fighting.

MR WESSELS: Was this before you joined the police that you did these things?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, no.  I boxed for a club, but I do not think it resorts under that, that is a sport.
	But while I was at school, in standard 9 and 10, I was involved in various fights, yes,  outside of school.

MR WESSELS: Did you commit crimes before you joined the police?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No.

MR WESSELS: Did you start when you joined the police?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, at a certain stage.

MR WESSELS: And did you start to lie while you were in the police?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, it could be that I have told a lie or two before, yes, I cannot recall that though.

MR WESSELS: In 1984 you were found guilty of murder, how many charges?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Two charges of murder, one of attempted murder and three of vehicle theft.

MR WESSELS: Did you plead not guilty?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I did.

MR WESSELS: And did you lie in the court when you gave evidence?

FERDINAND BARNARD: From the beginning to the end, yes.

MR WESSELS: You came here and said that you have been lying for 12 years, now it seems as if you have been lying for more than that?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Well sir, if it will  make you feel better, I have been lying for 24 years.

MR WESSELS: But you are also very apt liar?

FERDINAND BARNARD: (No interpretation)

MR WESSELS: And you have told us here before the Committee everything that you could, about Joe Verster?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Everything that I could recall.

MR WESSELS: Is there any reason why you would not be able to recall other incidents?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, I cannot think of any reason, but it is possible that I could not recall other or certain incidents.

MR WESSELS: How did he teach you to become a more competent traitor?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Perhaps that was an incorrect choice of words, but within the system that they recruited me in, I was instructed to lie about just about everything from day 1, regarding my work.  I wasn't allowed to tell anybody what I really was.
	He encouraged me more than making me more competent, but one would become highly competent if one had enough experience in something.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, who are the persons who visited you in prison since you have been sentenced?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Me?

MR WESSELS: Yes?

FERDINAND BARNARD: There are family members who visit me.  Do you want their names?

MR WESSELS: Let us make it easy.  You have already mentioned that Mr Botha has visited you.  Is there any other CCB member who has visited you?

FERDINAND BARNARD: There was a National Intelligence Demolitions Expert who has visited me.

MR WESSELS: Did Brenda Mills visit you?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, she did not.

MR WESSELS: And you say that the witnesses who testified against you in the murder trial or in the trial of the charge of murder of Dr Webster, you say that the only one of them who spoke the truth was Brenda Mills and Jacques Pauw?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, that is not what I said.  I said that they were the only persons to whom I made the admission of unlawful conduct.
	They conveyed it as such when they made their statements during my trial.  Mr Pauw testified about only one incident.  Brenda Mills is a woman scorned.   She was one of the most correct witnesses who gave evidence, but subsequently I read some of the documents and I read sections of the decision and there many things that she said so that she could get her needle in.
	I don't blame her for that.  But the other witnesses were all manipulated in some or other way, either by the AG or by their own human weakness and they betrayed me.  My evidence is that the admission that I made of my unlawful conduct, was made to Brenda Mills and Jacques Pauw.

MR WESSELS: In as far as it concerns the Webster murder and what Brenda Mills testified about, regarding that incident, what did she say that wasn't true?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I cannot recall that.

MR WESSELS: Anything?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I cannot recall that.  The essence of her evidence was that I monitored Dr Webster's house, that I took her with sometimes, that I shot Dr Webster dead, that I used a certain vehicle, that I made a report to her and so forth.   Perhaps you are driving at the idea that I wanted to impress Joe Verster and that she said that I wanted to do something about the organisation.
	If she says that, I don't know where she has that from.  But I wouldn't tell her, my girlfriend, who I am trying to impress, that I am trying to impress somebody else by shooting somebody dead, that does not make sense.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, the finding of Judge Els that Brenda Mills' evidence which reads as follows and I refer to Bundle G, page 77, you state that all of this is a lie?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I haven't said anything yet, I would like to hear the evidence first.

MR WESSELS: Then listen, she testifies as follows  and the Judge quotes from the record apparently because it is in quotation marks
"... why did he do it on the 1st of May 1989?"
	The response is -
"... well, as I said, the opportunity was there which he had been looking for, and he wanted to.  He wanted to show within the organisation that he had what it took to be an assassin in his words.  He wanted to rise up within the organisation.  He did not, he wanted to be a handler, and he just wanted to be important."
	Is her evidence true or false?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That section of her evidence is false.  If you close your eyes, you can hear Anton Ackerman, the AG speaking there and not Brenda Mills.

MR WESSELS: So you would say that Adv Ackerman tried to present a false version through her?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I don't think so, but somewhere along the line this idea was planted in her mind.  She gave that evidence, because I never said anything like that to her, under no circumstances.

MR WESSELS: So you are trying to say that Adv Ackerman planted this idea in her mind in order to render this false evidence before the Court?