Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

UNKNOWN: Thank you Mr Chairman, I will try and co-operate as fully as I can and I want to state this at the outset, Mr Chairman, that we have followed the following approach and that is to try and assist this committee as much as possible to provide as much as possible information to the committee and that is why Col Potgieter went to the Attorney-General's office.  He inspected all the dossiers that he could, all the dockets that he could.  He obtained as much information as he could and I have also discussed certain issues with him which were raised with other witnesses yesterday and which I intend to deal with in his examination in chief which might at the end of the day limit the cross-examination because I hopefully will be able to answer everything in any event.  Col Potgieter I would like you to make a declaration here.  We are going to leave out certain information, we are therefore going to start with - let's go to paragraph 2.
 "I declare myself willing to help the Commission as far as I can and will in this statement and during interrogation try to give as much information as I have to the Commission".
Can I please ask you the following question.  While this statement was drawn up when you consulted did you see the statements of the other people before this was finalised?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.   I was at the head of the court orientated investigation unit of the security branch at Soweto during the time January 1987 to middle 1989. It might be a bit later than middle of '89. Then from October 1989 to December 1992 I worked as intelligence head of the Greater Soweto and Vaal Triangle area.
Skip paragraph 5.  Paragraph 6.  The broad structure and components of the security branch at Soweto were as follows.  Administration, technical.  The technical component gave their testimonies yesterday.  They had to do with technical equipment.  Then the information gathering component where Watermeyer was and the intelligence or the advanced intelligence collection or gathering, such as Coetzee testified yesterday.  Then the terrorist tracing unit and then the court orientated investigations of which I was the chief. In paragraph 7. 
I would like to say that there was one great big investigation into Winnie Mandela called the Mandela investigation.  This investigation was into her helping activities with regard to trained MK terrorists.  It should be borne in mind that the security police investigated only those actions of Mrs Mandela which related to the security condition in our country.  His original idea was to use senior MK arrested members who were accomplices as ...   My conclusion was that the Attorney-General was of the opinion that Mrs Winnie Mandela could not be prosecuted by way of the use of the testimonies of accomplices but that such accomplices would first have to be charged and found guilty and then afterwards if they agreed they could testify against her.  With regard to the Attorney-General's opinion in this regard it was decided to open a separate high treason docket and to investigate this separately.  The cases against the accomplices were continued and many of them were successfully prosecuted.  The compilation of the high treason docket went ahead under my leadership and was eventually given to Advocate Klaus von Lieres.  The high treason investigation had nothing to do and did not overlap with the Stompie Seipei investigation, which was handled by murder and robbery.  The translation and the testimony on the cross-examination on pages 1602 and 1603  of the November interrogation is therefore confusing and does not give the correct picture.  It was said yesterday that I had a parallel investigation into the Stompie Seipei case with the Attorney-General.  That was wrong.  The matter to which we refer here was the high treason matter.  Further Advocate Von Lieres' attitude was that if he should prosecute Winnie Mandela he wanted to do it on a common law misdemeanour and not for a statutory political offence.  Although I cannot remember that he has told me this directly that was the conclusion I drew.  The high treason docket was presented to Advocate Von Lieres and according to his register this took place on the 3rd April 1989, file reference 63/89.  I personally went through it.  I have no knowledge of what happened to this docket.  I searched for it at the Attorney-General's office and couldn't find it.  This was during May 1997.  There was a signature.   I did this investigation after I spoke to Captain Mike Holmes, but couldn't find it.  There was a signature that it had been received, the docket had been received at the Attorney-General's office but no finding had been made with regard to the docket so there is no note whether the docket was referred to somebody else or whether there would be a prosecution.

UNKNOWN: Let's stop there first.  There are a few questions that I want you to clear up for us please.  Your comments on the contents of the docket.  When it was handed to Von Lieres would you say there was a prima facie against Mrs Mandela at that stage?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: There was definitely a prima facie case against her.  However, the investigation had not quite been completed because if the Attorney-General had decided to prosecute there would have had to be further section 29 detentions to get more evidence.  The names were ready and we were just waiting for Von Lieres to tell us to go ahead with the investigation.

UNKNOWN: Were there other statutory political misdemeanours about which you also had enough evidence, which were in the docket and of which she was accused?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes definitely.  There were contraventions of section 54 of the Internal Security Act and 54(2) I think.  No, 54(4) of assisting terrorists and there would have been a charge in terms of the Weapons and Ammunition Act, membership of restricted organisations and the high treason case terrorism and conspiracy for terrorism and so forth.

UNKNOWN: Colonel, were you ever informed by Von Lieres' office after the docket was handed in why the prosecution did not take place?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, I just concluded that the time with the political changes in our country had caught up with us and that it wasn't a desirable thing to do at that stage.  To prosecute Mrs Mandela at that stage.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.  Paragraph 13, I don't want you to go into that.   I think the Commission can read it if they are interested.  It is not so important.  Neither 14.  Paragraph 15 please.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: While I prepared for this appearance and prepared for this statement I tried to get as much as possible accessible documentation and check through it to help me help the Commission.   With the help of my legal advisers I read the records of the in camera interrogation of Mrs Mandela as well as the bundle of documentation submitted by the Commission.

UNKNOWN: Paragraph 18 please sir.