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

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Well listening to what Watermeyer testified yesterday I don't think any intelligence of any ...

MR PIGOU: Yes but we are not talking about ...

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: ... intelligence was obtained in any case.

MR PIGOU: But Mr Potgieter we are not talking about what was necessarily received.  We are talking about what possibly could have been received in terms of proactive work by Pretorius and Gedebe in accessing certain aspects of information from Jerry Richardson.  I mean that would have been absolutely crucial surely?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: If I had known that Mr Pretorius had such an informer I would most definitely have liaised with his commander and himself.

MR PIGOU: So would it be fair to say that you were not content with the situation when you discovered that he was an informer - that they had an informer?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, I was surprised and I think - ek dink ons was verbaas.  We were surprised ... of having been able to place a source next to Mrs Mandela.

MR PIGOU: Okay, is it possible that the security branch intelligence or unit or Mr Watermeyer, Mr Pretorius, those people who were working in that section, withheld other information about sources close to Mrs Mandela?
If this information was withheld from you is it possible that other information was withheld from you?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, I don't know.  I can't reply to that.  I will tell you why.

MR PIGOU: Well surely it would be.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.  I will tell you why.  And I state this in Afrikaans.  The investigation component has not trained people handling information.  They don't always realise how sensitive the matter is and if there was a degree of conflict and it got known during interrogation the persons who investigated it made known to those people who interrogated them and it was then said that they are not going to tell those people this information again because the information component were not trained for this purpose and they didn't always know how to handle information. In other words it is possible that information could be withheld not to be silly but in order to protect the identity of those people.

MR PIGOU: ... was their co-ordination.  I mean if you are all withholding information from each other or potentially doing that at what level were you actually talking to each other between the various sections?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I am not saying that they withheld information, I said it is possible.

MR PIGOU: No, but then I am asking you the same question.  At what levels were these discussions held where information was shared of the nature of sensitive informers and all the rest of it.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: As unit commanders we liaised on a daily basis with the commander.  There were officers conferences every week where more staff aspects were discussed but at the unit heads conferences information were given to one another.  We didn't have minutes, however.

MR PIGOU: ... I have got several questions to ask and I need to move on and I don't want too much of my 20 minutes taken up by responses if possible but try and get quick responses and I know that is going to depend on the nature of the question.  Just very quickly Jerry Richardson was released two weeks or just about two weeks after his detention.  Now we have heard from Mr Watermeyer's testimony that this was adequate cover to give him some sort of legitimate reason for having been arrested and then put back into the community.  Can you tell us really whether that is the case because it seems highly improbable that MK cadres in Richardson's house, having been found there and killed and Sergeant Pretorius having been killed, that Richardson would not immediately have been charged or held under section 29 for a much longer period of time.  Been charged with harbouring terrorists or something like that.  I mean surely that would have been an obvious conclusion that people would have drawn.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Richardson was detained for tactical  reasons, in order to protect his contact with the security branch.  His detention was, according to the register at least ...   He was detained on the 4th November and was freed on the - I can't exactly read what it says but it could be 14 days that he was detained.  It was more for tactical purposes.  And we got the statement from him.

MR PIGOU: ... used such a sensitive witness - and this question was put to Mr Watermeyer yesterday and frankly I am not satisfied with the response.  And I would like your response to it.  In all honesty can we really expect that this was adequate cover in the nature of the incident that happened at Richardson's house?  That after two weeks he could be released.  People were detained with far less information for far longer.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: It depends on his cover.  On the cover that - on the (indistinct) that he had.  Probably a day could have been ample or two months could have ample.  It was entirely their decision as to how long we should detain him.

MR PIGOU: Okay you also said after this you had no real contact with this particular source and I am asking you now why didn't you persuee information from this particular source particularly as he was the only person who was close to Mrs Mandela that you had a source on, you had been investigating this case for nearly two years and you sort of just say you leave it in the air, I don't know what happened, X, Y and Z.  Can you explain why you didn't take more urgent steps to actually find out what the situation was.  If Mr Richardson was not co-operating why was he not pulled in again and detained and charged in connection with the Pretorius incident?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I can recall having made enquiries and I was told that he wouldn't even accept the reward for the information which led to the death of MK people and Sergeant Pretorius.  So I took it for granted that contact had been severed.

MR PIGOU: Okay, but you didn't persuee the possibility of opening a charge against Richardson in this regard, in connection with the Pretorius incident?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.

MR PIGOU: Okay.  Were you satisfied - well first of all was Norman Lemmer working directly under you in the investigation unit?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: That is correct.

MR PIGOU: Were you satisfied with the investigation he conducted into the death of Sergeant Pretorius?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I can't recall having inspected the dossier but listening to his evidence it seems as if it was stretched out unnecessarily or ...

MR PIGOU: Well was he reporting to you in connection with this particular case?  Were you his direct commander, were you overseeing his investigations?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I was overseeing his investigations and I was the commander and then Col Langenhoven had become the head of the investigations and the terrorist cracking component as a single head and - during that period.

MR PIGOU: And did you concoct with Mr Lemmer a situation where members of the riot unit as well as members of the security branch made no mention at all of Jerry Richardson being arrested on the day of the Pretorius incident?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I don't know whether Mr Lemmer concocted.  I don't know.  I never concocted with him.

MR PIGOU: Well does it not seem strange that no one mentions the fact that Richardson was there, not even a mention of a person being arrested.  And not just members of the security branch who would have known about the sensitivity of informers.  And one presumes that these other people wouldn't have even known that Richardson was an informer because you didn't even know.  How would they know?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I can't explain why it is.  It wasn't necessary to exclude him.

MR PIGOU: Well I will just leave it with the fact that it seems highly irregular.  I just want to move on ...

CHAIRPERSON: You have had 20 minutes.