Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1998-01-28

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, they had what was called a Reaction Unit that had been trained by a special task team and were trained to go out on short notice.  They had better jackets than us and went out if there was time.

MR DU TOIT: Do you know that Pretorius was wearing such a jacket but that the AK actually penetrated that jacket?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: If you would allow me, I want to give you more information on those jackets.  We came to hear that there were jackets of that kind made and we ordered some of them and I think that Fanie's jacket was issued at that stage without the ceramic plates.
 Those were normally put in in front of the chest and behind the back.  That alone would have stopped an AK.  If the ceramic plate was not there, that jacket was actually useless, except for normal hand weapons.

MR DU TOIT: But at that stage, the Riot Police already had such jackets, is that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, I think so.

MR DU TOIT: You testified of a meeting at General Coetzee's office that evening.  Was it Brigadier I. Coetzee?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes.  I don't want to say that it was a meeting in the real sense of the word.  I think it was more some of us had heard of the matter and went to the Commanding Officer's office to discuss the matter, that was our procedure.
 He was our manager and we went to help manage the situation, we had to write telex's etc, etc and to do all those things.

MR DU TOIT: Why were you involved in that if it wasn't a casualty in your leg of the association?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: I think it was because I was a senior officer serving on management, so it was only right that I should go and help to manage the situation.

MR DU TOIT: Who made the reports of what had happened at that occasion?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: It is likely that it would have been Louis Watermeyer and maybe Colonel Claassen.  One of us would have written and General, I don't know who, would have evaluated.

MR DU TOIT: A last question.  We know that Sergeant Pretorius carried an Oozie hand machine carbine, I take it that - I don't know whether Fanie had been on a security training for that weapon but I think he was.  Obviously he wouldn't carry a weapon that he wasn't trained in?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, that is true.  But with great respect sir, the Oozie is such a basic weapon that if you knew an HMK it would have been second nature to handle an Oozie.

MR DU TOIT: I've got no further questions, thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Just for the record, mention that you are representing Sergeant Pretorius' family.  You are Mr du Toit, is that right?

MR DU TOIT: That is right.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Yes, Mr Semenya?

MR SEMENYA: Do I understand your evidence to be that by the time you left Soweto in 1988, you would have known the time that Jerry Richardson was an informer?  Would you have known by the time you left Soweto that Jerry Richardson was an informer?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, I knew about it on the afternoon that the two gentlemen were killed at his house and that Fanie Pretorius died.  It was mentioned in General (indistinct) office, while we were doing the necessary documentation and paper work.

MR SEMENYA: Just probably for my edification.  The use of informers normally is to use the information the information they give among others, to prevent the commission of a crime, right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Depending upon the timeous receiving the information, intelligence and obviously one certainly used it afterwards, in follow up investigations which could then give pointers where one would begin to look for whatever needed to be looked for.

MR SEMENYA: Yes, I was going to say secondly, also for the purpose of making the necessary arrests among others?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: If I might just mention the channels of communication in Soweto in those days of boycotts etc, there was virtually no telephone communication, and obviously an informer could not converse with his handler outside the office like now, with cellphones.  At best there could have been a page message.
 So the lines of communication were not as they are at the moment with cellphones sir.

MR SEMENYA: The other reason you would find it useful to  have this information is clearly to use that information in prosecutions, if possible, is that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, provided that one didn't jeopardise the identity and compromise the life of an informer.

MR SEMENYA: Well, there were processes in the Criminal Procedure Act to give that type of protection, is that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Not to my knowledge in those days, there was no witness protection programme and I think it is well known that people who gave evidence, in those days, eventually met their untimely deaths sir.

MR SEMENYA: Yes, but I don't want to be destructive, the only point I am making is wouldn't you have expected an informer such as Richardson to have communicated the information that Stompie Seipei and them were removed from the Manse?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: I would have expected, depending upon his own, possible, not probable, possible involvement that he might not have wanted his handler to know about it.

MR SEMENYA: No, but even if he is involved as an informant, he could find indemnity against prosecution for his involvement.  I don't want to go that way, I am just saying at the level of your understanding as a Security Police Officer, you would have expected that type of information to have been communicated, is that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, I would have expected it.

MR SEMENYA: And you would have expected the type of information that suggests that Stompie together with others had been brutally assaulted to be communicated to the handler, as well, isn't that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Probably yes.

MR SEMENYA: And if he knows that Stompie and the group spent a whole day in that injured condition without access to medical attention, you would have expected that type of information to have gone to the handler, isn't that right?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Yes, if I might just qualify.  Depending upon the availability of a communication process with the handler.

MR SEMENYA: Oh yes, there would have been the handler proper, the second handler or whoever, but that is the type of information for which the man is being paid?  You would expect that information to be communicated across, is that fair to say?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: I agree with you sir.

MR SEMENYA: And you would expect that after Jerry Richardson, now that we know had killed Stompie, why can't that type of information have gone to the handler too?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: I am not in a position to comment here.  I was neither the handler nor the Commander of the handler.  I really cannot make comment on this, I am sorry.

MR SEMENYA: Was there any basis upon which the type of informants that were engaged, were screened?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: To a certain extent.  They were screened I think, more along the lines of their access, but it is well known that anybody that gives any information, one was only too glad to receive information.

MR SEMENYA: Well, he was not that type of informant as you said, an occasion source?

LODEWYK DE JAGER: Sir, with all due respect, I would not have turned down the information or the intelligence received from a criminal if I had known he was a criminal.  We were gathering intelligence and if it was sound intelligence, that was utilisable, I would have been only too glad to have received it.

MR SEMENYA: Richardson confesses to have participated in criminal conduct such as hijacking of cars, wouldn't this type of conduct have been known to his handler as well?