Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-03-11

HASSAN MALL: Any re-examination?
RE-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman that is the only evidence in respect of this matter that I wish to lead.

HASSAN MALL: Are you going to proceed with this witness in some other matter?

ADV DU PLESSIS: In the next matter, yes Mr Chairman.  The next matter you will find on page 142, it is the death of an unknown activist which happened around about 1987 in  Mamelodi Pretoria, can I take you there Brigadier, the details begin on page 143.

UNKNOWN: Captain du Plessis, under my command ...(intervention)

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier, please just stop, let's just make sure that everybody has the right page.  Page 143 Mr Chairman.

HASSAN MALL: Yes thank you.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier can you continue, please.

UNKNOWN: Captain du Plessis who was under my command, brought in a male activist for questioning and he would have been involved in a number of serious acts in Mamelodi, information was obtained that he was aware of houses in
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Mamelodi where armed terrorists were housed by the ANC, sympathizers of the ANC.  Information was obtained that he knew exactly where terrorists were to be found and he was questioned by Pretorius.  Du Plessis then later asked me to accompany himself and Lieutenant Momberg...(intervention)

ADV DU PLESSIS: Could you stop there please. I'm sorry to do this but I've been listening to the translation and there was reference to a certain Pretorius which was wrong. It was not a right translation of the evidence. I don't think that it's going to make any difference but I just want to point out the reference to a Pretorius was not correct.

HASSAN MALL: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman if you will allow me, I'm going to draw the Commission's attention every time where it happens.

HASSAN MALL: Yes please do.  Was it just that the name is wrong?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes Mr Chairman, that's the only point I'm making.

HASSAN MALL: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Good, can you proceed please.

UNKNOWN: Mr du Plessis requested me to accompany himself and Lt Momberg, Capt Prinsloo to go to Mamelodi on that evening to find out whether these terrorists could be traced on the basis of the information given by the activists during interrogation. Other members could have been present but I can't remember their names.  He did not point out houses in Mamelodi and also did not point out terrorists.  We then drove along a gravel road to Bophuthatswana where the man was further questioned.  Prinsloo and du Plessis sat at the back of the combi and
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interrogated this man and during questioning he was assaulted.  He was inter alia beaten and throttled and during interrogation he died. He was then blown up in a deserted area with a limpet mine.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier please stop there. Did you extract any information of any value out of him during interrogation?

UNKNOWN: He gave information which meant something but I can't remember the exact nature of the information.   I can't remember exactly.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier was the intention during this interrogation to eventually eliminate him?

UNKNOWN: No that was not the intention, because we wanted more information out of him, so that was not our aim.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Continue please, the third paragraph.

UNKNOWN: It was essential to interrogate activists like these to obtain essential information about the ANC's activities.  The activist's death was an accident and it was not our intention to eliminate him and I never gave such an instruction. A limpet mine was available in the vehicle, my members always used to carry these around with them, some of my members who were actively involved in combating acts of terror, often had weapons of Russian origin in their vehicles with my knowledge.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier on this last point, I would like to make sure, this limpet mine, the limpet mine wasn't carried around in the vehicle specifically for this operation?

UNKNOWN: No not at all.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Brigadier, the political motivation, general motivation is on page 146 to page 150 and further,
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153, do you confirm the correctness of this?

UNKNOWN: Yes Chairperson.

ADV DU PLESSIS: At the bottom of page 153 you say, please read the last sentence on 153.

UNKNOWN: The objectives and aims were to question an ANC supporter.  It was necessary to obtain information from the activist, interrogation was the normal procedure and I believed that the activist had valuable information.  The activist died before he could give any information, but it is possible that he could have given information, I've forgotten, I refer back to the general background above.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And right at the bottom, 11(a), page 154?

UNKNOWN: I acted in terms of the general instructions of Victor, mentioned under General Background.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS

JUDGE WILSON: I have been engaged in trials both as counsel and as a judge for many years where the police have given evidence about interrogations, where the accused has given evidence about interrogations, and it was not considered necessary to take a man off into the bush and strangle him to interrogate him.  Why didn't you question him in the normal way, you had powers to detain him?

UNKNOWN: Chairperson it was at night, we didn't want to do it in a built-up area, we wanted to do it outside somewhere where it was quieter.  You're correct, we did have powers to question him further but that was the practice.  They beat him during interrogation.

HASSAN MALL: By interrogation in your sense of the word, you really mean torturing him, isn't it?
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UNKNOWN: Yes, he was assaulted.

HASSAN MALL: I think that is a correct word, it is not merely an interrogation where questions are put and answers elicited. He was tortured physically?

UNKNOWN: Yes he was.

JUDGE WILSON: And as a result of that torture he died?

UNKNOWN: Correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Now Brigadier it would seem to me that, or perhaps I should ask you this, it must have been clear at some stage that the deceased was severely beaten with obvious injuries?

UNKNOWN: Yes I saw that and I didn't stop it.

JUDGE MGOEPE: You say that the intention was not to kill him?

UNKNOWN: Correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: What did you intend to do with such a severely beaten person with obvious injuries?

UNKNOWN: Chairperson at this stage I can't say, if it was so serious that we couldn't detain him any further, then the possibility would have been that we would have eliminated him.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Well that is what is troubling me. It seems to me that the person was so severely injured that you had no option but simply to eliminate him, and therefore in that sense you cannot say that there was no intention to kill him?

UNKNOWN: Let me put it this way. The injuries which he sustained as a result of the beating weren't that serious, but he died because they strangled him.  That was not the aim.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Well after the assault that was inflicted on CAPE TOWN HEARING	AMNESTY/W CAPE
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him what chance did he have to be released back from your custody into society?

UNKNOWN: He probably would have laid a charge of assault, but at that stage we were all witnesses and we would all have denied this.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Was it not in that time a practice on the part of the security police that people severely beaten and injured during interrogation would be eliminated, some of them?

UNKNOWN: Yes that is so but I would rather have obtained information from him about terrorist houses and activities and he had this information.  I would rather have obtained that information than to kill him at that stage.