Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-01

CHAIRPERSON: Because Mr Botha said he saw the body being put into the vehicle.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: I cannot recall that.

MR LAX: And obviously if Botha says he saw it, others may have seen it.  You might be under the firm belief that nobody saw you, but he says it and Mbane says it.  Is that not a possibility?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: It is possible.

MR LAX: And that you're mistaken maybe in your belief that nobody saw you.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: It is possible.

MR LAX: Just a question, why did you take such care to hide all of this from everybody?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson, this was a person who had died and we were on the verge of dealing unlawfully with this body.

MR LAX: But everyone knew she was dead, everyone was present, everybody knew that she died during the interrogation.

MR VISSER: With respect, Mr Chairman, everybody wasn't present.  That is not the evidence, with great respect.  the evidence of the applicants was that certain people were in that room, it is now being put that other people may have seen, may not have seen, but it's not the evidence that everybody and with that I include the askaris because that seems to be everybody and we don't even know who everybody was that were on the farm.  That's not a fair question.

MR LAX: Fair enough, I'll change the question.  The fact of the matter is though, that whoever was in that room and busy with interrogation knew about it.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: That is correct.  I assumed that there were other persons who knew about it.

MR LAX: Were you aware that the black members who were there and around the room and outside the room, knew that this person was dead?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: I didn't know that.  It is possible that they may have assumed it or may have come to hear of it, but I don't know.

MR LAX: I'll leave it there, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Samuel.

MR SAMUEL: Thank you Mr Chair.  So your statement that it would have been impossible for anyone to have noticed you is wrong, clearly now after your answers thus far.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think he went - he didn't say it was impossible for people to notice, he said that Mr Mbane wouldn't have seen because the door where the body was taken pointed to a different place from where they slept.  It will be impossible if Mr Mbane said he was in the place where he slept when he saw it, according to his evidence.  I don't know whether it's possible or not.

MR SAMUEL: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Mr Mbane says that when this body was removed from this room, it was covered in a blanket.  Do you recall that, Sir?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: No, Chairperson.

MR SAMUEL: And you still maintaining that although you had taken such care to remove the body without anybody seeing it, you did not take the added precaution of wrapping this body in a blanket?  Are you maintaining that Sir?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: That is correct Chairperson.  We parked the vehicle so that the boot would be right next to the entrance of the room.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I don't want to interrupt my learned friend, but while this witness is present and is under cross-examination, perhaps he could tell us where Mr Mbane was when he saw all these things?  Why should that be a secret.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct - mike not on)

MR SAMUEL: Thank you Mr Chairman.  And I think an in locus inspection might assist.  According to Mr Mbane the room where he was in he could see the motor vehicle and the entrance, or the exit from which you all came out.  Basically he was in his room.

CHAIRPERSON: The room where they sleep, where he was sleeping at that time?

MR SAMUEL: That is correct.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson, if he was in the room where they were sleeping, he would definitely not have been able to see.

CHAIRPERSON: Does this shooting range still exist, do you know?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: I think that it is now a public place.  I don't know whether the building still exists.

MR SAMUEL: In any event what Mr Botha had seen and what Mr Mbane says he saw seems to tie up because Mr Mbane will say that this body was never put into a Nissan Skyline, it was put into a Toyota panel van.  I think Mr Botha also confirms that.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: That is not correct.

MR LAX: Sorry Mr Samuel, Mr Botha couldn't remember what kind of vehicle it was.  That was his evidence.

MR SAMUEL: My apologies if that was the case, but I understood him as saying that it was a Toyota, but be that as it may.  Mr Mbane will say he looked at that body and it would have been virtually impossible because of the size of the body to put it into a Nissan Skyline, in the boot especially of a Nissan Skyline.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson, that is the vehicle that we loaded her into.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr du Preez, were you not concerned at all about evidence being left in the boot of your vehicle, strands of hair, whatever?  Did you not think about wrapping up the body or putting it in a plastic bag, or whatever, to prevent your boot being contaminated with evidence that a body had been transported in it?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: No Chairperson, there was nothing that I could think of which would have remained behind of the body, which would have been able to serve as proof.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm a lay man, I'm not a policeman, but a strand of hair can be proof that there was a body.  The smallest stain might provide proof that there was a body.  Did you not think of that at all?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: No Chairperson.

MR SAMUEL: Thank you, Mr Chairman.   Major, Mr Mbane will say that he was paid the sum of R7 000 for this operation.  You wouldn't know anything about it?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: I wouldn't know that.

MR SAMUEL: Thank you, Mr Chairman, no further questions or submissions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR SAMUEL

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wills, do you have any questions that you have to put to the witness?

MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR WILLS: Mr du Preez, it's obvious from the evidence thus far that your unit and by your unit I'm talking about the Durban Security Policemen, had an intense interest in the deceased in this matter, prior to her demise?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: In the family or this person?

MR WILLS: No, the deceased, the person, Nthombi Khubeka.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: That is correct, she was under our attention.

MR WILLS: Yes and if she was so involved with her relatives being in Lusaka in the ANC I presume, and involved with internal and external trained guerrillas and your unit was specifically set up to deal with intelligence in that regard, she'd be a person who you'd want to speak to, I'd imagine.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson, she was under our attention and that is exactly why the members of C1 were called in.

MR WILLS: Yes, but specifically, she's a person that you would want information from, you would want to speak to her.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson, one couldn't always speak to every single person who was a suspect.

MR WILLS: I'm not asking whether you could or you couldn't.  I'm asking you what must be the probabilities in this case, that she was one of the people who you would want to speak to because she had all of this information, she was such an important person.

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: Chairperson that is exactly why we enlisted C Section members.

MR WILLS: Yes, because you wanted to speak to her.  Is that right?

SALMON JOHANNES GERHARDUS DU PREEZ: We wanted to find out more about her activities.