Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-20

EDWARD WEBB: We would have had to find out whether such orders were given, it would have led to an investigation and it would have emerged, what happened etcetera.

GEORGE BIZOS: But let us assume that this ...(intervention)

EDWARD WEBB: And after investigation, Mr Bizos, then we say that the following would be suggested, either the person would be retrenched or whatever.  That would have emerged from the investigation.  We did not have such an investigation, so I cannot tell you what we would have done.

GEORGE BIZOS: What would he be charged with?

MR WESSELS: With respect Mr Chairman, I want to associate myself with Mr Martini's objection.  We've been asked earlier here to give a date for this matter to proceed later on in the year.  We were told that the Commission must finish by October.  We've arranged for two weeks to carry on with this inquiry.  At the rate we're going on we will not finish in those two weeks and there are no other times available this year.  So the matter will then have to be postponed until next year and I don't believe that is in the interest of everybody, whether that can happen, but the speculation that goes on now cannot be relevant in any respect and I object formally to this type of cross-examination being admitted here.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes I think we must move on Mr Bizos, we've got the answer for that and we can go on.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) we'll try.
	What sort of election was there going to be according to your information, on the 6th of September?

EDWARD WEBB: It would have been an election, a municipal election if I remember correctly.

GEORGE BIZOS: Not parliamentary?

EDWARD WEBB: No, as far as I remember it was a municipal election.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now who spoke to you about Khayelitsha?

EDWARD WEBB: You speak of what is in the application?  I had been briefed by Col Verster.

GEORGE BIZOS: He didn't make any mention of it in his motivation.

EDWARD WEBB: So?

GEORGE BIZOS: Well it may well be that it didn't happen if there is a contradiction between you and him.

EDWARD WEBB: Well I say that it did happen, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr van Zyl gave evidence ...

EDWARD WEBB: I beg your pardon?

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr van Zyl gave evidence and he was the primary source of information to the CCB, he didn't mention it.

EDWARD WEBB: I don't think he was the primary source.  In his testimony ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: No, the primary source ...

EDWARD WEBB: ... he said that he received information through the information channels of the CCB.  He was not the primary source.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, the prime source in the CCB.  I know that he got his information from Gakkie as a gangster, this is why I qualified it "in the CCB."  Mr van Zyl didn't say anything about a fire being started in Khayelitsha.

EDWARD WEBB: Mr van Zyl is not the only source of information in Region 6.  If I heard the evidence correctly, he would have gotten his information, he would have channelled it into the information channels of the CCB.  So there could have been input from other sources.

GEORGE BIZOS: Have you forgotten that you said that because of the supposed urgency of this it was not verified through any other channels?

EDWARD WEBB: Did you forget that Mr Basson witnessed that they had been working on it for more than a month?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, so what does that prove?

EDWARD WEBB: It means that in a month it was in the pipeline.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, but all the information came from a gangster and that you say that it was not verified independently of that, because of the urgency.

EDWARD WEBB: The urgency yes, because the meeting was on the 31st and we had to make a decision on the 30th, do we act, yes or no?

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you ask any questions whatsoever about the background of the "bron", of the source of the information?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you understand that his identity was not even known to operatives of the CCB?

EDWARD WEBB: That's normal practice in the CCB, that the people do not know their names.

GEORGE BIZOS: So you thought that van Zyl got this from an unknown or unidentified person?  Unknown person to him, is that what it meant?

EDWARD WEBB: No, I say a source would not reveal his identity.  That was conveyed to me.  Who the source was I do not know, on which level the source was I do not know.

GEORGE BIZOS: The person who is the expert who went there says that it appeared to him that more than one bomb may have been used.  The evidence will also be that after the explosion the place was full of scrap of metal, broken and twisted metal all over the place.  What sort of limpet mine did you think was being used?

EDWARD WEBB: According to my knowledge you get only one kind of limpet mine, it's a Russian mine and the aim of a limpet mine is to cause fire and it is used against fuel tanks and maybe also against ships.  It's not a shrapnel bomb.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm not an expert General, but I've been listening to many, many applications and I know that there's at least two types of limpet mines.

EDWARD WEBB: A smaller one and a bigger one?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

EDWARD WEBB: Ja, there are two but the limpet mine's objective still remains the same.  The main object of a limpet mine is to cause fire.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was this a small one or a bigger one?

EDWARD WEBB: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't you ask what the size was going to be?

EDWARD WEBB: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: If the primary purpose of a limpet mine was to start a fire, there was a possibility amounting to a probability that his place would be destroyed by fire.

EDWARD WEBB: It's a possibility, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: So this would have been tremendous damage to the owners of this property and the burning of a facility which catered for the community, including nursery school children.

EDWARD WEBB: Chairperson, I had no knowledge that there was a nursery school or what the hall looked like and who all used it, according to me it was about a hall in Athlone.

CHAIRPERSON: It wasn't described to you as the Early Learning Centre, which we know it's called?

EDWARD WEBB: Not at that stage, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: On the assumption that there will be evidence of these inordinate number of pieces of twisted shrapnel all over the place, you say that it couldn't have been done by an un-doctored, unmodified limpet mine?

EDWARD WEBB: I don't know anything about the construction of the roof.  That could have caused shrapnel.  I don't know anything about the construction.

MR MARTINI: Sorry, Chairperson, we were promised originals of the photographs which appear at the back of bundle B, would it be possible to get these original photographs?

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Coleridge, have you got that?

MS COLERIDGE: Chairperson, I have requested for persons to locate it and I haven't received it as such, but I'll attend to ...

CHAIRPERSON: Yes will you follow that up please.

MS COLERIDGE: Definitely.  Chairperson, we know that the Early Learning Centre's got a lot of pictures there as well.  I just want to check whether that would be suitable.  I know Mr Martini had seen those pictures at the - whether we could use those pictures as well.

CHAIRPERSON: Well any photographs of the scene would help.

MS COLERIDGE: Thank you, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there any plan at any time to your knowledge, that a bomb should be used and that nails should be wrapped around it for the purposes of doing maximum damage?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.