Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-02

FERDINAND BARNARD: Sir, I think I was under detention and that was probably the last day on which I could execute this application and I decided to do it myself.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you know that the others who have applied for amnesty here were making applications for amnesty?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I assumed so, yes.  I did not see them while I was locked up, but I assumed that they did make certain submissions or applications.  And I think I was informed about it at a certain stage.

GEORGE BIZOS: I do not wish to embarrass you by your early activities whilst at Brixton, but save for the purpose or really informing the Committee of how the Brixton Police covered the tracks for one another, did you do that?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I was never involved in the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit, although I worked closely with some of the members there.  I was attached to the SANAB branch, the Narcotics Branch.  I never worked or physically worked at the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit, but in the environment in which I worked and I moved, especially if you were somebody who was involved in shooting incidents.  It's almost like an exclusive club, everything is covered up, documents are manipulated, pocket book entries are manipulated, log book entries for vehicles are manipulated.
	If there's a shooting incident and we have information that, for example, people are going to bring somebody to commit a crime, we will arrange it that the right officer is working, so that he can come out.  So we are covering for each other, we did cover for each other.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there a spirit of one for all and all for one?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct, Mr Bizos, particularly with reference to the exclusive club.  You know in any specialist unit within the police there is a limited number of members who could be described as hardliners, people who would not hesitate to shoot or do the thing that needed to be done and particularly among those persons, that attitude would have been of application, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And were there regular meetings in this exclusive club as to how you should defeat the ends of justice by altering evidence, by hiding evidence, by altering occurrence books, by even putting guns in the possession, in the hands of the deceased in order to justify claims of self-defence?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now by the time the bubble burst shortly before the Harms Commission, was your arrest a complete surprise to you or were you expecting it?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Are your referring to the Section 29 arrest?  Sir, there a preamble to my arrest under Section 29.  I followed the matter in the press pertaining to Aitchison, because I was involved in his recruitment and when it spilled over to Brixton and when the investigative team under Jumbo Smit came over to South Africa, he originally had information.  A police officer had tipped me off about an investigative team at Brixton, and then at a certain stage I was traced by means of this false pager and I was called in for the first time for interrogation at Brixton Murder and Robbery.
	I resisted the interrogation, I denied everything.  I was asked if I knew anybody by the name of Joe Verster and I denied this and then I was asked to return to Brixton at a later stage, because they wanted some or other explanation from me for some or other General.  This never took place, but there was definitely a preamble.  It wasn't a complete surprise to me, I knew that they were investigating me and that I was a suspect and that there was a connection between South Africa and South West Africa.

GEORGE BIZOS: When you had this forewarning and it became apparent to you that investigating officers had some knowledge, however sparse or imperfect it may have been, did you get in touch with the other people applying for amnesty in this case, in order to agree on a united front, so to speak, as to what you would say in order to protect one another?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, I made a report to Calla Botha and he took it to his cell region, to Staal Burger and the others.  I never sat with them, although Calla Botha and I discussed the incident, the Webster incident because we had been involved in these things together.  I made a report to him and he went to Staal Burger, and what they discussed there is unknown to me.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well did you discuss with Mr Calla Botha anything as to how, if the investigation was taken further or if there was an order for your detention, what it was that you were to say, what you were to disclose and what you were to bury, as far as you and Calla Botha and Staal Burger and others were concerned?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, I assumed that the thing would be stopped at a higher level, that was the feedback that was given to me, that the matter would be taken to the highest level, that it would be taken to the Generals level and that it would be stopped there.  I thought that that would happen, but on the contrary, when I went to Brixton upon the second occasion and a General was supposed to question me, as I was told, they said to me, no, the people have gone to Pretoria and it's not necessary anymore and I truly believed that the CCB had managed to stop the matter on a higher level.

GEORGE BIZOS: So that what they meant is that it would go as high as the Generals, was that to implicate the Generals or to get the Generals to cover your back?

FERDINAND BARNARD: To get the Generals to cover our backs, and mine.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Bizos.
	So Mr Barnard, is your answer to Mr Bizos' question that you and Mr Botha didn't make up a story as such, to enable you to say the same thing in the event of being arrested?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, we definitely did it, from the beginning we said that we denied everything and that we didn't know anything.  We also did that.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) with Mr van Zyl?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you get in touch with Mr van Zyl, in order that you may present a common front?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, I had faith in the organisation, that they do what they promised us they would do, that they would indeed squash the matter.  I didn't go to everyone that I had been involved with and try to work out a cover story with them.  I knew that if Mr Botha reported it and if I was pulled in for questioning by Brixton, it would be brought to the attention of Mr Slang van Zyl, by nature of the situation.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now if you had had such an opportunity to discuss it with Mr van Zyl, would you have agreed to present a common version at that time?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, I'm certain that we would have done so.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  And insofar as there are material differences between Mr van Zyl's version in the Section 29 statements made by him, and versions made in your Section 29 statements, is that ascribed because you did not have an opportunity or because you thought that the matter would be squashed, you didn't meet in order to present a common version?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now I want to deal with the suggestion that has been made to you that you were a loose cannon, that you were not employed by the CCB, that you made up this story or implicating CCB people recently in order to make friends in high places and get some benefit out of your giving evidence in the manner in which you did in this case.  Now let me try and deal with that suggestion in some detail by asking you a number of questions.  Firstly, your application was filed in '97.

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct, Sir.

GEORGE BIZOS: This when you were in detention.

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Shortly after your arrest on a number or criminal charges.

FERDINAND BARNARD: Correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: And on page 2 of that application, on page 205, could you please turn to that.