Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-07-14

CHAIRPERSON: So you say you believed he must have recognised you because your face had appeared several times?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: No Sir, I did not say I knew he recognised me.  I was scared that he would recognise me.

CHAIRPERSON: It makes no difference to my question but that suggests, or it doesn't, it suggests that you surely must have been alive of that possibility even before you went to go and locate him?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct Sir, in the back of your head, there is always the possibility of this confrontation.  You hope it never happens in a situation as it happened there.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Now, when you went there,  when you were given this order to go and try and locate this person, you knew that he might recognise you given the fact that your picture had appeared elsewhere?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct, Sir.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And I wonder didn't that trouble you a little bit if the purpose in fact was just to locate him and then come back, didn't the fact that he might recognise you, didn't that trouble you?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Your Worship, the possibility was always there.  But I was a policeman on duty, having to do my duty to the best of my ability.  I can make it quite plain to the Committee and everybody else, that if there was any way that I thought that I could leave that position and be sure he was there and then help with the planning of an assault on the house at a later stage, I would gladly have done it.  My options that I had, as I say, were few and the option that I in that split second, decided was to effect an arrest.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I appreciate that, but you see, I have no problems in you carrying out the job, what I don't understand is you are a popular face and you are saying to us you went there to go and see if he is there and then come back?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: If I can sketch a different scenario Sir.  If it was as normal that there was for argument sake a room at the back of the place or somewhere, the normal or the occupants of the house normally were not aware of people's political activities as in the case of Mr Forbes and Mr Jacobs.
	The people of the house were not aware of their political objectives.  With the result is that is why there was knocked on the door, we are already in the grounds.  I thought I had seen somebody in the house.  If he had not opened the door with hindsight, and we had gone to the next door house, and it was still, we still didn't find him, I am sure that I would have conveyed that the most probable house would have been the address where we were.	Then we would have ...

CHAIRPERSON: No, that is not what I am asking you.  Mr Benzien, when you go and locate a person, you expect to find that person there.  You may not find him, but the mere fact that the purpose is to go and locate him, that mere fact indicates that you expected to find him there, so you must have expected the possibility to find the deceased there?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: The chance of finding him there, correct Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: And let me take it further from there.  You are a popular face, you expected him to know you, you expected him to recognise you and the chances are that you might find him and he might recognise you, what then?  What else did you expect after that?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: There was the possibility that he could recognise me.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and what were  your plans about the fact that you may find him and he may recognise you?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I had no pre-plan Sir.  I had no intention of being in confrontation with Mr Kriel that day.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, I am not so sure whether - I am asking this thing because I am not so sure whether given that scenario whether the true purpose was just to look at him and then come back unless you tell me what contingency plans you had upon finding him and him recognising you.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir, the main plan was to try and determine where he was staying, staying in the back room, being a boarder or what have you.

CHAIRPERSON: It is not (indistinct), what was the only order you were given?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: To do a reconnaissance Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: But you are doing a reconnaissance and you come across a suspect in any case, in any policing activity, you are looking for a murderer or a thief.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Yes Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: You are doing reconnaissance and here you find him.  What do you do?  What would be expected of you, to go back or to arrest him?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: To do the arrest Sir, which I duly did.

ADV DE JAGER: Isn't the answer then that in fact you went there to see whether you could find him and arrest him and not only to do reconnaissance and drive back to your station?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir, it is difficult to explain to somebody who hasn't actually been in this.  To arrest a terrorist was normally carried out on the full scale method with people who could do house penetration and things like that.  I would have been absolutely stupid to go to a specific address knowing that he is in that house and then attempting to do an arrest on my own.  It would have been stupidity.

ADV DE JAGER: But that was why six people sort of accompanied you on this?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir the six people were placed at positions, they were the Intelligence team.  They were not Reaction Force.

ADV DE JAGER: What were they doing there, what was the purpose of sending them there?  Was it to surround the place, what was the purpose of them being there?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: They were on the parameter of this and as far as I understood, they were there to see if he didn't walk in the road or what have you.  But if the Security Police had sent me to that address, knowing that he was there, and there were only two of us, not even heavily armed, I would call it suicidal Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: On the other hand, if it was only reconnaissance and you were a well-known face, because of your activities and I don't know at that stage, whether you were so well-known as you are known today, but today obviously everybody in the street would recognise you, why didn't they send some unknown person to do the reconnaissance?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir the reconnaissance team had been working there for a week and they were getting nowhere.

CHAIRPERSON: If he had emerged from the door in a normal way and without his arm being concealed in any way, would you have just walked away from there, carried on with your charade and left to go and report to your superiors that he is in that house?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir, knowing myself, I think I would have still carried out the arrest.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, now, that brings ultimately to the question my brother here, has been asking you, that your instructions were to ascertain whether he was there, but as far as you were concerned, you had made up your mind, that if he was there and if you knew he was there, if it were possible, you were going to arrest him.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I would think I would have done it again, Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Now, then what about this whole story you put before us that he might be a terrorist, there might be others in the house, there might be arms in the house?  We want to get all that, how does that fit in?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Sir in this case, it transpired, as it happened, I had to think on my feet.  If he had not been armed, I am sure a different approach may have been taken, but we would have still with hindsight, I still think I would have carried out an arrest.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand.

JUDGE WILSON: You've told us the reconnaissance team had been there for a week and had gotten nowhere?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct Sir.

JUDGE WILSON: You had arrived on the scene and you found them there?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I found them at Athlone police station.

JUDGE WILSON: Surely the obvious thing to do is to arrest him immediately?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: We didn't know where he was Sir.