Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-26

PAUL VERRYN: I had been appointed as the Resident Minister in the Orlando section of the Jabavu Circuit of this district.

MR TRENGROVE: You lived in a Manse in your congregation, is that correct?

PAUL VERRYN: That's right.

MR TRENGROVE: You've been living there since the 17th of December 1987?

PAUL VERRYN: That's right.

MR TRENGROVE: That is still your permanent base although you spend a lot of time away from it these days, is that correct?

PAUL VERRYN: That's right.

MR TRENGROVE: In the Manse in December 1988, there were various people given refuge, correct?

PAUL VERRYN: That is correct.

MR TRENGROVE: They included Katiza Cebekhulu, Stompie Sepei, Pelo Mekgwe , Thabiso Mono, and Kenny Kgase?

PAUL VERRYN: That's correct.

MR TRENGROVE: Did you ever rape any of those people?

PAUL VERRYN: No.

MR TRENGROVE: Did you ever sexually molest any of those people?

PAUL VERRYN: No.

MR TRENGROVE: Did you ever engage in any sexual activity with  those people?

PAUL VERRYN: No.

MR TRENGROVE: Did you ever make sexual advances to them?

PAUL VERRYN: No.

MR TRENGROVE: People in the Manse commonly shared beds, is that correct?

PAUL VERRYN: That is correct.

MR TRENGROVE: How many people would be living in the Manse at any given time at about the end of 1988?

PAUL VERRYN: It varied from, I would say, 10 to 17 or 20 people.

MR TRENGROVE: Could you describe in general terms who these people were who lived in the Manse?

PAUL VERRYN: At that time most of them were young men who had had a history of harassment by the security police, and they had come to Johannesburg to escape some of the harassment, and for some of them perpetual detention on and off as well as the concomitant problems that went with detention. Many of them were quite traumatised from the questioning and the torturing that they had been through during detention.  They'd come to Johannesburg, some of them to seek just a place of safety and also to further their education, or possibly to find a job.

MR TRENGROVE: You said that the population of the house varied from about 10 to 20, is that correct?

PAUL VERRYN: Ja.

MR TRENGROVE: How many bedrooms are there in the house and were there at that time?

PAUL VERRYN: There are three bedrooms and a study.

MR TRENGROVE: And how many beds are there in the Manse?

PAUL VERRYN: There are three beds in the Manse.

MR TRENGROVE: How does one accommodate 10 to 20 people with only three beds in the Manse?

PAUL VERRYN: Well, it's not an unusual thing in the township. I think that most township homes have an average of eight people in them, and particularly at that time.  Houses were not really being built for people who were dispossessed and didn't have access to funding, and hence the houses became overcrowded, so the mission house was quite typical really of a township house.  Perhaps not typical of a mission house, the normal Methodist Mission house, but certainly of the township houses amongst the people amongst whom I lived.

MR TRENGROVE: There was in your bedroom a double bed?

PAUL VERRYN: Yes.

MR TRENGROVE: You also shared your double bed with the other inhabitants of the house?

PAUL VERRYN: I did.

MR TRENGROVE: Would it have tolerable for you to insist on having that double bed to yourself whilst other people slept on the floor?

PAUL VERRYN: I think it would have been intolerable.

MR TRENGROVE: In the second half of 1988 there was an incident when certain people in the Manse accused Stompie of being an informer, do you remember that?

PAUL VERRYN: I do remember that.

MR TRENGROVE: Could you tell us about the incident?

PAUL VERRYN: I - Well, let me give a context to that.  I was approached by Matthew Chaskelson, with whom Stompie had lived for a while, to take Stompie into my residence.  He was going away on holiday, and apparently had consulted with the community of Tumahole about where Stompie could be placed, and ultimately the decision was made that he be sent to my house.
 I haven't got the sequence of events completely correct, but I did have a meeting with the leadership of that township at one stage because these allegations had started raising themselves, and I was told that that was precisely the reason that they had sent him to my house, because they felt it would be a safe place for him.   Now what I haven't got clearly in my mind is whether that happened before what I'm going to tell you now or after.
 But I returned home one evening and there was a gathering in the kitchen, and Stompie was being interrogated. That's the way I interpreted what was going on.  He was sitting with his hands [Tape ends] ... didn't take any time with that. I immediately intervened and called Mrs Falati out and said that under no circumstances did I want my mission house to become what was happening in every police station. 
 And that if there was any chance Stompie was an informant, then we needed to clearly understand two things: if he gave information under torture it was understood, I thought, by most of the people of the movement at that stage that you were not expected to hold out against the odds, and particularly for what really was a child - number one.  And number two that if the police had decided to make anybody an informant, there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. They could arrange matters so that you could look as if you were an informant, and there would be nothing that you could do about it. But what I was absolutely clear about was that this would not - this kind of procedure would not happen in this mission house.

MR TRENGROVE: Could I turn then to the events later that month when people were abducted from the Manse. Were you at the Manse at the time?

PAUL VERRYN: No, I was on holiday in Pretoria.

MR TRENGROVE: You'd left on holiday on the 22nd of December, is that correct?

PAUL VERRYN: Either the 22nd or the 23rd.

MR TRENGROVE: You returned to the Manse briefly on the 28th?

PAUL VERRYN: That is correct.

MR TRENGROVE: Why?

PAUL VERRYN: I returned to the Manse with Joanne Collinge, we were going to go through to the Western Transvaal. There had been some young people who had disappeared, and Joanne was going to try and do a newspaper report on it, and I was really going to try and do some, as it were, pastoral work in the families.

MR TRENGROVE: When you called at the Manse, you found that there was some tension.

PAUL VERRYN: Yes.

MR TRENGROVE: Could you tell us about it?

PAUL VERRYN: Some of the young people, amongst them were Pelo and Thabiso, had had an argument with Mrs Falati, and she had, according to them, threatened that she was going to discipline them by calling the Football Club in.

MR TRENGROVE: What was your attitude to that complaint?

PAUL VERRYN: I did what I always do. I called the people that are being accused in, and we had a long discussion about what the problem was, and I left thinking that we had settled the issue, and that the young men had had a chance to express themselves, and Mrs Falati had also had a chance to express her unhappiness about their lack of discipline, and that related, as I understood it, primarily to cleaning arrangements in the mission house.

MR TRENGROVE: On the 31st of December you received a telephone call informing you of the abduction of the four?

PAUL VERRYN: That is correct.

MR TRENGROVE: You were also told not to return to the Manse?

PAUL VERRYN: I was.

MR TRENGROVE: Or advised not to return to the Manse?

PAUL VERRYN: I was.

MR TRENGROVE: And you heeded that advice.

PAUL VERRYN: I heeded that advice.

MR TRENGROVE: On the 7th of January 1989, you received a call from David Ching telling you that Kenny had escaped his abduction?

PAUL VERRYN: That is correct.

MR TRENGROVE: Did you meet Kenny?

PAUL VERRYN: I packed my things and returned to Johannesburg and met with Kenny at Central Methodist Mission.

MR TRENGROVE: What was his physical condition when you met him?