Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, what crime they would have investigating, appears at page 135E of the record.
"The purpose of the investigation was to determine his involvement in the continuing unrest in the Eastern Cape as well as the distribution of the mentioned pamphlets, and in the last place to determine what his intentions had been with regard to the visit to Cape Town, so that criminal or rather acts in terms of the law could be taken against him".
	That emanates from the statement of Mr Siebert, but you asked me what crime?   
      I think Mr Potgieter has probably put it much more succinctly than I can.   If for example they could pin that pamphlet onto them, there's sedition there. I think if I still remember the old Security Legislation correctly there would certainly be some or other offence there under the Terrorism Act.   If there was a conspiracy in Cape Town with people to get forces together with the ultimate purpose of overthrowing the Government, that would have been some crime under the Security Legislation.   Mr Chairman, there was - if he played a role in the unrest in the Eastern Cape at that stage that probably would have been sedition.  So in those days with respect Mr Chairman those of us who are slightly older would recall that with a loaded Act, the loaded old Terrorism Act and all the presumptions contained in it, that people could be charged with terrorism or something like that very easily without necessarily carrying a hand grenade and a AK47.   
	So I think there are any number of crimes which they could have been investigating, but obviously as it would go in crime investigation matters you would end up with the situation where first you would get the act, the acts of the man together, what had he done; and the decision as to whether what everything he did amounts to a crime of the one or the other does not ultimately rest with the Police, it rests with the Attorney General to decide whether he should prosecute.

UNKNOWN: You see, I'm asking you this question because the impression I personally get from the evidence of all the applicants, is that they seem to have had a vague suspicion that somehow Mr Biko was involved in the general unrest that was taking place in this area.   Now when I look at this pamphlet I noticed that it does not even say that it has been issued by BPC.

ADV BOOYENS: No, it doesn't.   But Mr Jones said they said to him, that they saw him and Mr Biko handing out this pamphlet in PE.   Mr Chairman, with respect to Mr Sandi, if I was involved with an activist organisation in 1978, and I think if any one of us was involved, and we issued that pamphlet, the last thing you would want to put on is you're identity or even you're organisation's identity.   If you state in that pamphlet that it was issued by the BPC, the BPC would have been banned and outlawed and all its - its whole - I am not saying it was issued by the BPC, all I'm saying is whoever issued that pamphlet would certainly not be too forthcoming as to that it was me who issued this pamphlet.   I think that would have been, I don't think the people involved in liberation movement, would have been that short-sighted Mr Chairman, with respect.

MR POTGIETER: Mr Booyens, could I just clear up this one impression that I had.   I just want to ask you, on paginated page 4, that's the application of Mr Snyman.   Have you got that?   It's also the typed page 4 of Mr Snyman's application form.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes Mr Chairman.

ADV BOOYENS: Can I just refer you to this section and just see if we understand this to have been the situation.   Say the last third of that long paragraph that starts with Steve Biko and Peter Jones, have you got that one?   That long paragraph.   About the last third of that paragraph it starts with a sentence
"We received instruction from Colonel Goosen to question Biko intensively".
go two lines further down, there's another sentence that starts; 
"The intention had been to determine his involvement in the generation of violence and unrest particularly also the distribution of pamphlets and with this in mind to charge him and to have him imprisoned and in this way he could be neutralised as a leading figure".
That was the impression that I got, was that in fact the approach?

ADV BOOYENS: Well yes, it seems that the whole purpose of questioning the man was simply to ultimately to neutralise him, but neutralise him by way of having him prosecuted.   But then of course Mr Chairman, we must not make the mistake of saying that if the Police, the Security Police, because it seems to me that maybe the reason these questions are asked of me, that because the Security Police are interrogating a detainee to find out whether he has committed political crimes because what we are talking about here are political crimes, to determine whether he is involved in the commission of political crimes and during that process, gross Human Rights Violation takes place; and that for that reason we must go back further.
	Why did the questioning start in the first place?   The questioning started in the first place because there's a struggle going on.   Because if we are going to say that whenever a Security policeman acts in terms, wanting to question a political detainee and for that reason it cannot have a political motive, then we are -surely the whole political motive is to get him into jail; to get his political activity stopped.

MR POTGIETER: But isn't that part of the normal duty of the police, if you had committed an offence is to investigate.  If you are, if there's evidence against you, to have you prosecuted and imprisoned if it's necessary.

ADV BOOYENS: That is the normal duties of the police, but it is not the normal duties of the police to use third degree methods.   And it is in that conflict situation against political background, what we are talking about.
	But quite frankly, if we are going to say that no Security policeman that ever interrogated a man and an interrogation got out of hand, can get amnesty, then we will seriously have to consider whether it is worthwhile for 90% of the policemen who applied for amnesty to proceed, if that is the interpretation on the Act, then 90% of the Security Police who applied for amnesty will have to reconsider their position!

UNKNOWN: Yes, but when you say that Mr Booyens, are you not by implication suggesting that everything that happens to a political detainee whilst in detention, is necessarily an act committed with a political objective, is that what you are saying?

ADV BOOYENS: No, that's not what I'm saying.   Mr Chairman, what I am saying is; the policemen are busy with an investigation where a man - they are investigating the possibilities whether a man has in fact been involved in breaking the political laws of the country.   So the whole matter has got a political colour.   Now in order to get results, because there is a lot of pressure from the politicians and from their Head Office, they commit a human rights abuse.   It's not everything, we are dealing with human rights abuses.   I am not suggesting that, to use a simple example, if a political detainee is refusing to eat his food and the constable who is in charge of him at the ex-police station gives him a smack; that would be a political act - that would be ridiculous; it can never be.

UNKNOWN: Let us look at the situation we dealing with here.   You have a high profile political detainee.   He's about to be questioned about matters in which he is suspected of playing a role; he refuses to stand up whilst being interrogated; he insists that he will sit down.   Now in that situation could the police not achieve the same goal of interrogating Mr Biko, by allowing him to sit down and question him.   Isn't this really how this whole thing started?