Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I cannot remember that, but I think it would probably have been a case of the one would do the shooting and the other one would drive away with the car, but I will only be speculating, I cannot tell you.
	I cannot remember the details of that project, the submission.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, you say in your statement that you paid Barnard R15 000-00, sorry, R7 000-00 for monitoring Omar and at page, this is A115 paragraph 55
"... and also for other tasks that he had executed."
	What were these other tasks?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: The only other task that I asked him was the monitoring of Lubowski.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So part of that R7 000-00 was for the monitoring of Lubowski?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I think it was all for Omar.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You are the one who put into your statement "other tasks that he had performed", and you made the statement shortly after the event, so you tell us what you  meant.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I only used him for two tasks as I said, and then we can assume that it was for those two tasks.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But it was a salary for the work that he had done?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: As I had already said, the largest part of that was also on the expenses related to the plane ticket and the hotel accommodation.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But it was partly salary, partly disbursements?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Please go to page 1875 of the record in S v Barnard, bundle G.  Go to line 10, sorry, line 5.
	You are asked the following question, he is asking you about payments made to Barnard for monitoring.  You are asked -
"... what did this monitoring cost or these recommendations that the accused had made to you?"
	Your answer is -
"... Nothing, Your Lordship.  AT the end of the day, when the project of Omar was ceased, I compensated the accused for his costs that he incurred, hotel costs as well as flying costs and this had a total amount of approximately R7 000-00."
	Are you prepared to concede now that your evidence is different?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Once again you are playing with the words, it is an instance of R7 000-00 that I gave to Ferdi, and if out of R7 000-00, if there was R1 000-00 too much, you may regard it as a salary.  At the end of the day, he was  satisfied with the R7 000-00 and maybe the cost he incurred was R7 500-00, maybe he received R500-00 too little.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, you were asked a direct question.  Did you, in this trial, "did you pay Mr Barnard for his services", your answer was "no, I merely reimbursed him his disbursements", correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: That answer wasn't true?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I will not say it was a lie as you are trying to point out here, the fact of the matter is that I gave him R7 000-00 which was supposed to cover his costs, and if anything was left over, it was for payment of his services.  Technically you may be correct when you say that.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No Mr van Zyl, it is not just technical, the question the Court was interested in in S v Barnard, one of the issues that would reflect Mr Barnard's blameworthiness, moral blameworthiness, was what he got paid for his services, if he was paid,  if so, how much.   Correct, do you agree with me?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And in that context, you decided to tell that Court that Mr Barnard was actually not paid at all, he was merely reimbursed for his expenses?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right, so we now get to a stage when a decision is made, sorry before I go on to that, do you accept the finding of Judge Els that Ferdi Barnard attempted to murder Dullah Omar with the Makarov pistol in the circumstances referred to in the judgement?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I respect the decision of the Court.  I did not give Ferdi any instruction and I did not give him any firearm to eliminate Dullah Omar, but I respect the finding of the Court, based on other evidence which was led there.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right, so we can accept it is a fact that it happened?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I respect the finding of the Court.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Excuse me?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I said that I respect the finding of the Court.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No, but that is something different, Mr van Zyl.

MR MARTINI: Sorry Mr Commissioner, this is an unfair question.  My client, Mr van Zyl is testifying, he is not a Judge, he says I respect the decision.  If the Judge found that to be his decision, that is the decision.  He respects it.  Mr van Zyl is not sitting here as a Judge in appeal or to determine the validity of the Judge's judgement.  He says he respects it.

CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps you can rephrase your question, do you agree with the decision?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Based upon the ... (tape ends) ...

MR KAHANOVITZ: The State said that your version must be rejected, the Judge very nicely said "I don't think it is necessary to reject Mr van Zyl's version, because it may well be that Mr Barnard of his own bat, decided that he was going to take it a little bit further and try to assassinate Adv Omar himself", do you recall that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So, that is, it is found that that is what indeed happened.  Now, what you are saying is that in doing that, Mr Barnard was disobeying your instructions?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: If that was the case, definitely.

MR KAHANOVITZ: It happened?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Seen in the light of the Court's finding, he did not comply with my instructions.

MR LAX: If I may interpose, did you actually tell him not to kill Omar?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It was never an instruction, his instructions were quite clear Chairperson, to do the monitoring of Peaches, the movements of Omar so that I could see what the reasons for the delays were in the project.  At no stage, that is also why the statement that he made that I would have offered him R50 000-00 to kill Omar, is absolutely absurd.  If Calla Botha turned around at the end of the day and said that I told him, but he also heard this from Ferdi Barnard.  I do not know where he sucks this out of this thumb and with respect, I would ask the Commission to ask the questions of him, I cannot answer those questions.

MR LAX: Yes, we will ask those questions of him in due course.  My only issue was it never came up that he might want to kill the guy?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, not at all.

MR LAX: You never discussed that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, I did not.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, let's go on to the poisoning, did you prepare a "voor-studie" a written "voor-studie" saying "let's  move from plan A to plan B"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No?   Right, where did the idea come from?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Peaches told me that because of the circumstances in which Mr Omar had his heart attack, that he had access to his house and that he could obtain some of those tablets, so the initial idea emanated from him and I discussed that idea with the Regional Manager and I then received instructions from the Regional Manager to ask Peaches to obtain some of these tablets, so that I could process it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So the idea originated with you on the basis of information that Peaches had given to you?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.   What did Peaches say about how he came to have access to the Omar household?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I cannot recall, I think he knew someone who worked there.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you believe him?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I don't know what to believe today.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I am asking you at the time, did you believe him?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes, I would say I believed him.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you then have an "in-house" to discuss this new plan?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: How did you get the authority to proceed to a plan involving the use of poison?