Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

CHAIRPERSON: ... place it on record that I have not intimidated anyone.  Yes please continue.

MR MAKANJEE: My name is Sanjay Makanjee for the Sepei and Asvat families.
 I would just like you to clarify a few things.  You stated in your statement that you provided us that the Attorney General at the time that you were working on the Mandela file, wanted you to rather pusue or obtain evidence of a criminal nature rather than a political nature, is that correct?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: That is correct, yes, that was my assumption based on my open relationship with the Attorney General.

MR MAKANJEE: Thank you.  You had Themba Mabotha in your custody, is that correct, yes.

MR MAKANJEE: Themba Mabotha had evidence of a criminal nature, it would probably have been accessory to the fact of murder, is that correct?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Not only that.

MR MAKANJEE: Sorry?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Not only that.

MR MAKANJEE: NOt only that?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes.

MR MAKANJEE: Now, what I want to know is, you also state further that you didn't investigate the Stompie event or murder because it wasn't a polictical case.  Now, I'm just having a bit of difficulty following you.  On one had you said that the Attorney General or the impression you got was that you should peruse the gathering of information that could hold Mrs Mandela criminally liable.
 And on the other hand you said you didn't pusue to the Stompie case because it wasn't of a political nature.  Do you follow what I'm saying Sir?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes.  I think we need to distinguish here that the security branch did not investigate common law offences, like the ordinary murder, robbery etc.  The instruction to investigate the Stompie Sepei matter was from head office to murder and robbery.  General Jaap Joubert I think was the officer in charge.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  I don't think you're following what I'm trying to ask you.  You said you left the Attorney General's office with the impression that he wanted you to persue investigations into criminal activities by Mrs Mandela.  Now you have an incident,  you have a witness who can give you the strongest possible information that she was involved in the murder and abduction of Stompie Sepei.  You do nothing about it but in fact what you do do, is you hand him over to the country's most notorious assassin.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, no, I had discussions with Dempsey and he had a copy of the statement and the statement was in the docket.  Now, it's common cause that once a statement is in the docket the prosector has the prerogative to call that individual as a witness.  So it wasn't that the statement was withheld from murder and robbery.  If they had really required his evidence, I would have stepped back, I mean there's no doubt about that.

MR MAKANJEE: If I can just go on on that.  Did you not take this evidence of Mabotha to the Attorney General with whom you had a close relationship and whom you knew wanted that kind of evidence against Mrs Madikizela Mandela?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I gave it to the investigating officer and it's very dangerous to go and see the Attorney General where another unit is investigating something and you go there and have discussions with the Attorney General.  And from the evidence of Mr Dempsey, it created the impression as if there was a parallel investigation which there wasn't.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  Can you just answer this for me, I wasn't clear with your response earlier, what was the reason for you handing over Mabotha to Mr de Kock?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I beg your pardon?

MR MAKANJEE: What was the reason for you handing Mr Mabotha over to Mr de Kock?  Was it because his six months of imprisonment or his six months of detention had expired?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: That is correct and I wanted to keep him in attendance.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  What I wanted to know is, was it difficult to have the detention period extended?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Yes.

MR MAKANJEE: And do you personally know of any instances where that decision to extend detention of someone being charged under Section 29, was refused?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I can't remember off-hand but to enable you to obtain an extension for detention where there's no real purpose, you would have to mislead the "hersienings kommittee" - what was the name? - Oversight Committee and I wasn't prepared to do that.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  Let me ask you, in your experience as a security policeman, could you arrest someone, keep them detained for two months, release them and the next day arrest them again for six months?  Was that possible?  Do you follow what I'm saying?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: It could be possible.

MR MAKANJEE: So it is then possible that Mabotha was in custody for eight months?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: But then there must be a record.

MR MAKANJEE: Well ...[intervention]

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: There must be a record.  You cannot detain somebody and there's no records.

MR MAKANJEE: I just want to ask you one point for the record ...[intervention]

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: May I just get back to my answer?   I doubt if one would be able to do that legally because when you release him, you release him stating that he had answered all questions satisfactorily etc., etc., etc., then just to re-arrest him the following day and detain him further.

MR MAKANJEE: But for instance you could arrest someone today - let's say we had a Section 29 operating, you could arrest someone today, not make any record of his arrest - which was a prevalent thing that occurred in the past, until you were satisfied that you could get a case against him and then record that you've arrested him officially and log it into your books.

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No, no, I think that would be highly irregular.

MR MAKANJEE: Just one more question regarding the Sepei case - just for the record.  To the best of your knowledge, were you aware whether Stompie Sepei was an informer or not?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I've no idea, no idea.

MR MAKANJEE: If he was an informer, you would have been aware of that?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Not necessarily because I never worked with informers at that stage.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  Just to ask you a few questions on the Asvat family case.  Did you participate in any investigation regarding the death of Doctor Asvat?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: In no way was I involved in that investigation, no.

MR MAKANJEE: So, at no stage did you ever make that connection between Doctor Asvat being a political leader and you being a member of the security branch and Winnie Madikizela Mandela?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: No.

MR MAKANJEE: Okay.  Was Doctor Asvat ever under surveillance by your unit?  Were his telephones ever bugged?  Was he ever under any observation by your unit?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: I couldn't tell you whether he was bugged, that was done on a strictly need to know basis.  If I bug somebody, Bosman wouldn't have been authorised to inform somebody else.  It was my subject so I would know whether Doctor Asvat was - there was telephone bugging or ordinary bugging and I'm not aware of any surveillance or ...[intervention]

MR MAKANJEE: Just to clarify that Sir, you're saying if the Asvat or Doctor Asvat was under surveillance you would have known about it?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Not necessarily.

MR MAKANJEE: Not necessarily?

JAN DANIEL POTGIETER: Not necessarily.

MR MAKANJEE: You see the difficulty I'm having with that is that Mr Bosman gave evidence that whoever was bugged - and I'm not sure if Doctor Asvat was bugged, that information was passed onto yourself.  So if you don't know about it, does that mean then that the Asvat - Doctor Asvat was not under surveillance?