Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-03-11

JACQUES HECHTER: The actions would have been according to the general command of General Victor, the elimination of the activists, although I can't remember, would have been necessary in the light of the situation of war at that stage.  I never took part in the elimination of activists that was not justified under those circumstances, or rather not justified by those circumstances.  Such an activist
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would most probably have been an activist who was involved in serious crimes, the death of and injury of innocent people, inter alia.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Mpshe, has this matter been investigated by the Investigative Unit?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: Because they might have been in a position to ascertain whether there was in fact such an occasion and who the victims were.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman, with the information given in the application it would have been difficult for them even to start to know where to go and what to do.

ADV DE JAGER: But wouldn't the Attorney General perhaps know about this thing?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman, even if this was given to the Investigative Unit, I do not see really how they would have done an investigation with this type of information given in the application.

HASSAN MALL: Can you tell me whether you have any idea as to where this person came from that was the victim of this matter?

JACQUES HECHTER: Mr Chair, as I said, in all probability he was from one of the Black townships, in the vicinity of Pretoria, whether Soshanguve, Attridgeville or Mamelodi.  That was basically the sphere of my action.

HASSAN MALL: Can you recall who was with you?

JACQUES HECHTER: Unfortunately not at all. We have discussed it to a great extent but I suspect, and it's only a
...(intervention)
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suspicion, Mamasela at one stage said that he was present.  I think he said this and it was also in the press.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Can you remember the approximate age of the activist concerned, Captain Hechter?

JACQUES HECHTER: Unfortunately not.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Can you remember what activities specifically he would have been active in?

JACQUES HECHTER: Specifically no, I can't remember anything specific.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr du Plessis I don't know whether this is one of the cases which are being investigated by the Attorney General against your clients.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman my information is that it is not.  That is how I had it as well. Obviously the Committee should take into account the fact that we have a difficulty here, that is one of the difficulties pertaining to amnesty applications.  As you've noted, we've tried to include evidence and facts pertaining to all the incidents where the applicants were involved in and especially Captain Hechter and certain incidents he remembers well, and in those incidents he testified vividly.  There is, however, this problem and we have experienced this problem and I simply am not in a position myself to make further inquiries regarding this.  In other incidents Captain Hechter had Warrant Officer van Vuuren to rely on and that made it easier, but here we have no leads, we have nothing.  We could have left this out and not asked for amnesty on this, but Mr Chairman under the circumstances we wanted to include everything as far as possible that he could remember and that is why we included this application.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman I just wanted to confirm what my
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learned friend has said, that this matter is not being investigated by the office of the Attorney General.  What the office of the Attorney General has done is to give me documentation on all matters investigated by themselves in this application.  This is not one of them.

HASSAN MALL: Thank you.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr du Plessis, or shall we leave that when you argue the matter, but I'm just trying to wonder how you had best envisage, how do you envisage the order being formulated by us in the event of amnesty being granted to look like, to be effective?  Are we just here not doing something which we simply cannot do, trying to do something we cannot do, not in the sense that we will deny amnesty but we just don't know what to give him amnesty for.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman that is obviously something I still have to consider when arguing this matter, especially in this kind of matter.  This is a problem intricate to the amnesty procedure in this country Mr Chairman.   The problems that the applicants have, and that Captain Hechter has in respect of this kind of application is, for instance, let us say that the whole amnesty process is finalised, the report is written and in five or six years time somebody who might have been present there goes to the Attorney General and he says he wants to open his heart and he starts talking and he remembers everything, and it comes out and they say, oh this is a lovely case against Captain Hechter, and they bring criminal prosecutions against Captain Hechter, and at the end of the day, if he is then prosecuted, he's going to be prosecuted simply because of the fact that he had a bad memory when he had to ask for amnesty.  So in some way or another, the Committee will have to deal with this Mr
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Chairman, and I will assist the Committee in as far as possible in argument to see if one can't reach some sort of satisfactory solution to this kind of problem, but in some way or another an order will have to be formulated.

JUDGE MGOEPE: I appreciate that that is eminently a question of argument, and I know that you could deal with that during arguments, but I wanted to raise it specifically now while your client is still in the witness box.  I'm not saying that there is much you can do to remedy the situation while your client is still in the witness box, but I want to point out that difficulty while your client is still in the witness box because, assuming that we give amnesty in the general terms that with the evidence before us we'd have to, and the kind of situation that you gave an example of arises, how would they tie up that particular incident?  How would they recognise it as being the incident in respect of which we would have given amnesty?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes it was a broad argument now, because Mr Chairman that argument obviously doesn't necessarily relate to this but to other incidents as well.  Obviously it's a very remote possibility, I know that, but on the other hand I have a duty towards the applicants to the extent that I have to safeguard their interest as far as possible, even if it should mean that amnesty is given in respect of possibly murder, in respect of this incident on the basis of certain conditions, or that amnesty is given on the basis of the facts before the Committee or something in that fashion.  I haven't really considered it Mr Chairman.  The one thing that is obviously clear is that there was, the Afrikaans is lykskending here which he will have to apply for specifically and then contraventions of the Arms and
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Ammunition Act for instances. Already those contraventions are clear from this, but in respect of murder,  Mr Chairman, I will obviously have to address you specifically on that.

JUDGE WILSON: We can't possibly grant amnesty can we, to someone who says, I might have committed a murder, I don't know, I don't know who the person was, I don't know how he came to be killed.  How can we presume that it was for a political purpose?