Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-24

MR PHOSA: Did you see that bundles, thick documents with pages and people's names and contents of what they say?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: Did you regard those contents as being of relevance to your application, possibly relevant to your application?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Yes, I believe so.

MR PHOSA: Then you must have wanted to know what they contained?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Well I believe that that which was relevant to me, would have been dealt with and discussed with me.

MR PHOSA: Can I put it this way.  Anything that is of importance with regard to the Security Police, would have been of importance to you as well, to you personally?   Let's take for example the Security Police in Port Elizabeth, if there was some allegation that had a bearing upon them, even if it didn't touch up upon you personally, if it had a reflection on them, you would have regarded it as important, isn't it?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Your Honour, yes, I don't know.  Let us say it would have.

MR PHOSA: Don't do  me a favour, please don't.  I am asking you whether you don't, I want to talk about this later about your attitude, isn't your attitude that if there was something in these documents that was having an effect or an adverse reference towards the Security Police in the Department or Branch where I was at the relevant time, was of importance to me as Du Plessis.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, yes.

MR PHOSA: Just to take you back to something about detention and interrogation.

ADV DE JAGER: At this point, do you also regard this as the duty of your legal counsel that they should have brought this to your attention?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct sir.

ADV DE JAGER: Did they discuss aspects with you and brought these things to your attention?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: Were you not given these documents to have a look at and peruse them?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I read various documents Your Honour.  I remember that they were put to me, I can't remember reading these things myself, it is possible.

MR PHOSA: Yes, we don't have to refer to various documents now.  Look at Bundle B, Bundle B, look at Bundle B.  Look at Bundle B please.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: Have you seen that Bundle before you came to this matter on Monday?  Before Monday when I was here, did you see this document, this Bundle?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I cannot remember seeing this document Your Honour.

MR PHOSA: Now, look at it.  It refers to Bangani.  Don't you remember seeing a document, this, talking about Bangani?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I can remember, but I can't remember when I saw it for the first time.

MR PHOSA: Oh, you mean it could have been only after you came to these proceedings on Monday when I was here?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I cannot remember Your Honour.

MR PHOSA: How is your memory?  Anyway I was saying to you ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I think in fairness to the applicant, it should be recorded that he was here for a considerable time when you were not here Mr Phosa on Monday.

MR PHOSA: No, he wasn't.

CHAIRPERSON: Remember he could have discussed with his counsel, we didn't start till two o'clock.

MR PHOSA: Yes, no, okay, can I put it differently if that is important.  Before Monday, are you saying you don't know if you saw it before Monday?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: No, I cannot remember.

MR PHOSA: Right.  I just want to take you back to something.  You mentioned Mr Mthimkhulu being interrogated also at amongst other places, Algoa Park, do you remember that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Well, I am saying interrogated, it is possible that he was detained there, he was possibly interrogated there as well.

ADV SANDI: Sorry Mr Phosa, this Algoa Park and Jeffreys Bay police station you are talking about, are those ordinary police stations, they are not disused police stations right at the back of somewhere?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: No, they are police stations which are still in existence today.

MR PHOSA: There is no dispute from our side that he was in fact taken there to be interrogated, so I am not disputing that or telling him that.
	But I am putting this to you, my instructions are that when he went to that, were taken to that police station, it was shortly after he had left hospital where he was being treated for a gunshot injury and do you have any knowledge of that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Your Honour, I remember, I know that he was hospitalised, I don't want to use the word hospitalised, but that he had been taken to hospital for a wound which he had sustained during arrest.  I think the injury was very small.

MR PHOSA: The fact of the matter is that the fact that he had been shot, sustained an injury, was admitted to hospital, did not save him from detention straight from the hospital?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: It just proves the degree of the injury.  I cannot make a decision on behalf of a Doctor, he was treated and he was released immediately after treatment so that we could detain him.

MR PHOSA: Yes, let's now come back to the point I said I was trying to conclude regarding the general background.  I was saying to you we know that the life of a policeman is a tough one, it is one that entails possible injury, possible stoning, generally, isn't that so?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, yes.

MR PHOSA: That is so country wide, today as it was then, isn't it?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: We watch on TV how the Israeli Army or the Police, whoever they are, get stoned day in and day out by youths from the other camps.  Have you not seen that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Yes, I possibly had seen this Your Honour.

MR PHOSA: So, a policeman would not justify the elimination of a political or whatever you call the other person you want to arrest, simply because he is dangerous to you, that is not the reason why the person must be eliminated?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That he was a danger to me per se, no.

MR PHOSA: Even the fact that the Security Police, African Security Police were fearing for their lives, it was something to be expected that if you are a Security Policeman and you are an African, you live in the township, you run a greater risk than white policemen, isn't it?  I am saying it is a natural consequence of that kind of job?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: During those times, yes.

MR PHOSA: No, even now, the police are dying, who are not even Security Police are dying simply because of the attitude of the public to the police which hasn't fully changed, isn't it?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: That is even not justification for eliminating ... (tape ends) ... Yes, but you know, I am dealing with every piece of your reasoning and I would understand that it will be inappropriate to eliminate people because of the fact that the police are in danger, there should be other solutions.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Your Honour, if the black Security Community for fear of their lives, had to withdraw from the black areas, then the network of information had really come to a standstill.  In other words, then the anarchy had come a full circle in my opinion.

MR PHOSA: Yes, it becomes however strange to me did you, let's talk about you Mr Du Plessis, did it never really occur to you that at all times there was a great risk in being (a) an informer and live in the township and of course to inform, you have to be in the township and to be a Security Policeman and live in the township?  Didn't it occur to you that was by definition a risky position?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Yes, it was.

MR PHOSA: So it is not as though the risk was introduced by Mthimkhulu and others?