Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-30

MR LALLA: I will put it to you, you said over here a few minutes ago, I put it to you that you are lying.  You said over here that there were members of politician's family of the Nationalist Party who was in some way linked with the ANC and you said I was aware of the details.  I am putting it to you that on the disks, that which was seized in one of the residences at one of the houses they had the names and the real names and you were aware of it when you subjected me to this torture.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: No Chairperson, I think that Mr Lalla is mistaken regarding the circumstances.  If I may explain, Mr Lalla told me precisely when he met Gillian Duhr in Lusaka when she was introduced to him, he explained the circumstances and that is why I went to Cape Town afterwards and recruited her under a false flag.

MR LALLA: I have met Gillian Duhr as an acquaintance who came to an IDASA meeting.  She was not an agent.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes, Chairperson, the documents will indicate that.

MR LALLA: But what I'm indicating to you, what I'm indicating to you, what I'm trying to request from you over here is that if you say that you were unaware of the details then perhaps I can to some extent understand the circumstances that we were subjected to.  What I'm saying over here is that you were aware of all the people that came to Lusaka in 1989, was it?  And all those people who came to Lusaka you had the names of those individuals and therefore I find it a bit confusing in the sense that one, you know the people that came to Lusaka.  Two, you have the disk with the names and the real names of the individuals.  How did you know that she was there?  How did you know that her name was on the disk?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, the information which was obtained during the investigation and which referred directly to Mr Lalla's own handling of these persons.  All the particulars were not embodied in those documents regarding their activities and details and he had to colour the picture further.  That is why I interrogated him.

MR LALLA: So you are now admitting that you knew the names, the real names of all those individuals that I was supposed to have alleged to have contacted.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, once again I will say, there was a document upon which the names appeared and there was reference to an amount of R1000 that you had to hand over to them.  The rendezvous point regarding where and when and so forth, all the particulars regarding the specific individuals were not contained within the document.  Once again, that document forms part of the record of documents which has been handed up to the Committee if I recall correctly and those particulars which were found lacking, Mr Lalla was supposed to provide to me.

MR LALLA: Are you aware that I don't have a history or medical history of asthma?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct, I did not know that.

MR LALLA: Are you aware I've never had a history of asthma?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Well I'm not aware of that, as far as I know.

MR LALLA: But why did you prescribe a pump to me?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, because you said you were an asthma sufferer at the time of your attack in Bethlehem when you suffered an asthma attack, you said that your asthma pump was in your cell and that it was empty.  I sent Marius Greyling to the pharmacy to fetch an asthma pump and after you had used it you recovered.

MR LALLA: I want to put this to you, are you aware that I was taken to the Free State Hospital for a brain scan?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative.

MR LALLA: How is it possible?  There are medical records that I was taken to the Free State Hospital for a brain scan?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That may be so but I'm not personally aware of that.

MR LALLA: It was as a direct result of what took that day?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative, I'm not aware of that.

MR LALLA: That's all Mr Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LALLA

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Lalla.  Mr Visser do you have any re-examination?

MR VISSER: No thank you, Chairperson.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER

CHAIRPERSON: Advocate Bosman, do you have any questions you would like to put to the applicant?

ADV BOSMAN: I have no questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax do you have any questions you'd like to put?

MR LAX: If you could just bear with me Chair, I just want to check something before I go ahead?

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, while you're looking.  Mr Botha, were Mr Gordhan and Mr Lalla the only two of the people who were arrested on that occasion on the 12th, the only two to be transferred to Bethlehem?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: I don't know, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know whether any of the other persons that were arrested on the 12th that's part of that operation, if I can call it that, were transferred out of Durban for detention in other centres other than Bethlehem?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes Chairperson.

MR LAX: Just one aspect, Chair.
	The evidence you gave us in the beginning that these people were transferred because there wasn't space to keep them, you don't really know that at all, is that correct?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes Chairperson and I also provided an explanation as to why they were in Bethlehem.

MR LAX: The fact is you don't know why they were transferred, why did you give us a fairly explicit reason why they were transferred to Bethlehem?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, as detainees who were or if detainees were detained outside Durban it would mean only one thing, we would not detain persons outside Durban if there was place here.  We would only detain people outside Durban in terms of Section 29 detention if there wasn't any room.

MR LAX: But you see, Mr Botha, you've already given us other reasons and agreed with reasons put to you by Mr Gordhan that often one of the reasons why people would be held far away from Durban would be to keep them incommunicado for example.  You agreed with him on that?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes, that may be for a singular occasion.

MR LAX: Yes and it can be very disorientating to be kept far away from where you normally are which would facilitate your interrogation?  That's quite normal part of interrogation process, that's why you blindfold people?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR LAX: There's a lot of other reasons why they were transferred and you bear no knowledge whatsoever of that real underlying reasons of that decision because you weren't part of it?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct.

MR LAX: So why did you give us the impression that that was the reason when you had no knowledge, you should have in fact said to us I don't know, I wasn't part of that decision?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct, I must have answered it that way but I didn't.  I gave an explanation as to why they were detained outside Durban and you were recall that Mr Gordhan has referred specifically to the case in 1985 when more than 20 people were kept together in a cell.

MR LAX: Yes, the fact of the matter is that you had no reason or no understanding of why he was sent to Bethlehem?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, there's no reason for me to mislead you as to why Mr Gordhan would be detained anywhere other than Durban.

MR LAX: You told us that your sole purpose of going there was to question Mr Gordhan about The Owl, is that correct?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct.

MR LAX: And yet on what he's put to you, you spent very little time on that issue with him?