Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-04-15

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: All I was indicating, Mr Chairman, is that just to make it easier for everyone, there are references to the record that I found last night, on this particular question I was asked now about Annexure I, what was my intention.  And so in the record it's been explained ad nauseam by me, but just to put it concisely what my intention was with this discussion document.
	Basically the concerns that I've mentioned for safety of myself and my family, apropos the involvement of people who had quite obviously covered up matters, people unknown to me, apropos a perception of people in the intelligence community as to the fact that I was talking to the TRC, knowing full well that they didn't want me to be doing that.  
	And having regard to the fact that I was in a prison cell and completely in the dark as to what was going on, the fact that I needed to get information, the fact that I needed to give information in order to keep my credibility as it were, with the TRC Investigating Team at the time.  I mean I couldn't just tell a lot of nonsense to them, they wouldn't have come back and seen me, they would have just left it at that.  The fact that I had in mind a strategy of allowing my ex-colleagues to say well, Mike is okay, let's not worry about him, he's not really implicating us in anything which is a gross human rights violation.  
	The matters that I did implicate named people in are things which I was under the impression then would have been sorted out a long time ago in chambers, small little things which would have certainly made my life a lot easier if had it been agreed to, if my ex-colleagues had have remembered those incidents and had have been advised maybe, or decided to apply for amnesty for them it would have made my life a lot easier, but to be faced with an amnesty application cold, whereas I say to Mr Kjellberg in that meeting in March of '97, there's so many names that I could potentially mentioned as a sort of background to the murder of Janine, in the sense of creating the background and so on.   
	Why go through all of that, Mr Chairman, why go the hassle of an amnesty application which I had in mind was still to come, in other words consultation with an attorney and Mr Kjellberg for that matter, why go through the hassle if everyone is going to say I'm talking rubbish anyway if people aren't going to admit to the fact that these euphemisms were used, that the Security Branch had a particular organisational culture if the TRC then, if the Investigators were of the opinion that no such thing ever happened.
	And one can see also from this transcript that Mr Kjellberg agrees with me that when he arrived in South Africa he thought all these things he was hearing in the media are just too far fetched to be true, but by March of '97 already he agrees with me that he's quite convinced that there were these general types of instructions etc., etc.  So I was starting to get the kind of feedback that I felt more comfortable with from the TRC, in terms of the fact that they were getting the picture.  Then why go through all that hassle when very possibly I could have brought a review, Mr Chairman, for the matter.  I didn't have a fair trial, how can one have a fair trial in those circumstances?  It's not to say that I wasn't guilty, the two things are mutually exclusive in a sense of the Bill of Rights.
	So if there was going to be information coming back, which I could have used also in that sense, if I decided no, it seems unlikely that I should go through the hassle and put everyone through the trauma of an amnesty application, then why don't I just continue with putting together a application for a review of the case, Mr Chairman.  So those are the issues that were in my mind at the time that I prepared these documents.  
	It's not a question that Mr Kjellberg or anyone from the TRC brought me an application form, the application forms were freely available in the prisons.  For better or for worse bits and pieces of application forms were there.  So the fact that this happens to be sort of numbered according to a schedule or whatever has got nothing to do with the fact that it was, the status of this document was a discussion document and was not intended to be an annexure to my amnesty application.  And those are my reasons as to why I embarked upon this particular course of action then, in 1996, Mr Chairman.
	I can mention that nothing came of this document, also quite clearly from the transcript.  Other than - I did get a little bit of information, it seemed to have some effect, but the document itself, nothing came of it and basically it was dead and buried until it became an issue in February.

MR HATTINGH: Mr Bellingan, the next issue is, the documents that you found that night in the house, that was the 20th of September 1991, what were those documents?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I have explained that the one was my hand-written note.  There were other notes from Janine in there pertaining to operations, in particular the media operations.  For example, in the ones that we had opposite Khotso House etc., etc., the ones we had in Lesotho etc., etc.  People had been staying in our house who had been involved in these things.  There were some car registration numbers, some sources' names, there was a note from Janine basically explaining her position.  I've got a list of these things in my amnesty application, what page exactly I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR HATTINGH: The reason for your destroying of those documents, what was the reason?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: The documents were a risk, Mr Chairman, they needed to be destroyed.  Some of it was in Janine's handwriting and they needed to be destroyed.  The were a huge risk, Mr Chairman. - also in the context of the events of the evening.  It would have been totally for me to carry those documents on me or hide them in the vehicle or go and drop them off at the office, as has been suggested, or try and hide them in my house or anything like that.  So I had to get rid of those documents, Mr Chairman.

MR HATTINGH: Then I want to turn to a document which we find in bundle 4, on page 10 thereof, an affidavit from Mrs Boiley(?).  I would like to refer you to page 13 of this bundle and I just want to read to you the second paragraph.  Mrs Boiley states in her affidavit
"My indruk was dat hulle gedink het Michael Bellingan vir Janine vermoor het."

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, that refers to the Saturday morning when my then administrative assistant, Mr Deane Boiley, had been to someone's house or an office or whatever where my colleagues were gathered and that is her observation of that particular occasion, which yes, it accords with my perception of events later on as well.

MR HATTINGH: You at no stage told either Mr Oosthuizen or Mr Erasmus explicitly that you in fact murdered Janine?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: No, I didn't, Mr Chairman.

MR HATTINGH: Why not?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Firstly Mr Chairman, the need for secrecy.  It was - there were too many leaks, there was too much discussion going on and then coupled with that I didn't want to make them a party to this, Mr Chairman.  If I had told them they would have been accessories after the fact and that would have created all kinds of other problems round that.  So I wanted to avoid that altogether.  Obviously also the factor I've mentioned in February, pertaining to potential risk.  There was no point into going into all of that.

MR HATTINGH: Then I want to turn to the new affidavits of Mr Oosthuizen and Mr Erasmus, those are the Annexures K and J.  Starting with Annexure K, could you just give us the date of that affidavit, when it was signed?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, it was signed on the 24th of March 1999.

MR HATTINGH: Now I want you to go through this new affidavit and give this Committee your comments to the contents thereof.