Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-03-27

MR DE RU: Your Worship, that, I do not believe that we should put blinkers on as far as what a criminal and a political, we should, sort of, blur the line there, because at that time, a political activist was regarded as a criminal in my view.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr de Ru, you get a political activist committing criminal acts and they will be seen as being political and at the same time you will get an ordinary criminal committing criminal acts not attached to any political inclination.  So there is a distinction.  Do you agree?

MR DE RU: I agree with you in the statement that you just made.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Thank you, Sir.  Now, I turn the Committee to page 31 pagination.  There is a letter from the office of the Attorney-General with particular reference to page two of the letter.  That would be page 32 pagination, page 32 pagination, the very first paragraph which I will read and invite your comments thereon.  It says,
"It appears from both the summary and the judgment that Mr de Ru's modus operandi was to take the two deceased who were suspects and who had been arrested on various charges, among others murder and/or robbery to out of the way places on the pretext that they were to point out certain things and then top simply execute them.  This was done in the presence of junior members of his staff who he then co-opted to twist the facts to that it would appear that the deceased had attempted to escape from custody".
What is your comment on that?

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, I understand that this paragraph was written by Mr Becker.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Yes.

MR DE RU: And I believe Mr Becker is present here in the proceedings and that what I have testified about today has come to his knowledge for the first time.  I already indicated to you that I reserved Section 49(2) during the trial because I believed that the system was going to protect me and I am saying to you that, as Mr Becker is seated here today, it is probably a shock to him because if he knew during the trial already what I have revealed here today, he would have confirmed my version before you here today.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Yes, Mr de Ru, that may be so, but you have confirmed, at the beginning of this hearing, that the policemen who were mentioned, who are mentioned by yourself in the application, Pienaar, Hammond and Nel, gave the correct version in the criminal court where you were charged and convicted.  You said they told the truth.  Now, if they told the truth in the court a quo, the Attorney-General, the author of this letter says this on the basis of what he heard from the State's evidence.  So, he knew the truth when he wrote this.  Will you please comment?

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, he knew about the truth as it was told in court which Hammond, Pienaar and Nel put before the court.  That is the truth on which he based his letter.  My version in court is not what I am putting before you today.

JUDGE WILSON: As I understand this letter, Mr Mpshe, he did not hear the evidence, he did not read the evidence, he wrote us his opinion on the summary, which is next to the indictment, and from the judgment.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Is that the author of the letter, Mr Chairman?

JUDGE WILSON: (...indistinct).

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman, ...

JUDGE WILSON: It is the paragraph you have just read says here ...

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.

JUDGE WILSON: It says it appears from both the summary and the judgment.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: I just want to, I am looking for a paragraph to put that in better perspective.  If Mr, that is what it says there, Mr Chairman, but the Attorney-General was involved in this man's trial.  If you would, if Mr Chairman looks at page three of the Attorney-General's letter, that will be page 33 of pagination,
"In conclusion I wish to say that I have come to know the applicant quite well during the course of the four years I have dealt with his prosecutions, the appeal case, his applications, their remands and so on".
He was involved, the Attorney-General, in the trial.

JUDGE WILSON: He is the man who deal with them.  It does not say he was at the trial.  It does not say I prosecuted him.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman ...(intervention)

JUDGE WILSON: You are trying to read something into it that is not there, Mr Mpshe, what is the point?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I am not doing what the Chair is saying.  I will repeat what I have just read,
"In conclusion I wish to state that I have come to know the applicant quite well during the course of the years I have dealt with his prosecutions".

JUDGE WILSON: Yes, not I have prosecuted him.  He is the - the man we are talking to, talking about is the Senior State-Advocate, it does not mean he prosecutes everybody who his department prosecutes, Mr Mpshe.  It means ...

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr ...

JUDGE WILSON: ... he is in charge of them.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr de Ru ...(intervention)

JUDGE WILSON: Ask him.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: ... did Mr Becker prosecute you.

MR DE RU: That is correct, your Lordship.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: So he knows your cases.

JUDGE WILSON: Now you can put it.

MR DE RU: That is correct, your Worship.

MR MADASA: I am sorry to interrupt, Mr Chair. The question which my learned friend is insisting on, I believe that it has been answered by the applicant.  The applicant has told the Committee that when he was tried, he did not divulge the true state of affairs.  So the Attorney-General, when he made this report, was not aware of the true facts.  In other words he was not aware of the motive as to why those killings took place.  That is why he made this comment because he was deprived of that information.  That is what the applicant is saying.

JUDGE WILSON: He does not say, though, that he, the motive.  He, what he says here is precisely what happened, what the applicants told us he did, that he took these people out to execute them.  On the way out they were discussing who should do the shooting.  That is the applicant's version, is it not?  He does not deal with motive.  He does not purport
to deal with motive.

ADV DE JAGER: I think, perhaps, light can be thrown on the matter if we look at page 32 at the bottom, paragraph eight, "During Mr de Ru's first trial, his defence was simply that he had at all times acted in accordance with the provisions of Section 49(2), but that he was being framed by members of the Security Police because of his investigations into the so-called Three Million gang.  Evidence with regard to which has subsequently been heard by the TRC and Mr de Ru expounded on these allegations in representations to the Minister of Justice..."
Would it be Mr Mpshe, I am putting this to you, would it be fair to say the Attorney-General came to a conclusion on, inter alia the fact that Mr de Ru never said that he had a political motivation, he said, well, I have been framed.  I did this because the person wanted to escape and I have been framed now by the Security Police, they are telling that I have killed this person for other reasons.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: That will be ...

ADV DE JAGER: ... (Indistinct), but if, in fact, killed the person and that they even changed the whole vicinity in order to mislead the State, but de Ru never admitted that.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chair, I would, I would agree with that line of reasoning on this paragraph, but I do not see why I cannot be made, I cannot ask the applicant to respond to what is said here.

JUDGE WILSON: What is the relevance of a letter written by the man who is seeking to prosecute the applicant, who is seeking to bring a case against him, how can that be now put to him in evidence here, Mr Mpshe?  Are you going to call...

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chair.

JUDGE WILSON: ... this man, Becker, as a witness?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chairman, the man who wrote this letter is not seeking to prosecute, he has already prosecuted. I am referring to the two incidences ...(intervention)