Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

ADV NYOKA: Were the activists co-operating with you when you were - were the activists - or just to correct you before we move on, Mr Makuzoma is the MD of Transnet, not Director of Spoornet.
	Were the activists co-operating when you were interrogating them?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, they communicated, that's according to my observation.

ADV NYOKA: Did you get much information?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No.

ADV NYOKA: Then why did it take so long - I know Mr Lamey asked that, but why did it take so long then?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I dealt with the whole spectrum with each one of them based on the information at my disposal.

ADV NYOKA: And you said you had interrogated Mr Hashe before?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes.

ADV NYOKA: In that instance where you had interrogated him, did he volunteer such information like an AK47?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No.

ADV NYOKA: If he was not under cohesion, pressure or any assault, why would he do so in this instance if he had not done so before?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is why I didn't believe him and he mentioned it, I thought that it was a code that he wanted to send to his family that he is being detained and that it was a strategy on their side.

ADV NYOKA: I put it to you that he may have mentioned that because he was being severely assaulted and he had to do something or to say something incriminating.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, I strongly deny that, he wasn't assaulted.

ADV NYOKA: And you said all of them offered to be informers maybe as a ploy for the interrogation to be stopped, why will they do so because they were not being harmed, they were being kept safely and they were given food?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: And that is why I didn't believe them because I thought that was a strategy on their side so that they could be released.

ADV NYOKA: And when you were sitting with them, did they not ask why they were abducted, why they were unlawfully detained, why there were foreign policemen with them and why they were taken 260 kilometres away from P.E.?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, they didn't ask me that, I can't remember that they asked that.

ADV NYOKA: Yet as Mr van Zyl said: "They were at ease", are you saying they were at ease despite all those strange circumstances?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes.

ADV NYOKA: Could you say therefore the interrogation was a success?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No.

ADV NYOKA: Mr van Zyl said he had - involved in the abduction and murder plot and that your role was just to be involved in that, why did you go further and go beyond the bounds of your mandate by interrogating - the mission was thus simply to kill?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: As I've mentioned, it was to mislead the members of Vlakplaas.

ADV NYOKA: But they subsequently left the following morning according to you?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV NYOKA: And they must have read or heard in the media that the three were missing - you're misleading was therefore short-sighted, not so?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, because they didn't know what happened to them.

ADV NYOKA: What I'm trying to say - if you wanted to mislead them, it was just a temporary measure because it was announced publicly and nationally that there were three people that got missing, surely that would have kept them wondering within that 12 years as Sergeant X testified in 1995 in fact - to show that your plan therefore failed to mislead them.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: But he didn't know, they could have left the country, they could have been recruited as informers - he could have drawn his own inference from that and according to me we misled them.

ADV NYOKA: Then you must have thought they were foolish, very foolish for you to believe that.  Any comment?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: As I've said, I believed at that stage that we misled them and we misled them because they couldn't point a finger to us.

ADV NYOKA: With regard to the sleeping mixture, is it not correct that in the 1982 Mthimkhulu and Madaka murder you supplied the sleeping pill, not so?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That's correct.

ADV NYOKA: Why was it not the case this time because the modus operandi was similar?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Captain van Zyl - and I know I am aware of it, that Captain van Zyl always had a medical case with him in his car, so he didn't request me to bring it along - he didn't give me the instruction to do that, so I just assumed that he had it.

ADV NYOKA: Did you see the person who was actually administering the sleeping mixture in the coffee?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, I was present.

ADV NYOKA: Who did so?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was Captain van Zyl.

ADV NYOKA: And who made the coffee?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I don't know whether it was Mr Lotz, I made tea for myself and the coffee was made Lotz.

ADV NYOKA: So you drank tea and the others drank coffee?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV NYOKA: Finally, a final issue of the shooting.  In the Mthimkhulu and Madaka matter you stated that you used your own service pistol, why did you not use it this time?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Because Captain van Zyl gave me the weapon.

ADV NYOKA: In your written statement you said you were not sure who you shot but yesterday I was surprised to learn that you were sure that you shot Mr Godolozi but in your written statement you said
"I'm not sure who I shot"
It's in your statement.

CHAIRPERSON: What page?

ADV NYOKA: Mr Chairman, I'm using a translation so I don't know the Afrikaans page, I just use a complete translation - unless the translator ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: I see.

ADV NYOKA: Page 41, 132 - so my translation is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Page what - 132?

ADV NYOKA: Page 42.  Page 41 paragraph 22 - no, 1st paragraph, thank you.
	In your written statement you said you were not sure who you shot ...[intervention]

UNKNOWN: Sorry, what's the paginated number?

MS HARTLE: It's page 132, the typed page number is 41 and it's in the 1st paragraph of that page.

CHAIRPERSON: Where - page 132 and paragraph?

ADV NYOKA: 1st paragraph on top.

MS HARTLE: Mr Chairman, it's the last sentence
"At this stage I'm not quite sure which person I killed but I am of the opinion that it was Mr Godolozi"

ADV NYOKA: My question Mr Nieuwoudt, is that for 12 years - let me rephrase, for 11 and a half years you were not sure who you shot but yesterday suddenly you were so sure that you even told Mr van Zyl who you had shot, why is there such a difference?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I wasn't sure when I completed my amnesty application but I'm of the opinion that it was Godolozi and I'm now sure it was Godolozi.

ADV NYOKA: What triggered your certainty suddenly because - I'll tell you why I'm asking you this question, in the previous Mthimkhulu and Madaka matter you similarly said you were not sure who you shot.   It seems as if it's a stance that you are adopting that you're not sure who you shot.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, that's not the case, after 12 years I actually have to refresh my memory and I'm sure that I shot Mr Godolozi.

CHAIRPERSON: Yesterday not only were you sure as to who you had shot but you went so far as to tell us who shot the rest.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Now in that context the question is being put to you, why initially - when you put up this statement, why were you not sure?  What caused you in-between the time when you made this statement and yesterday when you went into the witness box, what caused you to not only to be sure that you did in fact shoot a particular person but that you are now also able to remember that so and so shot so and so and so and so shot so and so, I'm sorry.