Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

CHAIRPERSON: I might have misunderstood, but I thought that initially you, let's just take the case of the microbus, you had sent up information, "there is a SWAPO member, got a microbus, using it to transport ANC supporters", you had sent that information up, with no comment, nothing, just straight information.
	Then there must have been some sort of decision, I don't know how binding it was or whatever, at the end of the day, but somebody  made a decision, coming back to you to say "look, carry out a preliminary investigation in regard to the possibility of burning that kombi", in other words somebody made the decision that that kombi should be burnt, not that the owner should be  killed or that the tyres should be slashed.  So you then do that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And you say "okay, it is parked out of a particular house in Athlone every night and we can send somebody and burn it" and you put up a proposal?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: But it is not really a proposal, it is a suggested method of carrying out an operation?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: How the actual decision to burn should be carried out?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Then there is an "in-house" on that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And that decision to burn, may or may not be changed, somebody may say "well, okay, let's instead of burning it, let's slash the tyres or kill the owner", is that possible?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And then after that decision, it goes to a "tweede in-huis"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct, where the decision is then taken whether the project will be executed or not.

CHAIRPERSON: So it is a whole long procedure?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: It doesn't matter what the nature of the operation as?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kahanovitz?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, what you are saying would boil down to this, let's take the example of Min Omar, before Gen Webb has even indicated whether he regards Adv Omar to be a suitable target for elimination, you would have gone to hire the potential assassins in the sense that you would have spoken to people and you would have said "are you willing to assassinate Dullah Omar, if so, how much money do you want for the job", because you would need that information to go to the "in-house"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Correct?  You are telling us that you would then, you would have exposed the State to huge potential risk about this project in circumstances where Gen Webb doesn't even know that there is such a project?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is how the system worked.  There was no other way.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But are you saying that we must, must we assume that Col Verster even before the "in-house" takes place, has approved the selection of Min Omar as a target, or on your version, he too hasn't heard about it yet, because he is only going to hear about it when the "in-house" is held, the "eerste in-huis"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: The first time that I for example discussed the Min Omar incident with Joe Verster was at the first "in-house", I do not know whether he had knowledge, he controlled the whole structure, so that may be possible.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But you and Mr Basson couldn't possibly just off your own bats go off and start offering money to people to assassinate Dullah Omar?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, that was not an incident of us going left and right and offering money to persons.  In order to enable me to make a proper pre-study, I have to for example know how many persons I would use to execute the project and what they would be paid for their services, that is correct yes.
	But this is information that I do need, and this is the risk attached to it, that is how the system worked, and that is how we executed it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Before you would prepare your written "voor-studie", wasn't it so that Mr Basson would have gone to speak to Joe Verster to say "look, I have spoken to Slang van Zyl, he has certain information about this kombi in Cape Town and so on and so forth, do you want him to prepare a "voor-studie"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not know Chairperson, that is a question that Wouter would have to answer, whom he spoke to, with what persons he liaised after he for example had received information from me with regard to the minibus, I do not know.  The structure worked as we had explained, on a need to know basis.
	I went up to Wouter Basson and whom he liaised with further, I am not able to say.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Just to return to some final issues on this microbus.  The decision to use Ismail to burn the microbus and not his colleagues, Gakkie or Peaches, whose decision was that?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That was my decision.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why did you make that suggestion?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: At that stage I wanted to test Ismail, I regarded it as a relatively low risk project.
	I had the choice, I could have used anyone of my three operatives, so it was only a decision.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I am just trying to work out your reasoning, why you are involving more people into the loop?  You've now got three people who know about this project, as opposed to one, for instance?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is indeed so, but that was the decision that I made.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You don't really know?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That was just a decision.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.  Now, you decided that R1 500-00 was a reasonable amount of remuneration to commit this kind of damage to property, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Where did you get the figure from, was this what the man offered to do the job for, or did you offer him that amount?  How did you arrive at that figure?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It happened by means of negotiations, because I would make the first offer.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you have some guidelines from the CCB as to ...

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No?  There was no going rate for a murder?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, not at all.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Subsequently you discovered that you had been cheated, is that correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you try and get your money back?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But at the time that you discovered that you had been cheated, you were still very much involved with both Gakkie and Peaches, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: And Ismail was their man, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Ismail was a third person whom I handled.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, but they ...

ABRAM VAN ZYL: They were all three known to each other.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, but they brought him to you, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Peaches did, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes.   What I don't understand is if Peaches' contact, weren't they in the same criminal gang, Gakkie and Peaches were?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That may be.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Not "mag", you know what gang they were a member of, don't you?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I think they were members of the Americans.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Wasn't Ismail also in the Americans?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It may be so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: In any event, you are dealing with Peaches, the man that Peaches has brought to you as a further operative that could be of use to you in the Western Cape, has now cheated you out of R1 500-00, but you take no steps to either recover that money from Ismail directly or through Peaches, why?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I didn't deem it necessary.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why wasn't it necessary?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It was just a decision, I did not deem it necessary to do it, otherwise I would have done so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Don't you think it would send out a very bad message to Peaches and these other people, "we can cheat this van Zyl chap and he does nothing about it"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I believe that is what he thought, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, we are still trying to clarify, let's take a proposal to eliminate somebody, we are still trying to work out exactly where that proposal originates.