Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: If I remember correctly, we did not say that a person is prohibited from mentioning the name of an informer, what we said was that - the ruling that we made then in that particular case, was that the person concerned was not obliged.  Now I don't know whether we have reached a point - I thought that Mr Nyoka is finding out from the witness whether the witness is keen to mention the name.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That's why we are not having any problems.

ADV DU PLESSIS: No, I just wanted to make that point Mr Chairman because I don't think my learned friend Mr Booyens is really - has any knowledge of what happened before the Committee previously and Mr Nyoka and everybody else concerned.  So I just felt obliged to refer you to that to be of assistance to the Committee Mr Chairman and if Mr Nieuwoudt wants disclose the name of the informer, obviously that is up to him - you are 100% correct in what you say the decision was.

ADV NYOKA: Maybe Mr Chairman, I can come in here, I was not present when that decision was made but when we read in the paper that there was someone who mentioned names of people who were spies of the previous Government, I thought that - and he did that in Committee, I thought that it was in order therefore to ask  such questions.
	I did not know that it depended on the keenness or not of the witness and I thought that it was in conformance with the legal requirement that a  full disclosure must made.  If for instance, a witness does not make a full disclosure of that person, how are we to believe him about the rest of other people implicated in that - in the murder and abduction?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, with all due respect, isn't the question really that it's for the witness to decide whether or not he wants to disclose the name.

UNKNOWN: Mr Nyoka, I think there's nothing in the Act empowering us to change the common law and there's a series of decisions - even by the Appellate Division, about the naming of informers.
	And we've referred in the previous decision to those decisions and the impact they may have and as Judge Ngoepe said, we left it open, it can be disclosed if somebody decides to do so to sort of break the code that existed in the common law.  But I think there's also a decision in the NPD, the old Natal reports and this AD decision, that entitled informers to the right that their names should not be disclosed.

ADV NYOKA: Mr Chairman, just one point.
	Mr Nieuwoudt, I was trying to assist you in ensuring that you are making a full disclosure so that I don't use your reluctance against you when I argue that you've not made a full disclosure, I'm trying to assist you in opening up.  Would you argue with me therefore if I say: "I'm going to argue that one of the things in which you are not making a full disclosure is your reluctance to make the informer known" - I'm trying to assist you rather than do you down, any comment?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I am indebted to Mr Nyoka but with respect, I'm not prepared - and we also have to think of the future for the recruitment of informers, it's not done lightly.

ADV NYOKA: Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: I am not yet finished, I want to explain something but I don't get the opportunity.  Informers or agents are the eyes and ears of the police or security force and we have to make a distinction between criminal informers and at that stage political informers.  And why do I now have to - without any reason, put someone's life at stake where he was prepared to assist me and now to actually have a danger for his life, it's not really fair.

ADV NYOKA: Finally, was he a casual informer or a full time informer?  Was he a casual informer - that is, was it just a one time job that he did for that specific episode or was he a full time informer informing about other things?  That's the final question I'm asking about the informer.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, he was a full time informer.

ADV NYOKA: So, there were other things he informed you about?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV NYOKA: All right.  And was he compensated for his role as an informer naturally?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, he was a paid agent.

ADV NYOKA: Mr Mamasela said that the movements of the three activists were monitored from the time that Mr Hashe went to fetch other people, they were known and there was radio contact throughout, in other words they were not just sitting next to the airport and by the time they had left Vlakplaas they were instructed to come specifically for this plot.

MR BOOYENS: I think my learned friend should perhaps just ask one question at a time, he's now asked two - can we just deal with the first one?

ADV NYOKA: Did you understand my two questions despite what Mr Booyens said, did you understand them?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so.

ADV NYOKA: Thank you, maybe he can answer them for himself.  Can you answer Mr Nieuwoudt?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: The first question and answer to your first question, that is nonsense and then secondly, he said that he was instructed by Eugene de Kock on the 8th - that was his original version and that was also the version that Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza put to me and that is not correct.  So, he gave so many different versions - that's Mr Mamasela, so I don't know which one you are putting to me.

ADV NYOKA: The day after the 9th ...[intervention]

UNKNOWN: If I can just come in here, in bundle 2, his evidence before the TRC is given in the Section 29 questioning - at the bottom of page 11 and on top of page 12, unfortunately there's a problem with the first sentence on page 12.
"In the meantime"
and then it's:
"the audio of the observation team, we listened to that"
You see that the end of tape 2 - and at that stage the specific tape was changed.
"In the meantime"
and then the audio seems to me to be:
"Over the radio"
or something, I'm not quite sure but it does seem as if:  
"We could hear precisely what the movement of the suspects were, for example Sipho Hashe's departure from his home as well as the vehicle that he used.  After that he then picked up Godolozi and they went to Champion Galela and also picked him up.  The whole route that the three people were using was monitored so that we knew exactly where they were to the point that we could see the bakkie"
His version is - to summarise, is that there was someone who informed you with regard to the operation from the moment that they picked up the people until the point that they arrived at the airport.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, that was not the case.

ADV SANDI: Sorry, can I ask a question Mr Nyoka, at this stage?
	Mr Nieuwoudt, the source you're talking about - you say was within Pebco, did I understand you correctly?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes.

ADV SANDI: Is that the same source you said had an English accent?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes.

ADV SANDI: Now, when you gave instructions to this source, did you say he must say to Mr Hashe he must bring Mr Godolozi and Mr Galela along with him?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV SANDI: Thank you.

ADV NYOKA: Just to digress on two occasion a little bit, Mrs Hashe said that on the 9th - after the 9th, the day after the 9th - that is the day after the death, a policeman stormed into her house in the evening and assaulted her sons - tear gas was poured.  As a field worker, did you get to know about that incident just the day after the death of her husband?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I have no knowledge of that incident.

ADV NYOKA: You were not told about it despite the fact that there were other members - whom I don't want to mention their names, who were present being security policemen?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, I have no knowledge.