Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-07-14

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: It was part of my issue Your Worship.  I had the handcuffs in my pocket.  I also had my side-arm internally on my pants under my overall.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I may not know much about the activities of the Security, members of the Security Branch, but I thought they normally didn't go about with handcuffs on them?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: It varies from person to person, it is part of the official issue, Your Worship.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Did you - how did you actually, if you say your instructions were to go and find out whether he was there, perhaps I should ask you first.  Did you know this deceased?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I had seen photographs of him Your Worship.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: How exactly in your mind, were you going to establish whether he was there without provoking a confrontation?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Your Worship, in previous investigations for example in the Forbes and the Jacobs situation, people who had an outside room, would hire it to people after advertising it in a newspaper or so forth.  I was hoping that the same situation possibly, that somebody was renting the place to people not knowing that they were involved in terrorist activities.  So it was on a hit and miss basis that I went to these places.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And because you had seen his photograph, when he emerged after you knocked at the door, you immediately recognised him?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I recognised him, Your Worship.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: At that stage, he was not aware yet that you were in fact a member of the Security Branch, rather you thought you were an employee of the Municipality?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That was part of my charade Your Worship.  I couldn't be sure that he hadn't perhaps recognised me from photographs.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Which photographs?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: My face has appeared in the news print on numerous occasions.

CHAIRPERSON: What you are really saying is you don't know if he recognised you or not, he may have?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: He may have recognised me, Your Worship.

JUDGE WILSON: I thought you said sometime yesterday and I can't find my notes at the moment, that you thought he had recognised you?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: At the point of arrest Your Worship, when we looked each other in the eye and we were then at a distance of merely faces apart, I realised that he knew that the charade wasn't correct.

CHAIRPERSON: In fact, you said you asked him whether he was Ashley Kriel?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: No, I don't think I said that Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, he opens the door, you see him and he sees you and immediately you recognise him.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct, Your Worship.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, what then, why didn't you go on with your charade and put it into practise?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I went on with the charade Sir, to the effect that there are drainages blocked somewhere and we presumed it may be in the house, with an attempt to cut him off from the doorway.  He had initially stood in the doorway, came out maybe a step from the door.  I then went forward and when we were next to each other, I went over to an arrest mode and that is where the whole struggle started then.

CHAIRPERSON: An arrest mode?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Yes Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Why?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I decided to carry out or attempt to carry out an arrest.

CHAIRPERSON: You were not asked to go and arrest him, why did you want to do that?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Your Honour, with respect, as I explained to the court, that in that split second of decision making, I had seen it is Mr Kriel, he had something over his hands which I presumed because of the way it was held, that it could possibly be a firearm or a grenade.
It was then the scenarios I can either walk away from this and he recognised me and he goes over to the attack.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: At that stage, I don't discern any serious attempt on you to try and diffuse the situation for example by saying I am an employer of the Municipality.  This is a place where we had been called to for example and he says no and you try to walk away.
I don't see this attempt on your part to try and resolve the situation in accordance with your instructions to avoid that confrontation?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Your Worship, this all transpired in split seconds.  As I was trying to explain, I had to make a split second decision at that stage.  Primarily I am a policeman.  Here was a known terrorist, I had to or I thought the best option at that stage was to effect an arrest.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Benzien, we are aware of incidents in the past where if the Security Police wanted to arrest a so-called terrorist, it would be a spectacle.  Three, five police vehicles would go to that place and there will be so many policemen to arrest one person.

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct, Your Worship.  That is the normal procedure.  That is why I emphasise that my exercise was a reconnaissance which led to a face to face confrontation with the deceased and I went over to do an arrest.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Didn't you become over-eager once you saw your prey or the person you are supposed to look for?  Didn't you become over-eager to go into an arrest mode?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I don't think it was over-eagerness Your Worship.  I was exceptionally scared.

SISI KHAMPEPE: But Mr Benzien, there were six if I recollect, from what has been said previously by you, there were six Security members which had been placed at strategic places on that day in preparation of an arrest which Liebenberg had planned to take place later, after you had managed to locate the whereabouts of Mr Kriel.  Is it not so?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Excuse me Ma'am, with respect I don't think you understand this correctly.  There were people placed at strategic places, not to effect the arrest but as backup and the arrest would not under normal circumstances, be carried out with the Intelligence team.  There would have been a plan devised with members of the Reaction Unit or the Special Task Force or somebody like that to do the actual arrest.

SISI KHAMPEPE: So the six people were from the Intelligence Unit?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: They were the people that were at Athlone at the time and they were utilised.  I presume also to keep lookout.  Their task was to try and identify where he was staying.  They hadn't identified him.

SISI KHAMPEPE: So they were doing the same job as you were doing, trying to locate the whereabouts of Mr Kriel?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: That is correct, Ma'am.  Their close proximity would appear was not as close as what a person would have liked it to have been.

SISI KHAMPEPE: I fail to understand why you decided to effect an arrest when you saw Mr Kriel coming out of the door with something in his hand.  What was so fearful in seeing someone having something in his hand?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: I had recognised him as a person who had been identified on intelligence as being a trained terrorist.  At other venues where arrests were made, there could have been more than one person in the house, he could have had a handgrenade in his hand, he could have had a firearm in his hand.  If he had recognised me or seen through the charade, there was the possibility that he would have used which ever weapon I presumed to be in his hands, and which in fact turned out to be a pistol and thereby he could have either caused my death or my accomplice or both of us.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Were you not in a position at that stage to turn your back and use your radio to alert Mr Liebenberg and the other backup members who were in the vicinity?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: Ma'am the radio was put in the vehicle that we were driving around in.

SISI KHAMPEPE: And you couldn't turn your back against Mr Kriel in case of him shooting you, is that what you were scared of?

JEFFERY T BENZIEN: At that stage I was so scared, you cannot believe how scared a person can be.