Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, I have killed someone.  In Amsterdam where we were waiting for people at the border gates coming from Swaziland and that's where we lay 500 ... from the ... border gate in the direction of Amsterdam.  When these people passed the instruction which we received from Eugene de Kock was that we shouldn't do anything because they were on their way to go and give weapons to people up ahead and
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ADV DE JAGER	192	MR A NOFOMELA
when they approached we came nearer to the fence and we shot them on their way back and that is where I remember shooting one of them - shooting and killing one of them - and another one fell and dropped his gun and he was injured and we tried to trace him all day but we couldn't find him.

SISI KHAMPEPE: The incident marked No 12 in your application, that is the attack on the ANC members in Swaziland, you stated that it was Major De Kock and Lieutenant Van Dyk who did the shooting.  Now in which part of the house were the three persons shot by Major De Kock and Lieutenant Van Dyk?

MR NOFOMELA: I would say from what Van Dyk told me, the position of the house is as Van Dyk explained it to me, and that is how I wrote it here.  That is why I say that that is the reason for the error - that is the error I made.  Thus I ask if you would please allow me to explain it - to accept it in the way that it actually happened, not in the way that I mistakenly put it  in here.  I did not go into the house.  How the people were sleeping or where they were found is what Van Dyk told me.  I was actually supposed to say in my statement that Van Dyk told me this, that and the other, not to create the impression that I saw them or to create the impression that I went into the house because I did not enter the house.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You did not in fact witness the shooting.   You were merely told by Mr Van Dyk.

MR NOFOMELA: That is correct.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: I want you to look at page 23 starting at the foot of page 22, where you set out the nature and particulars of what happened.  You describe how, at the top of page 23, you started assaulting him.
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MR NOFOMELA: /...
CHAIRMAN	193	MR A NOFOMELA

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, I can see that.

CHAIRPERSON: You went there to kidnap this member of the PAC.

MR NOFOMELA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And you approached him and requested him to accompany you and after he refused you assaulted him.

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you tell him why you wanted him to accompany you?

MR NOFOMELA: We did not tell him where we were taking him.

CHAIRPERSON: So then this whole business of asking him to accompany you is so unrealistic.  You say you approached the target and you requested him to accompany you and after he refused you stated assaulting him.  So you didn't tell him why you wanted him to accompany you, you didn't tell him at all, because you went there to kidnap him.  That's right, isn't it?

MR NOFOMELA: That is correct, we did not tell him why we wanted him to accompany us.  When we got to where we had taken him that is where he heard why we had abducted him.

CHAIRPERSON: Then after he had been taken to the security office in Piet Retief, this man was further assaulted and interrogated, that's correct?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And you took part in that further assault and interrogation.

MR NOFOMELA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: It seems that you got some pleasure out of doing this kind of thing using violence on people who are utterly helpless when you are in the company of others who are armed and you beat this person up.

MR NOFOMELA: It is not that I took pleasure in that.  It is
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CHAIRMAN	194	MR A NOFOMELA
just that we went there with the intention of abducting this person, but there was no way in which I could just walk around with him normally you know, when he was refusing, without doing anything to him.  I had to force him to come with me because I had gone there to abduct him.

CHAIRPERSON: And after he was abducted and taken away my question was then you further assaulted him and interrogated him and I am saying to you judging from the statements you've made you seem to have had no difficulty in going around assaulting people, is that so?

MR NOFOMELA: When I was present and something like that was being done at the time I was also to participate, not that I enjoyed it, I was merely doing what everyone else was doing.

CHAIRPERSON: And what happened to this individual?

MR NOFOMELA: I heard from Eugene de Kock that this person was eventually killed.

CHAIRPERSON: And how was he killed?

MR NOFOMELA: I was never told.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: The R300 reward you received here was it over and above your normal salary?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Nofomela, would you say you probably received that amount because you are the one who initiated the assault?  According to the application you are the one who  started assaulting this person after he refused to come with you and the others joined, after you had initiated the assault.

MR NOFOMELA: It was not because I had initiated the assault.  It was because I had participated in the abduction.
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CHAIRPERSON: /...
CHAIRMAN	195	MR A NOFOMELA

CHAIRPERSON: Your supplementary affidavit talks about your participation in an attempting kidnapping of the man called General, is that correct?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Once again, did you use violence in order to overpower this man?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: What eventually happened to him?

MR NOFOMELA: We eventually left him.

CHAIRPERSON: Left him where?

MR NOFOMELA: At that house where we were assaulting him in Swaziland.

UNKNOWN: Is it correct that Mr Dirk Coetzee accompanied you and that he joined in the attempt to try and overpower this man?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

UNKNOWN: And the two of you couldn't succeed in overpowering him.

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, we didn't succeed.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: May I take you back to the assault on ... Mkize, which is item 15 where you proceed to 18, page 24.  I notice that you are telling us that you assaulted this person after he came into the Republic of South Africa on a false identity document.

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Why should a person who comes into South Africa on a false identity document be assaulted?

MR NOFOMELA: The reason for assaulting him was when we met up with him and - when we apprehended him and questioned him we found that he had an illegal passport and there was no identify document to prove that he was a citizen from here
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JUDGE NGOEPE	196	MR A NOFOMELA
and then Sergeant Van Heerden who was the immediate commander then while Coetzee was the weekend off, he had gone to Piet Retief, he said that we should put him into the vehicle and take him to a plantation near Piet Retief.  He was in his own vehicle, and when we got there he started assaulting him and started questioning him.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But where is any politics about it?  When a man comes into the country with a false document and then he is assaulted, what political purpose does it serve, the assault?

MR NOFOMELA: I cannot say.  I also don't know, but it happened that he was assaulted.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And you go on to say that after he was assaulted you took him to a panelbeating premises where he was burnt with a welding torch  on his chest and face.  What was the purpose of doing this, of going to this extent of burning him with a welding torch on his chest and face?

MR NOFOMELA: Those are the  decisions taken by Van Heerden.  He was the one who said we should take him to this panelbeating shop and he took this welding torch and he scared him with it and that was after he had been assaulted.  I cannot answer those questions.  Those were his decisions.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Did you take part in this process of burning him with a welding torch?