Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-11-19

MR MARTINI IN REPLY: I agree with Mr Wessels on the issue of consistency.  It was an issue I was going to raise, but I support that view.  Chairperson, I got the impression that the issue of whether the applicant, in our instance, was not a member of the Security Forces seems to be abandoned, but just briefly on that issues, insofar as its not the section, the definition of Security Forces in the Act read with Section (2)(b) make it clear that the applicant does fall within that category of person who's entitled to qualify for amnesty.
	Chairperson, just on an issue, I'm trying to get through these voluminous replies as quick as I can, Chairperson, on a issue raised by Mr Bizos, a broad submission that they make that none of the applicants should get amnesty, because they haven't made a full disclosure of other facts and hence on that alone they should fail, I submit there's no basis for that.   Two bases, on the strict reading of the Act, it must be full disclosure relating to the acts for which the particular applicant applies for amnesty because the applicants, Chairperson, are not asking for blanket amnesty.  If you grant amnesty, they're not saying I'm indemnified for killing Mr X, Y and Z or blowing up building X, Y and Z which I never asked for amnesty for.  If such evidence exists the Attorney-General will prosecute and likewise, it cannot be expected by the victims to say well because you haven't and there's no evidence to say that you killed X, Y and Z, there's no such evidence, or that you blew up building X, Y and Z, he mustn't give him amnesty, it would be grossly unfair.  In any event, there's not a bit of evidence to suggest for example Mr van Zyl, to suggest he killed Mr Y.  There's been evidence led on Mr Lubowski, Mr van Zyl's answer to that was:  "I monitored it."
	Chairperson, on the next issue of personal gain, Mr Bizos suggested that on personal gain the applicants should all fail.  Now with respect Chairperson there's no basis for that argument.  The applicants, in this case in the case of Mr van Zyl, the evidence is clear, he does say that it was a career move, it was a better salary package and he wanted to remain in Johannesburg instead of going to Pietermaritzburg, but at the time there is no evidence that when Mr van Zyl agreed to take on, to make this career move, that he was aware of what his new job was going to entail.  If you remember they went on a course for 6 months and then they were dormant for some time and only after the course did they really understand what was going to take place within this organisation, so it wasn't, Mr van Zyl did not enter the CCB because he thought,  "I'm going out to kill people, because that's what I want to do".  It can never be argued that way.   And on the personal gain issue, the evidence of Mr van Zyl, Chairperson, which I didn't touch in argument was Mr Bizos makes it sound as if, well I'll confine myself to Mr van Zyl, but it applies for all the applicants, would get a production bonus if they killed somebody or a project went well, that was not the evidence.  One of the packages was they'd get a production bonus.  Now if you remember the evidence, in June 1989 Mr van Zyl gets one production bonus only of, I think it was two and a half or three thousand rand.  Now at that stage none of these projects had even been carried out.  July is the first time we have some movement on the Minister Omar issue, where Barnard was according to van Zyl, sent down to monitor, but no attempt was made to kill Minister Omar that day, so Mr van Zyl was certainly not rewarded for attempting to kill Minister Omar, blowing up the Early Learning Centre in a bonus or otherwise.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Martini, there was, to be fair to your client, also evidence that the production bonuses were  in fact to compensate them for a whole wack of allowances that they lost in the police.  Mr Verster gave that evidence far more correctly.

MR MARTINI: ...(indistinct - mike not on)

MR LAX: No, no, it was medical aids and other things they would have been entitled to and S&T's and things of that description that they lost as a result of moving across to a private organisation.

MR MARTINI: I'm indebted.  I don't recall that evidence, but I'm indebted to you.

MR LAX: It was words to that effect, I'm quite sure about it, but the detail we can pick up later if it's relevant.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, might I just clarify.  The evidence was - there were two classes of bonuses, there was the bonuses for that purpose and there was a second class of bonus, in relation to particular projects that were successfully completed.

MR MARTINI: Well Chairperson, from Mr van Zyl's evidence, certainly I don't understand his evidence to have been that he got a bonus for a project that he completed.  Because Mr van Zyl's evidence, he received one bonus, I think of R2 500 or
R3 000 in June '89, and by then a project hadn't been completed.  So there's no basis to argue that ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Well we don't know what a project is, because there was the blue and the red projects, he might have got it in respect of setting up his business efficiently, or whatever.

MR MARTINI: Whatever, Chairperson, I'm just addressing the issue of insofar as for the project of killing or blowing up.  If it was for the blue plan, I mean it can never be suggested that hence it was for gain ...
END OF SIDE B - TAPE 3
START OF SIDE A - TAPE 4

MR LAX: ... objectives, specifically with regard to that diary entry in the sum of R7 000-odd rand.

MR MARTINI: Chairperson, I'll deal with that, before I deal with that, before I forget, one of the issues, it has also been suggested that Mr van Zyl got a flourishing business.  That was not the case.  Mr van Zyl's testimony was his business was breaking even.  I think it was making R3 000.  Mr van Zyl's evidence was also and this must be borne in mind, it's also been raised that there was litigation and packages were obtained.  Mr van Zyl resigned and his undisputed evidence was he never got any package.  He returned the BMW, he returned the shredder, he returned everything to the CCB and I raised that in my Heads that through his efforts he does admit that his business has become lucrative, but that's his own efforts, he never received a lucrative business when he resigned and he never received a retrenchment package or any useful, as I've heard, I don't recall the evidence but Mr Botha having received R200 000, Mr van Zyl there's no evidence that he got paid anything when he resigned.
	On the R7 000 issue Chairperson, if you recall Mr van Zyl's evidence was that he had received R15 000 for the Omar project, he had disbursed R5 000, two and a half thousand to two of the original hired assassins.  He then paid Mr Barnard and he conceded that Mr Barnard, you know he wasn't entitled to use Mr Barnard.  He paid Mr Barnard R7 000.  Mr Barnard himself says that - Mr van Zyl says he paid Mr Barnard R7 000 to recover his "onkostes", his disbursements.  Mr Barnard himself says in evidence, I think under cross-examination of Mr Bizos, that the R7 000 was to cover his air fares and hotels, not that he was paid a fee to kill anybody and then Chairperson, link that to the - what Mr van Zyl then says is he had then left with R3 000 from the Omar project.  In the ELC project he says the budget was authorised for R30 000, he received R25 000 from Mr Burger, he paid R18 000 ...(intervention)

MR LAX: Sorry, all of this doesn't add up for this simple reason that that is a very specific amount of R7 000 and some change together with a list of other amounts, in a particular diary entry that they're referring to, which remains...

CHAIRPERSON: It's a different R7 000.