Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-16

MR WILLIAMS: And did you tell this same Committee this morning that the evidence that you are giving here is contrary to the evidence that you gave the Harms Commission and
"I was under pressure at the Harms Commission."

MR VERSTER: That is correct, I did say that.

MR WILLIAMS: Would you agree with me that the answer that you gave this morning is in direct contradiction to the answer that you gave yesterday?

MR VERSTER: I think I qualified it yesterday, I said that I was under the impression that there had been documentation and I'm still under that impression.  Certain aspects I asked for privilege and certain aspects I said were grey to me, and after I saw the documentation of eleven years ago or ten years ago, a long time ago, I came to the realisation what had happened and I tried to rectify it because I am here in front of this Committee to be granted amnesty and that which is happening now.

MR WILLIAMS: Sir, would you mind focusing on the question.  The question is, would you agree that the answer you gave this morning stands in direct contradiction to the answer you gave yesterday?  Yes or no?

MR VERSTER: It is for the reasons that I have given.

MR WILLIAMS: Now I want to ask you again, was pressure applied to you during the Harms Commission by anyone, or by your legal team specifically?

MR VERSTER: It was pressure regarding a whole system, it was regarding an entire government that pressure was applied.  Especially after I saw the documentation yesterday, I was once again reminded of everything that happened.

MR WILLIAMS: Yesterday you specifically told this Commission that there was no pressure on you.  Can you recall having told the Commission that?

MR VERSTER: We've already said that, but it was in a different context and it had to do with the approach before I had the documentation in my possession and I was reminded of it.

MR WILLIAMS: Mr Chairman, I'm going to leave it there, I just wanted to canvass that one issue with him.  Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLIAMS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Williams.  Mr Hockey?

MR HOCKEY: No thank you, Mr Chairman, no questions.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR HOCKEY

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MS COLERIDGE: Excuse me, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Ms Coleridge, I didn't intentionally mean to omit you, please go ahead.

MS COLERIDGE: No, that's fine, Chairperson.
	I just want to ask you a question in relation to Gen Webb.  Let's say hypothetically that he did not authorise the Gavin Evans incident and the Dullah Omar incident, okay, at which stage did he find out about these incidents that your men were involved with these two incidents?   You know, give me some stage, before the Harms Commission, after the Harms Commission?  What can you remember in relation to Gen Webb, when did he find out about these incidents?

MR VERSTER: That is a hypothetical question, I do not know.  I cannot answer that, it happened too long ago.

MS COLERIDGE: Why I'm asking this of you, after the Harms Commission, I mean he'd seen van Zyl's statement, Barnard's statement, was he aware of those statements?

MR VERSTER: You will have to ask him that, I assume so.

MS COLERIDGE: We assume that he was.  So we can say after 1990, or just during that period he did become aware of these incidents, is that correct?

MR VERSTER: Yes, it should have been like that.

MS COLERIDGE: And then just in relation to who was charged with this incident, I know in the Dullah Omar incident, Mr Barnard was charged and sentence for the conspiracy to murder Dullah Omar, was any of your other members at any stage charged with those offences?  Any of those two.

MR VERSTER: I know that apart from Barnard there were two other members, it was Mr Kalla Botha and Mr Slang van Zyl.  They were detained, not about that matter, but it was about the involvement with the CCB.  In other words, it was in that context.

MS COLERIDGE: But they were never sentenced and there was no trial per se in relation to Kalla Botha and Slang van Zyl?

MR VERSTER: No, it was a whole political game about things that were seen in the press releases.

MS COLERIDGE: Thank you, Chairperson, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS COLERIDGE

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Coleridge.  Mr ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: May I just ask one question?
	Mr Verster, who was your counsel - after Mr Burger went out of the picture, who was your counsel?

MR VERSTER: It was Mr Paul Havenga, he was the attorney and then later on it was Mr Flip Hattingh.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was he the Advocate?

MR VERSTER: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: The Flip Hattingh from the Johannesburg Bar?

MR VERSTER: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did he have a junior?

MR VERSTER: And Mr Jurie Wessels.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well they are both colleagues of mine and I would never believe - and in fairness to them I want to say to you, I never believe that they would have put any pressure on you as your legal representatives, Sir.
	I thought that - it actually came to my notice that Mr Jurie Wessels was one of the counsel and in view of the exchange I thought in fairness to him I would put that on record, Mr Chairman.

MR VERSTER: Chairperson, I just want to minute it that I - as I understood the question, I placed it in the context of the pressure regarding the entire system, it had nothing to do with the legal representatives.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BIZOS

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels - sorry, we'll eventually get to the re-examination.

MR LAX: Sorry, there was just one question that was going to ask before tea and I thought in the interests of letting everything go, I'd do it now.  Just in relation to your files and the production of those files, Mr Bizos raised with you the question on those files, why didn't you raise them before the Harms Commission and so on, and it just occurred to me that, why didn't you just doctor the files and give them to the Harms Commission?  In other words, take out everything that was in conflict with the version you wanted to put and just put them before the Harms Commission?

MR VERSTER: Chairperson, I do not know, there isn't a specific reason for that.

MR LAX: That would have been a simple solution to your problem.

MR VERSTER: There were many things that were done.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels, do you have any re-examination?

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, Mr du Plessis indicated to me that he wanted to ask more questions.

CHAIRPERSON: This is for the record, Mr P du Plessis.

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  You were going to give us just an opportunity to ask questions arising.

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe I do it differently to other Chairmen, I normally do that - the leading of Mr Verster has been a little bit piecemeal, what I normally do at these hearings is the evidence is led by the applicant, I then give opportunities to cross-examine, I then ask for re-examination and then I give the Panel any opportunity and then give everybody a chance to ask questions arising.  So we'll keep that till the end.

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Re-examination, Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: Thank you, Chairperson.
	Mr Verster, in the Harms Commission it was your attitude and also your evidence that the Omar and Evans incidents were only monitoring incidents, is that correct?

MR VERSTER: That's correct, Chairperson.

MR WESSELS: Did you only ...(inaudible)

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike.

MR WESSELS: ... when you on page 1590 admitted that it might have been the case that it was an attempted murder?

MR VERSTER: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR WESSELS: Your point of view appears from the record and after that you were then asked by the Chairperson, Judge Harms, specifically on page 191(sic), that if the files are available, it could be to prove your innocence.  In other words, to corroborate what you are saying, that it was only a monitoring.

CHAIRPERSON: Which pages were these?

MR WESSELS: Page 1591.

MR VERSTER: That is correct.