Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-03

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Sir, I possibly said that to the investigating team, I was in a Section 29 situation.  If I stated it, I ask you once again for the opportunity to amend it by saying that I told them that my exclusive purpose at the scene was to detonate the bomb.

GEORGE BIZOS: You did not, in answer to my question previously, say it is possible, you said that you had a definite recollection that this is what you told the investigating officers.  You see, it's no good answering "dis moontlik", I will not accept that as an answer for the things that you have specifically said.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: If I stated it and they did not embody it within my affidavit, it cannot not hold water.  I was under pressure, I signed what was given to me and that is the matter.

GEORGE BIZOS: Oh, are you now saying that things were omitted from your statement, material things were omitted from your statement and you signed it in ignorance of that omission?  Is that what you are now saying?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No, that's not what I said.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well what are you saying?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I say that I told the investigating team that my share in the entire project was merely to detonate the bomb, to ensure that the bomb went off.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, if I could just ask a question.
	This statement here, Mr Botha, under what circumstances was it made?  I know it was in Section 29, but were you sitting across the table from the investigating officer or were you given a piece of paper and told to go into your cell and write it?  Did it take three weeks to write, did it take half an hour to write?  If you could just give us ...

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Honourable Chairperson, I'm not precisely certain how long it took to write it, they used various methods, among others, they came to interrogate me and then made notes, they also asked me to put certain things in writing in the privacy of my cell and upon another occasion I sat with them and sat across the investigating officer, where he was also taking notes.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, so it was taken over a period of time, some of it was written by yourself privately, some of it was in response to answers given to questions?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is how I recall it.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well you see what I'm going to put to you is the fact that it does not appear is clear that you didn't tell them.  Would you accept that as a general proposition?  You couldn't have told them, because it isn't there.  Would you accept that?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I will stand by the fact that it was a Section 29 statement which was made under pressure, and I wasn't certain of what I said to them regarding this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well why didn't you say that earlier when I asked you whether you had told them what the purpose of the bomb was?  Why didn't you say that: "I don't remember, I was under pressure, it was Section 29, I don't remember"?  Why do you change your evidence when the ridiculous nature of your evidence comes home to you when the document is shown to you?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It was not my intention, I must have expressed myself incorrectly.

GEORGE BIZOS: Expressing oneself incorrectly may be in relation to a phrase, may be in relation to a time, may be in relation to some other minor aspects, how can one express oneself incorrectly in relation to the very important issue as to what the purpose of the bomb was?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: My objective with the bomb was to detonate it, that was my objective.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well I won't repeat the question, it's obvious that you don't want to answer it.
	Now may I suggest to you that the reason why there is nothing in it, is because you didn't know what the other participants of this crime were going to say, you didn't know what Van Zyl had said or might say and you did not know what Hardien had said or might say and this is why you kept quiet on this very issue.  What do you say to that?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It didn't matter to me what they said, I knew according to what was said to me, what I was supposed to do and it didn't matter to me what Mr van Zyl or Mr Hardien said.

GEORGE BIZOS: Would you agree that your case would have been substantially more favourably viewed if the intention was not to injure or kill anybody?  Would you agree with that?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes, but that's debatable.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well why is the obvious so debatable?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I don't view it as the obvious, Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: In your capacity as a policeman, didn't you ask people: "Why did you shoot, why did you pull the knife, why did this happen or why did that happen"?  Isn't that an obvious question to ask?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes, it must be.

GEORGE BIZOS: And isn't it obvious for people to give a less serious intent for doing what they would have to admit they did than a more serious one?  Is that not obvious?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I don't think that this is less serious, but the point of the matter is that I had an SPM Russian manufactured limpet mine in my possession, I set off a bomb in an urban area, I was part of a project which was aimed at detonating a bomb in a residential area, so I cannot think that it was less serious.  It's all the same to me.  To my knowledge this was what I knew, I was supposed to detonate the bomb, I was to ensure that the bomb went off.  Any one of those.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well you made yourself guilty of the explosion of a bomb, you made yourself guilty of the laws that Parliament had passed and by a government to which you were so loyal, that would be tantamount to an act of terrorism.  Would you agree with that?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes, that is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now wouldn't it have been the obvious things to say: "But we never intended to injure anybody, we only wanted to frighten them"?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is why the answer in my statement states expressly that I was a member of a State organisation which authorised it and within our framework legalised it.

GEORGE BIZOS: But you know, this is nonsense that you thought that it was lawful, why did you want to keep it away from the police?  Why did you lie, why did you defeat the ends of justice, why did Gen Krappies Engelbrecht tell you that he would use his good offices in order to defeat the ends of justice?  What nonsense is this about legality?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: It is fear, fear brings about that one doesn't talk about this class of thing.  There were two different structures within the State, the Defence Force and the Police, who at times would be one another's arch enemies.

GEORGE BIZOS: You say that you were merely employed to push the button, to provide the - to take the bomb and press the button, is that what your function was going to be?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: No, that is not what I have said.

GEORGE BIZOS: What was your function?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Within my framework my function was to accompany Mr van Zyl and to ensure that the limpet mine would safely reach its destination, to activate it, to arm it, as I said yesterday, to prepare it for the final phase before it's detonation.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let me put it in your own words.  Do you agree that arming the bomb is rendering assistance to the person who commits the crime or exploding a bomb, that you were his accomplice?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Yes, Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: And did you exercise any personal discretion as to whether this act should be committed against this property for one reason or another, or did you merely blindly follow what Staal Burger had told you and what Van Zyl was going to do?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: "Blindly follow" is a bit strongly put, I was in an organisation where one would receive an instruction and I carried out the instruction.