Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-25

MR PHOSA: I understand you but you see I have families here that say: "That person would be abusing this process if he's given pardon" so that it why I'm questioning you in spite of what you say.  I understand why you do it, it's your right in terms of the law but there are certain conditions and the families say: "Please try and expose that person, he doesn't deserve it", do you understand me? - now this is what I'm trying to do.
	Now you said de Kock - you think you're convicted ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Haven't we dealt enough, you've exposed that he lied to the court, he pleaded not guilty when he knew he was guilty, he tried to get away with it and then he only took the amnesty way out in the end.

MR PHOSA: I just want to talk about de Kock, just quickly in passing Mr Chairperson.
	De Kock's aspect - I'm mean his information, did it emerge whilst your case was still going on, whilst it was still at the evidence stage?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, you see it was after the State had closed it's case that they brought de Kock and then they re-opened the case of the State.

MR PHOSA: Right, now I am just raising de Kock's position to ask another aspect.  Now when de Kock came up - perhaps I should just ask a question before that.  Were you ever sorry before you were charged with the Motherwell case, were  you ever sorry about what you had done?  Did you ever feel: "I have done a terrible thing by killing the two people here, Mthimkhulu and Madaka" - before that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I did feel sorry Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: And that was worrying you a lot.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: And then the Motherwell thing came after that, isn't it?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so.

MR PHOSA: In spite of your great concern and worry, you went on and killed the Motherwell people.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: And those two - the Motherwell people included your colleagues?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so.

MR PHOSA: I act on ...[inaudible] now, just stop me if I'm wrong and media - you killed your colleagues because you thought they were a danger to you in that they might spill out the beans?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: Well, I don't want to go into details about that but why did you kill them - your colleagues?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Because they had gone over to the liberation movement, they had put out feelers and they had already been recruited.  That's in short what happened and this is the conflict of toppling the apartheid Government by violence.

MR PHOSA: I don't want to go deep into that because I believe it's coming up.  Now, as far as de Kock was concerned then, wasn't that a golden opportunity for you to say: "Well de Kock is now exposing this, would my conscience - I must now clear it up and admit in court"?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Phosa, it's quite clear he had no such feelings.  He hasn't pretended he had.

ADV SANDI: He didn't want to go to jail, he's made it very clear.

MR PHOSA: Maybe I should be taking the obvious.  Now, you know why I'm putting this to the annoyance of even the Committee, it's because I am suggesting to you that at all times when you firstly you decided to kill these young people and when later you did not disclose your action to anybody - these two young people here, it was because you did not want to be convicted.  I'll tell you to save you time, in the first instance you feared that you might be convicted of poising them?  Your answer?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: But when you had killed them you obviously did not want to be convicted, you wouldn't like to be convicted would you - after you had killed them?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It may be so but everything that I believed at that stage when I committed the deed - the crime, was that it was a matter of the conflict of the past and that's the way I saw it.

MR PHOSA: No, we'll talk about that.  You have now killed these two people, you know very well that if you get arrested and it's get discovered that you've killed them you will be charged, if you're convicted you'll be given a severe sentence.  Wasn't that the case?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: And naturally, not because you're Nieuwoudt but because you're a human being you would not have wanted the consequences of that conviction.  In other words, the sentence that would follow up - that would follow that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It is so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: So, in your answer then as to why you're making an application there must surely be the aspect also that you would not like to languish in prison, isn't that so?

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Phosa, isn't the requirement that we had - we will have to deal with is his motivation for committing the offence, not his motivation for applying for amnesty?  The latter is irrelevant.  The first one is the one that we should actually deal with and that was what you said in your opening remarks,  the grounds on which you're opposing.

MR PHOSA: I'm not so sure in my mind that when determining the motive for the action, one can overlook the possible motive for the application because if it is quite clear that his reason for applying now is simply to save his skin, he might well look for a reason to qualify when in fact he doesn't qualify.  I don't understand why a person who does not want to suffer the consequences of an ordinary criminal action might not falsely create a political reason.

ADV DE JAGER: He may falsely create the political reason but we're still back to the time when he committed the action, that was, what was his motive then,  not what was his motive when he signed the application.

MR PHOSA: I'm going to have - if it's being argued like this by people before me, I'm going to differ.  I submit with respect, that if a person - if it can be shown that the applicant in fact is not concerned with anything else but just saving his skin - he was involved in a criminal case but he knows that he can't say: "I was involved in a criminal case".  In order to save his skin he's got to say it was political and ...[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: Okay Mr Phosa, I understand your point of view and I think you're entitled to argue that but let's leave it for argument and let's in the meantime continue.

MR PHOSA: I must - two things, I must get the evidence from him, secondly I must give him the opportunity.  I may be wrong - yes.
	Now Mr Nieuwoudt, I think I stopped at the point where - I got the impression you were about to concede this, namely that indeed you are concerned about the consequences that might befall you if you were to be convicted for killing these two persons?  Now I think that's logical, others have admitted it.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: The Government under which - the Government that you were purporting to protect had created laws which did not permit you as a policemen - even a security policeman, even as a Nationalist Party supporter, to murder people, you know that.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: There was not Act of Law that stipulated it as such Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: Sorry, I misunderstood - stipulated what?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: There was not Act that stipulated this, which prescribed this.

ADV DE JAGER: You mean there was no Act that permitted you to commit murder?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: From the Government's side, yes that's correct.

MR PHOSA: When we come to your political - for your other background, we'll come to that but am I wrong in saying that to your knowledge - let's just answer what we can, is it not correct that the laws that you knew of forbade you from killing other persons - that's simple?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, that is so Mr Chairperson.