Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-23

MR WILLS: I put it to you that you could have done it in such a way that the ANC didn't believe a word he said.  But let's move on.

CHAIRPERSON: Where were these interrogations by members of 20?

J A STEYN: Chairperson, this was at the safe-houses where they were detained.

CHAIRPERSON: And where did they come from?

J A STEYN: They came from Pretoria, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: What is 20?

J A STEYN: It is a unit that when arrests had been made in the regions, then this unit came to interrogate the people b means of photo recognitions to establish where certain trained people had been that had left the country.  What the position of people were.

CHAIRPERSON: And from Head Quarters, who came?

J A STEYN: Chairperson, if I can remember correctly it was Daan van der Berg, I think Paul van Dyk, I have, I did read it somewhere in the past two days, or made a note of it, I can't remember, but there were more than two, Chairperson, more than two people.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, for your assistance, it's paragraph 35 of Exhibit D.

CHAIRPERSON: And they would all know who they were interrogating?

J A STEYN: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So all these people, who did they come to interrogate?  Ndaba and Shabalala?

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: So all these people knew that Ndaba and Shabalala were in your custody at a safe-house?

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: And presumably entries were made in connection with Ndaba when he was arrested and taken to C R Swart Square?

J A STEYN: Chairperson, the persons of C20 who did this interrogation were under the impression that these people were not arrested.

CHAIRPERSON: No, but I'm just talking - a separate item, we have been told that an askari arrested Ndaba, he took him to C R Swart Square, various policemen were phone up and told that a senior terrorist was in detention there and they went there to see him?

J A STEYN: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: I presume that entries would have been made in the occurrence book at C R Swart Square, when a man who had been properly arrested, had been brought there.

J A STEYN: I think entries had been made at C R Swart.

CHAIRPERSON: So there was a lot of indication about these people.  You refused to tell your seniors that you had these people in your custody, but these other men knew about it, they'd been there, they'd spoken to them.

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson, they saw them to ask questions...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Presumably of all the information they got.

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson, with the understanding that these are informers.  These people had come back and these people had information that they could gain.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and they knew who they were, you have told me.

J A STEYN: That's correct, I'm talking about C20.

CHAIRPERSON: And HQ.

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson.  The members on the scene at the safe-house knew who they were handling.

CHAIRPERSON: And the people who came down from Pretoria to interview them, knew who they were.

J A STEYN: That is exactly the people that I am referring to.

CHAIRPERSON: I can't understand why you were so secretive and said you wouldn't tell anybody you had them there, you wouldn't tell de Beer you had them.

J A STEYN: Chairperson, we accepted and this was a normal practice that these people doing the interrogation at a safe-house would not go and talk about it in a loose way, not under those circumstances.

CHAIRPERSON: Well did you think de Beer, an officer appointed by, as a National Intelligence Unit, would talk about it?

J A STEYN: No, I would not say that he would have spoken about it, but if he had have known the whole truth, that prosecutions wouldn't have happened, then it would have influenced his investigation.

CHAIRPERSON: But what I can't understand this is what - some investigators were allowed in to come and talk to them, other investigators you decided, you yourself and Botha, you weren't even going to tell the other investigators that they were there and available.

J A STEYN: That's correct, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: And this is in the course and scope as your duty as a policeman?

J A STEYN: That's how I saw it.

CHAIRPERSON: You decide who shall be entitled to talk to potential witnesses.

J A STEYN: At that stage, that was the attitude that I had, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Chair, if I could just follow up on one thing that I'm not clear about.  General, did these people from C20 come down specially for this, to speak to these two chaps?

J A STEYN: No, Chairperson, as far as I can remember, they were busy with other people.  If the other people that they'd been busy with at that stage were there and if they had just finished with them, I cannot remember at this point, but I do know that they were not there specifically.  If I remember correctly they weren't just there for these people.

MR LAX: You see, my recollection of Col Botha's evidence is it was purely coincidental that they happened to be at the safe-house and he thought he would allow them the opportunity in Ndaba's case on a, the English word escapes me, on a "vrywillige" basis, to talk to these people and see if he could add to their knowledge and obviously not in Shabalala's case, I doubt whether Shabalala would have volunteered the information, but again, these two people are kept in the same house.  It seems they went out of their way to give Shabalala the impression that Ndaba was actually an informer, just judging from the way in which he was questioned and the way Shabalala was held and it wouldn't have been very difficult for him to come to that conclusion.

J A STEYN: I accept this to be so, yes because on an occasion, Shabalala according to Botha, had also said this.

ADV BOSMAN: Can I just clear up one matter here Mr Wills, if you don't mind?  Col Steyn, please help me if I misunderstood you.  You said that the members of C20 had done the interrogation under presupposition that Ndaba and Shabalala were informers. That's how I have written it down.  Am I wrong?

J A STEYN: Normally this would have happened like this.  People, can I please explain Chairperson?  When we find someone who's been trained and we take him to a safe-house, then C20 gets the opportunity to talk to these people.  They would not know if these people had just returned, if they were informers and if they were in unlawful detention but they would get the opportunity to speak to these people.

ADV BOSMAN: So did I then indeed understand you correctly that they had thought that both these people were informers?

J A STEYN: They could have understood it like this, Chairperson.

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Steyn, it is not logical to me.  If Shabalala had not been an informer and he was not prepared to co-operate, because this is what the evidence indicates up to now, how could they have thought that he was an informer?

J A STEYN: Chairperson, can I please explain?  These people do the interrogation and irrespective of what they thought or did not think, they might have thought they were informers, they might have thought that these were people that we were unlawfully detaining, the fact is that their interest was to interrogate these people, to get the information that was important to them.  I cannot recall exactly how they saw it at that stage.  I did not even see any one of them at that stage, Botha negotiated with them.

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Steyn I will not take this much further, I just want to put it to you that I cannot understand why you say that they had gone from the presupposition that these people were informers.

J A STEYN: The fact that they were in a safe place and not at a police station as we had done a lot in the past, could have created the impression that these people were informers that were being interrogated.  This happened a lot.

MR WILLS: Is this a convenient time, Mr Chairperson?