Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-23

MR LAX: The point of the question is, why would he tell your people that that was his intention when he knew that immediately that was signing his own death warrant?  He must have known that as an experienced operator.  That's the question that you're being asked.  Do you understand what I'm saying?  Why would he tell you that he was going to take his chances with the ANC which would automatically mean that in your eyes he becomes a threat?  Do you see the point?

J A STEYN: I think I understand.

MR LAX: He's a senior person, an experienced operator, we're not talking about some foot soldier.

J A STEYN: He could have done anything once leaving our hands, he could have given any information and he could have revealed several different things.  By telling us that, by telling us that he'd rather take his chances with the ANC, well that was a possibility and it could have turned out that way.  Once again we didn't have the control to be able to say and to assume that that is what would happen.

CHAIRPERSON: When he told you that you then decided to kill him?  You had the control to do that.

J A STEYN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, the question that's been put to you in various ways is surely he must have realised that if he told you he was prepared to throw away being an informer and go back to the ANC, you would not be very happy about it.

J A STEYN: That's correct.

MS POSWA: I want to put it to you Mr Steyn that this is highly improbable that, in the circumstances, you should have quite queried this, I mean this would have been a cause for concern if Mr Botha raises such an allegation, weren't you concerned?  I mean, in your experience and your own experience now, had things like that happened before?  Would an informer just tell you, "Look here, I've been arrested, I may be found out, I'm going back to the ANC"?

J A STEYN: Yes, it had happened.

MS POSWA: So you didn't find anything strange in that?

J A STEYN: Strange in which way?

MS POSWA: Mr Chairman, I just don't want to belabour the point because I don't know whether the applicant doesn't want to answer or he doesn't quite understand what is being said here.

J A STEYN: I am prepared to answer, if I understand the question.

CHAIRPERSON: He had answered.

MS POSWA: Okay, I'll move on.  And then did you then, when Botha gave you this information, did you impress upon him the importance of Ndaba and the importance of reserving him as your informant, when he told you that Ndaba is unstable?

J A STEYN: That's correct.  From the start I told Botha to do everything possible to keep Shabalala quiet and to try and see whether we could reach a good solution.

CHAIRPERSON: You mean Ndaba?

ADV BOSMAN: ...(indistinct - talking simultaneously with Chairperson)

CHAIRPERSON: The interpreter gave it up as Shabalala. Ndaba.

MS POSWA: So when was it you talked, on the 14th of July, if my memory serves me correctly?

J A STEYN: That's correct.

MS POSWA: And in that meeting and at that meeting you still were saying that Mr Botha should try and change Ndaba's mind-set?

J A STEYN: Yes that was discussed.

MS POSWA: And the same evening he's murdered?

J A STEYN: Are you referring to the 14th?

MS POSWA: Yes.

J A STEYN: No, I can't recall, I was only informed on the 16th that he'd been eliminated.

MR LAX: Perhaps I can help you General.  You had a meeting with Botha on the morning of the 14th where you gave him specific instructions to try and get his head right.

J A STEYN: That's correct.

MR LAX: And where the innuendo we seem to understand, the innuendo was that if he didn't get his head right, he should be despatched.

J A STEYN: At that stage I think Botha and I agreed on that aspect.

MR LAX: The question you're being asked is why was the decision to kill him made so quickly when you had suggested that he give him an opportunity to get his head right?  Have I put it correctly, Adv Poswa?

MS POSWA: Yes, thank you.

J A STEYN: This discussion between Botha and myself was on the 14th and on my return from Pretoria on the 16th I got the information that he had been eliminated.  I don't think it was the same day that the elimination took place, on the 14th, I think it probably took place on the 15th, but I'm not sure.

MR LAX: I'll help you, it was on the night, that very same night, that evening they took them up to Tugela Mouth and sometime during the course of that night they were executed and dumped in the river.

J A STEYN: I accept that.

MS POSWA: I feel again here's another inconsistency.  At this stage here, you have this man who has given you a wealth of information that has been taken up to the Commissioner of Police, at a stage at which you yourselves claim  that you would then be able to have an upper hand in the negotiations.  Then you just do not give him time to work things out and sort himself out, you quickly just get rid of him.

J A STEYN: The last discussion I had with Botha was on the 14th and I told him to try and do the bet that he could.  I didn't tell Botha to eliminate him that evening, but by implication I agreed to the elimination although I don't think a date could be attached to it.

MS POSWA: Mr Steyn I want to say that there are so many inconsistencies in this story, it's really very difficult to believe which or what is what.  Now when did you become aware of Ndaba and Shabalala's elimination?  You said on the 16th?

J A STEYN: Yes.

MS POSWA: What did you do with this information?

J A STEYN: We kept it a secret.

MS POSWA: You did not inform your superiors?

J A STEYN: No, never.

MS POSWA: What was your legal duty in the circumstances?  What would have been normal or the usual channel that you would follow once you had this information in your hands as head of the Security unit?

J A STEYN: If it had come to my attention that somebody had committed a murder or committed an offence, it was my normal police duty to make that known.  I didn't do that.
The position was that these people were in detention and they were killed and either I had to go along with what had happened, or I had to reveal it and I decided, or I chose not to reveal it.

MS POSWA: So you were not acting within the course of your duties by concealing these deaths?

J A STEYN: I thought in this whole process that I had acted, in the circumstances, that I'd acted within the course and scope of my duties.

MS POSWA: Mr Steyn, you've just told me what you were supposed to be doing and you say you did something totally different, in fact you did nothing.  Now could that be said to be in the course of your duties?

J A STEYN: The fact that I didn't mention it,  the fact that I kept that to myself, I believed in those circumstances to be the correct procedure.

MS POSWA: Now at this stage the negotiations are continuing.

J A STEYN: That's correct.

MS POSWA: You have said here in your evidence, both you and Mr Botha, that you felt that you needed to strengthen the position of the National Party in the negotiations by concealing these arrests and subsequent murders.  Not so?

J A STEYN: Yes.  the revelation of that fact would, in my view, have changed the entire situation in the sense that the negotiations were at a fairly advanced stage and if these eliminations were made known it could jeopardise the situation.

MS POSWA: But the ANC was asking after these people.  They were at the negotiating table and they were asking the National Party, the party which you support, now where are Charles and Shabalala?  Would it not have been better to produce them at the stage whilst they were still being detained unlawfully, or did you knot exacerbate things by actually then just murdering them?  You made matters worse for the National Party, to my mind.

MS POSWA: Not at that stage because nobody knew it at that stage.  We concealed that fact, we kept it a secret.

MS POSWA: And you were certain it would never come out?

J A STEYN: I beg your pardon?