Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You received a BMW318i and R30 000 was paid for that vehicle, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You received a housing allowance?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You received production bonuses?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You had an expense account in the sense that money was given to you to stay in hotels, go out on meals and so on and so forth?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You were given money to set up a business and you were told that you personally could keep the profits from that business?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You were paid a 13th cheque?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is indeed so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, in the absence of these financial inducements, I want to put it to you that you would never have given up your career in the South African Police Force in order to assume the risk of becoming a political assassin?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, a better offer was made to me and that was through the Army and this was a simple business decision that I took.

MR KAHANOVITZ: All right.  Also, another factor that played on your mind at the time was that the Police wanted to transfer you away from Brixton Murder and Robbery, out of Johannesburg, to work at Pietermaritzburg, correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is indeed so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: This dealt, this was about an incident where Jack le Grange and van der Merwe were accused of murder and van der Merwe would have alleged to the then Attorney General, Claus von Lieres, that he conveyed certain messages to me which was not true, and I was approached in that regard and I told Mr von Lieres that the statements that van der Merwe was making, were false and because of that I was not prepared to testify about it, and because of my refusal to testify in court that he deemed it necessary to contact Gen Stan Schutte and tell him that there was a breach of trust between the two Officers and because of that, I could not work at Brixton any longer.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, if you are asked as a policeman by the Attorney General to come and give evidence at a criminal prosecution, how can you refuse?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I did not say that I was not prepared, what I said was I was not prepared to testify in his court, to tell him what he wanted to hear, I will tell him what the truth is, but that what I wanted to testify about, was not what he wanted to hear about.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Are you saying that Adv von Lieres was trying to put pressure on you to come and perjure yourself in the court of law?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, that is not what I am saying.  What he told me was that a statement was made by van der Merwe, which I denied and the mere fact that I denied that statement, he did not place any pressure afterwards on me to say that he would force me to come and testify in court,  he left me.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr van Zyl, isn't it so that the authorities in the Police Force, were of the view that you were unwilling to come and give incriminatory evidence against your former colleagues from the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit and for that reason, they decided to punish you by transferring you to Pietermaritzburg?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is an inference that is drawn, this was never factually proven.  I deny it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: What was the inference that you drew about the fact that they were transferring you against your will to Pietermaritzburg?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I felt that it was unfair.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Why did you think they were doing it?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Because of the inference that you made now, yes, that is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So a further advantage that you had in joining the CCB was that you would be able to remain in Johannesburg, which is where you wanted to be?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, bundle A, page 87, paragraph 22 you deal with the training course that you attended when you joined the CCB and you say that you were told that you would be indemnified against prosecution.
	Paragraph 22 you say -
"... I also wish to state that during the course the Managing Director put to us that we would be indemnified from prosecution for any acts of violence which we may commit during the execution of approved projects and we had to see to it that our actions could not be traced back to the Army."
	Correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you believe this as a policeman?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes, I was naive enough at that stage, to believe it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But just explain to me, you know how the mechanics, you were well aware how the mechanics of a prosecution would occur.  Let's take any hypothetical situation - the CCB commits a crime inside the country, diligent policemen come along, they discover who is responsible, they prepare a case docket, they hand it to the Attorney General, the Attorney General decides to prosecute.  What now?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Will you repeat the question please.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I am trying to, you are saying you were naive enough to believe that you were indemnified.  I am asking you to explain your statement.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It is quite simple as this, Mr Chairperson, at that stage, I was 26 years old.  In my opinion just about every member of the Army and the then structures of the Police Force and other structures were brainwashed and were brainwashed by the government and what the government advocated and so forth, and I think it was naive and if you would table the same proposition today to me, I would not accept it.  I cannot explain it any better.
	At that stage I was aware of how the prosecution structures worked and the investigative structures worked, but that is what I believed at that stage.  I think that it is no secret certainly that in most countries of the world, organisations like the CCB existed and probably still exists and that over the course of time, they look after those people so that those people are not exposed to any prosecution.
	So it is in that light that I felt that we would be indemnified from any prosecution.

MR KAHANOVITZ: I would have assumed at this course, you as a policeman with several years of experience at that stage, would have wanted to ask Col Verster a number of questions about the mechanics of this indemnity?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I did not do this.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Are you suggesting that in a country such as South Africa, or in other countries, there are some secret laws that no one knows about, that indemnity people who commit murders on behalf of their governments?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I do not think that one could qualify it as secret legislature, but I think there are secret structures who make this possible, yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You see, I can understand if your evidence was that you believed that the docket might disappear or that pressure would be put on the Attorney General to make sure that no one was prosecuted, but I don't understand your evidence where you say that you honestly believed that people would be indemnified against prosecution.
	Do you understand the distinction between the two?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Technically I do understand the word indemnify.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, you were told at this course that the South African Police would not be able to act against the kind of people who were going to be your targets and do I correctly assume this is because the Police were not supposed to break people's windows or murder them?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.  And I referred furthermore Chairperson, that no evidence existed against those persons that would have enabled the Police to act legally against them, in other words to arrest and prosecute them.