Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-03-30

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know Mr Chairperson, I don't know what Mr Goosen had in mind, I don't know what his reasons were why we were supposed to do that.

CHAIRPERSON: You are now asked or rather let us assume that what you are saying is correct, that Mr Goosen said to you what you should say and write.  He actually asked you to contravene the law and to commit perjury?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Why didn't you question that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I repeat, you must go and look at the culture and the background of the Security Police of the time.  We can't today judge the incident in isolation and seen in that context, it would have been impossible for me as a Sergeant, to question a superior.  A Colonel was quite a superior rank and had to be treated with respect.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I can understand that.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That kind of milieu that we were operating in, you couldn't question orders.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand that if something wrong had been done, and Mr Goosen came and fabricated a version which would get you out of trouble, but on your version now, it appears that you were not of the opinion that the Security Police had contributed in any way to Mr Biko's death.
	In other words is your version is that it was virtually an accident, so in those circumstances why didn't you say to Goosen, why should we tell these lies, if the truth would be good enough?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: The date had been changed.  No medical attention had been given to the detainee, those are the things that were issues Chairperson, which we had to consider.

GEORGE BIZOS: But, you see Colonel Goosen had a letter in his file from the Doctor, that there was nothing wrong with him, there was nothing wrong with Mr Biko, so he had already covered himself in relation to this.  Why was it necessary, not only to lie about the date, which may be a part of - if perjury can be categorised, would have been a lie within narrow limits, why the other lies?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.  I wasn't present when Goosen and Lang spoke to each other.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, but we have it from the evidence of Mr Snyman, that the composite story was given by Colonel Goosen and then parrot like the whole lot of you repeated that false story.
	Is the Committee not entitled to infer from your evidence, that once a web of lies was made up, there must have been very serious things that you had to hide?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.  What I have been saying here today, is the truth and nothing but the truth.  There is nothing else.

GEORGE BIZOS: You haven't perhaps thought overnight how all of you managed, and the reason why in this parrot version, no mention whatsoever is made of Mr Biko having banged his head against the wall?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: I am going to put to you that that fact alone shows that you and your colleagues have not come clean to this and the other Committee that heard the applications.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, may I just - my learned friend says he makes no mention of Mr Biko anywhere.  Is my learned friend perhaps, are you referring to the application or to the earlier statements?

GEORGE BIZOS: No, I specifically said Mr Chairman, the parrot version.

ADV BOOYENS: No, sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, will you repeat the question please.

GEORGE BIZOS: The problem that I have, that I have a short memory for short ...

ADV BOOYENS: My learned friend's question My Lord, and I will take responsibility for it, is why did none of them in fact in the parrot fasion questions, in other words the questions induced by Goosen, make the statement that Mr Biko bumped his head against the wall.  I think that ...

GEORGE BIZOS: That was the question.

ADV BOOYENS: I don't know whether that was a parrot version of my learned friend's question.

GEORGE BIZOS: (Indistinct) and I am indebted to him for his assistance, Mr Chairman.  Would you mind answering the question?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is why I said what I said here today is the truth, and that is why I included that, because we omitted to mention all of that, to mislead the inquest court, and that is the perjury which was committed.
	That was my view, to mislead the inquest court and the Doctors.

GEORGE BIZOS: You see, were your statements taken by anybody or were you allowed to write your own in accordance with Goosen's story telling ability?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was Goosen who told us what to do, and we signed the statements, and it was sent up to Pretoria.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but the question is who drafted the document which you signed?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Each one of us wrote out our own statements, Goosen checked it.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you, Mr Snyman, Mr Siebert, Mr Marx, Mr Beneke, once you were going to write a false story, surely you must have consulted amongst yourselves to make sure that you didn't get the fairy tale dictated by Mr Goosen, was misrepresented along the way.
	You checked each other's versions, did you?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: In checking these versions, surely each one of you or at least one of the five, must have said - hey, there is a true fact that we can incorporate in this version which will be of great help to us, he knocked his head against the wall.  In this consultation process amongst the five of you that knew the facts, didn't one of them think that this was self-serving fact which if it did happen, would help the cause of both the Security Police, yourselves, and the country?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, I think so.  If I think back to the matter now, but we didn't do it in that way.  It was specifically omitted.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying it was specifically omitted?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: The fact that he knocked his head against the wall, who told you that it should be omitted?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Mr Goosen.

CHAIRPERSON: Did he say that that specific fact should be omitted from the statement?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Are you now telling us that at the meeting of Saturday morning, Colonel Goosen said don't make any mention of the fact that Mr Biko knocked his head against the wall?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: That is something new I think from the whole lot of you, all five of you, but let's examine it.
	If he said that, how many people were at this meeting by the way?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was the five of us and Goosen.  It was myself, Siebert, Snyman, Marx, Beneke.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who else was there?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: And Goosen, that is as far as I can remember.

CHAIRPERSON: Who discussed this fact with Mr Goosen which led him to say leave this fact out?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know, it must have been decided beforehand amongst the Officers, I wasn't present when that was decided.
	Why I am saying that is the fact that two weeks afterwards, Mr Goosen called us in again and asked us whether any one of us had seen any marks on Mr Biko, any wounds.  He then also said that apparently Mr Biko had injured himself in the prison and Wilken then said, yes, he had noticed the mark when he was guarding him.
	So as far as I can recall, he was the only one who made a statement to that effect.  That is why none of us made a statement saying that we had seen that scar.

CHAIRPERSON: When did Mr Goosen say that this fact, the fact of Mr Biko's head knocking against the wall, should be omitted from the statement?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was on the first Saturday.

CHAIRPERSON: How long after the incident did that meeting on the Saturday take place?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I think it was about two weeks afterwards, a week or two weeks, I am not exactly sure.

CHAIRPERSON: How did the issue of Mr Biko's head knocking against the wall, how did that arise on that meeting of the Saturday?