Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-03-27

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, no.  This letter has got nothing to do with the matters which are placed before you.  It is, they have to do with a matter in which I am still awaiting trial and will still be dealt with then. They have nothing to do with the two matters which I have testified about before you.  They have to do with the murder of three totally independent people apart from these.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Then we must leave it there.

MR DE RU: Please, Sir, I will appreciate it a lot.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Mr Chair, with respect, do I hear the Chair to be saying that I can continue on this letter?  Thank you, thank you.  Mr de Ru, I read to you that first paragraph on page two, I want your comment to - your response to that.

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, it is as my version before you was, if I read, if I could read it for you.  Reference is made to my modus operandi, people were taken out and sort of put in a position where they, it was to look like an escape where junior members were present, but once again, as I said, Mr Becker did not have the true version.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Okay, the very following paragraph, still paragraph three, but the shorter one, I will read for convenience,
"I can under no circumstances imagine that these deeds can be so construed as to indicate that they were done with a political motive.  The deceased were, at worst, common criminals, but were entitled to a fair trial.  Mr de Ru acted as a judge, juror and executioner to rid society of them.  No political motive was involved".
What is your comment on that?

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, my reply is, again, like the previous paragraph, that Mr Becker did not have the true facts at his disposal.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: But, Mr de Ru, that objection was raised by your representative and was responded to accordingly that you stated it before this Committee that the evidence given by the State witnesses, who were 204 witnesses, Nel, Pienaar and Hammond, they told the truth of what happened in court.  So he knew the facts.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr Mpshe, I do not think you are on the same wavelength with the witness.  Those people might have told the truth of what happened, but they were just describing what happened, what took place at the scene, but they did not tell the court about the motive which the applicant is now telling us about, and I think this is the point the applicant is trying to make when he says that Mr Becker did not have knowledge of the truth.  He means the truth as regards to the objective that he is now articulating to us.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: I am indebted to you, Sir.  Thank you for that.  Mr Chairman, Mr Chairman, that will conclude my questioning on the witness.  Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MPSHE

JUDGE WILSON: Before you re-examine, there is one question I would like to clarify and that is the second man whom you have told us you shot, who told you that he was, had committed this offence?  As I understand the statement, you
were told that there had been an attack, a robbery and you were asked to take this man out to point out certain spots.

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, if I understood you correctly, you wanted to know who was the one that said that he had committed the offence?

JUDGE WILSON: Yes.

MR DE RU: Warrant Officer Herbst.

JUDGE WILSON: And he, did he do anything that made you believe that was correct?  I am now talking about the deceased.

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, I am not sure if I understand the question very well.

JUDGE WILSON: Did the deceased, in the second case, do anything to satisfy you that he had, in fact, committed the offence.

MR DE RU: Definitely, your Lordship.

JUDGE WILSON: What?

MR DE RU: He illustrated points to me in the house of the person at No. 71 Wag 'n Bietjie Street in Kragbron.  He pointed out a window to me, he pointed out a bedroom to me, he pointed out a little bedside cupboard in which a firearm was, he pointed out a mark against the wall which he had struck with the knife.

JUDGE WILSON: So you told us all about these details in the first case about how the man pointed out the things in the house, but you made no mention of them in the second case.  Similarly, in this second case he pointed out things inside the house which indicated to you that he had been there at the relevant time?  You have pointed where he made a mark on the wall with the knife.

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, I testified that he did point out
these things to me.  I did not give them in detail because I did not deem it to be necessary at this point.

JUDGE MGOEPE: So, on the strength of or rather on the basis of what each one of these deceased pointed out, you came to a judgment that he is guilty, he must have committed these offences?

MR DE RU: That is correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: And that he must die?

MR DE RU: That is correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: And that you should be the one to kill him?

MR DE RU: That was what was expected of me, Your Lordship.

JUDGE MGOEPE: So, the letter of the Attorney-General which said that you were the judge, the jury and the executioner, is correct?

MR DE RU: That is correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Is that how you understood your police duties?

MR DE RU: The way I understood my instructions from Colonel Voigt.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Tell me what these, precisely what these instructions are.

MR DE RU: He made me to understand that these people should not live.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Which people?

MR DE RU: The persons responsible for the attacks and murders on the aged and the farmers.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Did he, did he say that you should be the one to decide whether these people have, in fact, committed these offences?

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, the - at the stage they conveyed it to me, I accepted that they had already committed these
offences because they had already been arrested.  The identifications to me were mere confirmations that these were the right persons.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you understand your instructions from whoever gave you such instructions, to say that you need not have to go back to anybody to find out whether these people are, in fact, guilty, but you must just be the one, there and there on the spot, to decide whether they have, in fact, committed the offences?

MR DE RU: That is correct, your Lordship.  I believed that the people which Colonel Voigt let me know were involved or the people that were involved in the identifications were the correct persons.

JUDGE MGOEPE: What was your view, as an experienced policeman, about instructions by somebody who tells you that you must be the judge and the executioner of people?

MR DE RU: Your Lordship, I believed in what Voigt said to me and I believed that Voigt was giving the correct instructions in that regard.  I also saw in view of the fact that it was politically motivated.

JUDGE MGOEPE: On what basis did you think that they acted politically?

MR DE RU: Due to the fact, your Lordship, that they were, they went according to the slogans, "kill a farmer, kill a boer" and "one settler, one bullet", "one settler, one bullet" slogans and their targets would specifically have been farmers and aged persons, and these murders were designed to be shocking tactics and because these were soft targets and it was known to me that farmers and aged are, were soft targets to these people and that these attacks were launched against them because, with the intention of
making the country, the rural areas ungovernable.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Did, did you know any of these people you shot before?

MR DE RU: No, your Lordship.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you interrogate them before you shot them?