Amnesty Hearings

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Good morning everybody. We will now proceed with the evidence of Mr Barnard.

FERDINAND BARNARD: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Coetzee?

EXAMINATION BY MR COETZEE: (Cont)

Thank you Mr Chairman.

Mr Barnard, I would just like to take you back to the point of your evidence yesterday.

CHAIRPERSON: Just before you proceed, I see Mr Wessels is not here. Oh, is he there? Sorry Mr Wessels, I didn't notice you there, okay. Sorry, you may proceed.

MR COETZEE: Very well, Mr Barnard, yesterday you referred to your tasking with regard to Dr Webster and you also referred to Jay Naidoo, who was also assigned to you, the name of Jay Naidoo. Can you just explain to the Committee what the situation was and what you did with regard to Jay Naidoo?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I spent some time on Mr Naidoo's case, but not as much time as I spent on the Webster case, seeing as it was clearly stipulated to me that the chief priority at that point was David Webster, but what I did do and I am aware that I stated in a Section 29 affidavit that I followed Mr Naidoo to an address situated in Yeoville, Johannesburg, that is not the truth.

I obtained information of an address, it was 93 Hopkins Street, Yeoville. I went to reconnoitre the address, I observed the layout of the house, I wanted to see if there were any vehicles there. There was a block of flats near the house and if one went via the flats, one could view directly the situation of the house. I saw a yellow Ford Escort vehicle with the old Port Elizabeth registration number. I took the number down and at a certain point, subsequently I gave this information to Lafras Luitingh.

There was no further task which was assigned to me in this regard, and I kept myself busy with the Webster case.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, while we are on the Webster case, could we just return to that. After the Webster incident, during the Harms Commission and later during the formal post mortem inquest regarding Dr Webster's death, various proceedings took place, in which you were involved. If you could possibly just explain the nature of this to the Committee and if you could explain your conduct during the two judicial inquiries?

MR BARNARD: I didn't want to speak the truth with regard to any of the projects in which I had been involved. It was clear to me that I functioned in a completely different way and that I was also handled as such by the CCB. Because I have had liaison with Calla Botha and Slang van Zyl, they told me on a regular basis what was going on in their cell structure, what the pro forma was according to the formulation of matters, and it was a very rigid system.

My experience, however, was different. If I were to make amnesty applications with regard to this, it would mean that I would be turning against those in the system, such as Joe Verster and others, and I wouldn't have any backup. I would be standing completely alone, if they came to testify and they testified against me. All they would really have to do is to deny everything, and then I would be in hot water, left all by myself.

So I told lies to the Harms Commission and I lied during the post mortem inquest into the death of David Webster and at a certain stage, Joe Verster, after the appointment of the Harms Commission, sent a message to me via Lafras Luitingh and Luitingh told me that Joe had said that my attitude had to be tested, and that if my attitude appeared to be suitable, Joe Verster would request a meeting with me.

My attitude was favourable, I decided to speak to him, and we had a meeting a few days later in the Braamfontein Protea Hotel. Upon my arrival in the hotel, it was only Mr Verster who was in the particular room number which was given to me. We spoke for a while. He asked me, I could see that he was uncomfortable, perhaps he thought that I was bugging him or that he was bugging me. Things weren't that easy, but ultimately the discussion boiled down to Mr Verster asking me how much detail the South African Police had available, during my interrogation, how much they knew about the CCB, the activities of the CCB, what was already disclosed, what I had disclosed.

I made certain admissions to him in this regard, which were correct, according to my summation of it. Then Mr Verster said to me, he called me closer, because we stood some distance away from each other in the room, he called me closer and turned up the volume of the television in the room, he took a document out of his briefcase, he called me over and indicated to me with his finger on the document, without speaking. I read the document, but I cannot recall specifically whether it was an affidavit, but I suspect according to my recollection, that it had to do with a document that Mr Verster would present to the Harms Commission and the passage that he pointed out to me was about his denial of any involvement or knowledge with regard to the Webster incident. I nodded my head and then he said to me, that is my attitude, and then I left subsequently.

MR COETZEE: This was during the Harms Commission and later during the post mortem inquest, these two basically overlapped? Did you also assume the same viewpoint of denial?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct. I consistently denied that I had any knowledge of or involvement in the Webster incident. I had a tactic of distance, which started when I was locked up under Section 29. I was a former policeman and detective and I had investigated serious crimes. I realised when the interrogation was underway, while I was in isolation under Section 29, that I would have to distance myself from the CCB as far as I possibly could.

As things went by, I gave what I thought was a credible explanation which was of course, a fabrication, and what I said was that the CCB had made use of my services, but that during the Webster incident, I was no longer a member of the CCB, I used the problems with McQuillan and the incident to which has been referred, which took place at the Sandton Security Branch with Col Viktor and I conveyed this to the Investigating Team, in order to distance myself from the CCB. It was the most logical step for me, it suited me.

At a certain stage, as things developed into the future, it also suited the CCB that I had distanced myself from them, but that technique of distancing myself, no longer suits me today, because it was also not the truth.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, if we could proceed to the next project in which you were involved, and that would be the one matter for which you had requested amnesty, and it is the Omar Project.

If you could explain to the Honourable Committee, how you became involved and what you did and what your instructions were in this regard.

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I met Mr Slang van Zyl some time before the Omar incident, during the same year, I would say it was in the beginning of 1989 when I met him at the Witwatersrand Police Rugby Club.

At a certain stage I contacted him upon numerous occasions, we had telephonic conversations, ultimately we met in a restaurant if I recall correctly. It wasn't clear to him, but from the discussion we realised that both of us were working for the CCB. I also told him that I was working for them, and I told him that sometimes I would receive information which was favourable information and what basically happened, we decided to assist each other when we could.

Then it happened at a certain stage that Mr van Zyl requested me, and I don't know if this was his evidence, I think his evidence was that I approached him, but he approached me with regard to the Omar incident. I cannot recall where I saw him, but we discussed it and he told me that such a project had been registered, and it had been approved as a CCB project on the highest level, and that Adv Dullah Omar had to be assassinated.

At this point he also informed me that the persons who had already been tasked, had been provided with a Makarov pistol, fitted with a silencer and that the project had been pending for quite some time and that there had been problems in executing the problems and he wanted to know if I would be prepared to assist with the project.

I was never asked to monitor Dullah Omar, as has been the evidence here by Mr van Zyl. I was requested to go and kill Dullah Omar because the other persons had proven ineffective.

Arrangements were made between me and Mr van Zyl and I flew down to Cape Town, and booked in at the Inn on the Square. Shortly afterwards Mr van Zyl joined me in Cape Town, he briefed me further. A meeting took place with the coloured gang member, one Peaches Gordon. I think it was at the Cape Sun Hotel or some place nearby, it was in the evening.

Peaches Gordon departed after we had the discussion and he returned and in my presence he handed over a firearm to Slang van Zyl, a Makarov pistol with a silencer which he removed from a box. Slang van Zyl gave the Makarov and the silencer to me, I hid it in the ceiling of my hotel room. There was a later rendezvous later that night, or at least, it was the following day, I beg your pardon, the following day. There was another meeting between me, Gordon and van Zyl.

Peaches Gordon was instructed by van Zyl to take us to the residence of Adv Omar, which he did. He took us and identified a residence in Athlone to us. We were four persons, another person drove, a coloured person who was unknown to me, he was never introduced to me, then it was Slang van Zyl, me and Peaches Gordon. From that point onwards, I would be tasked with the murder of Adv Omar.

I established my own liaison with Peaches Gordon and asked him to steal a vehicle for me which I could use for the incident. I paid him R500-00. He undertook to have the vehicle available by the following day. The following morning, at approximately 10 o'clock, I rendezvoused with him a few blocks away from the hotel, in a parking area. He identified a vehicle to me, it was a Nissan product, cream coloured.

I gave him the R500-00 for the vehicle, but I first inspected the vehicle. It had an original key. When I climbed into the vehicle, I saw that the vehicle only had 2 600 kilometres on the speedometer. It smelt new on the inside. I saw that the speakers and the radio of the vehicle had been removed, which then necessitated me to ask Peaches Gordon where he had obtained the vehicle from. He told me that he and somebody else had taken the vehicle from a garage which sold vehicles, they took the vehicle on a test drive and kicked the driver of the vehicle out under way.

This didn't suit me for two reasons. Firstly I knew how the police surveillance system functioned, this was a hot vehicle, it wasn't a regular vehicle, because it was a stolen vehicle, and also because it was brand new and it would be easily identified. However, I took the vehicle from him and gave him the money and left him to go.

Later that afternoon, I took the same vehicle to Cape Town airport, I entered the airport parking area with that vehicle and parked it. I did this so that I could get the exit ticket for the vehicle, hung around there for a while until I found a suitable vehicle, I stole a Ford station wagon with a roof-carrier. It was in a reasonably good condition. I stole this from the parking area in the airport and departed back. I had done prior reconnaissance and I used a block of flats approximately one and a half kilometres away from the hotel where I was staying, because there were vehicles moving in and out day and night, I parked the vehicle there.

Once again I contacted Peaches Gordon. After I had obtained a vehicle which was similar to the vehicle in my movements, I found another vehicle of the same colour and the same fabrication and took the registration number and wrote it down. I found Peaches Gordon and when he arrived at me, I asked him to have a set of number plates made according to the number that I had given him. for this I gave him R300-00. He had them made and gave them to me.

I went and equipped the vehicle that I had stolen from the airport with the plates that I had ordered. Then the vehicle was operationally prepared. All of this took place during the first excursion to Adv Omar in the Cape. It was during July 1989.

I had consistent contact with Mr van Zyl via the telephone, I gave him reports of progress and so forth. When I commenced physically, I drove to the premises. The first journey before it became dark, was during the afternoon. I conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the area and examined the area for possible escape routes, I checked to see what the situation would be with regard to traffic, with regard to light and when I say light, I mean traffic lights and the possibility for traffic jams and so forth.

Due to the location of the premises, and the movement around the premises, this was not something which could be performed during the morning or during the day. It would have to take place after hours when it was dark and after peak hour traffic had subsided because in the morning one would have the situation, I thought that the morning would have been a suitable option, because anybody that is a professional person such as Adv Omar would have to go to the office, so if I monitored him in the morning, I could see he would leave home at quarter past seven or whatever the case may be, but the traffic discouraged me completely.

There was a high level of visibility in the area, and if you drove in that area in the morning, it was bumper to bumper traffic, which did not prove conducive to an escape route. That is why I knew that it would have to take place during the evening, after peak hour traffic. I told this to Slang van Zyl and continued with the project. During the first excursion to the Omar residence, and I am referring to the first times that I was in the Cape, but I visited the place several times. During all these times, I did not visually observe Mr Omar.

I had problems from the very first day with my observation in the area. It was a predominantly coloured, Malay or Indian neighbourhood. The people in the environment would pick up rather quickly if there was a vehicle or a person who didn't belong there. Perhaps I could explain as follows because I experienced this in the police quite often. It was an area which had its own rhythm and pulse. Anybody who didn't belong in that area, would stick out like sore thumb.

People in the neighbourhood would pick it up very quickly, and I had the problem that I was going with a vehicle which was stolen and fitted with false number plates, with ten litres of petrol on the back seat with which I would burn the vehicle after I had left the scene of the murder. I was also in possession of a Makarov with a silencer.

If you put the Makarov and the silencer together, it was about this long, it would hang some distance above my ankles.

MR COETZEE: Just for the record, it cannot be recorded, the length that you have explained. Would you say it was 30 centimetres?

MR BARNARD: I would say the silencer was approximately 25 centimetres in length and the firearm would also be somewhat shorter than 25 centimetres.

The other problem which I experienced would be that I would be there at approximately dusk, observing the house and people would become restless, they would pass the vehicle, look into the vehicle. Upon one or two occasions I asked people for directions, I obtained the names of certain surrounding streets from a map that I bought at the CNA, I would ask them "where is this street" or "where is that street" and then they would give me directions and then I would park the vehicle in a different place.

But I also had the problem in that I could not abandon the vehicle, because if I disembarked from the vehicle, I would stand out even more as a white person in this area. It was a nightmare with regard to these details, and I reported this to Mr van Zyl. I left Cape Town with unfinished business because I had not had a visual observation of Mr Omar and I had experienced all these problems. I told Mr van Zyl that the CCB should pin-point information specifically oriented information regarding where Mr Omar would be attending a meeting for example, or making a speech.

If he would be going somewhere, where he would have to leave home after the regular working hours, in other words, when it was already dark. He undertook to see what he could do in this regard, because I was told that there was a system of persons who could provide information about Mr Omar's movements and so forth. That is why I made the request to him.

It didn't happen that way. I returned to Johannesburg. We had a few more meetings there, but I cannot recall them specifically. Mr van Zyl contacted me upon a second occasion, it was in August 1989 and he told me that there was serious pressure from very high levels for the project to be executed. There were also discussions, but I cannot recall specifically when, and I made enquiries as to why he was such a big problem. I knew who Adv Omar was, and I would imagine that at a certain stage while I was in the Cape, the Tony Yengeni trial was underway and I read in the papers that Adv Omar was involved in it in some or other way.

But I was told that documents had been obtained by means of a burglary and that in these documents, there was evidence or information which indicated that Adv Omar would be involved in underground structures, and that he was also involved in some or other bombing campaign which was waged in Cape Town. Those were the reasons that they provided. But there was tremendous pressure, and it was decided that I would undertake two excursions to Cape Town, which I did. I came to Cape Town for a second time. Once again I booked into the Inn on the Square, I regained the weapon, the vehicle was exactly where I had left it. I had also left the firearm here and managed to get the firearm again. I repeated the same process and experienced even more problems than before with regard to remaining inert and being observed.

I could not conduct the operation in such a way. For a number of days I did not have a visual observation of Mr Omar, I expressed my frustration and said that to continue working like this, would be like taking a game of Russian Roulette with a vehicle because there was always the chance that someone would phone the police.

I would be sitting in front of the house, and they would send someone out to come and check the post-box at nine o'clock at night. I didn't belong there. People could easily see that there was a problem. The SAP could apprehend me for possession of the stolen firearm and a stolen vehicle. These were the problems that I had, and I expressed these problems to Mr van Zyl. He tried all the time to get different information, but the information that I had all the time was that Adv Omar was very active, that he moved around a lot and that he was at home.

This didn't really help me much, because it would still mean that I would have to hang around there to see when he would be there, and I couldn't do this in the day, I had to do it in the night when it was dark.

Once again I returned with unfinished business to Johannesburg. I was very frustrated.

Then there was a third excursion which was planned for August 1989. It was September, September 1989. I flew down for the third time to Cape Town and once again, I met with Mr van Zyl. It was again conveyed to me that this project had reached a critical stage and that everything in our power had to be done to kill Mr Omar.

Once again I obtained the vehicle and the firearm which amazingly had remained in the same place. I began to act in the same manner as before. At a certain stage, it was the last evening or time, but I didn't know it at that point, I had a visual observation of Mr Omar, only once throughout this entire time, and I will refer to it now.

I climbed out of the vehicle, it was after hours, I went to the premises. I waited near Adv Omar's vehicle. I entered the premises for the second time, and I saw Adv Omar approaching. I had spent approximately an hour and a quarter on the premises, I had a balaclava on my head and I had the firearm in my hand. It was cocked and ready to fire.

Adv Omar came out and approached the vehicle, but he was accompanied by a female person, so I didn't shoot him. The order to me was to make it appear like a crime, it had to look like a robbery. If I shot him, I would have to clean out his pockets, if he had a wallet, or a watch or any such items, I should take them, it should look like a robbery. That was the instruction from the beginning.

There was a woman with Adv Omar and I decided, based upon that, to withdraw. I climbed out of the vehicle. They climbed out of the vehicle as I saw them, I am sorry, I was confused because Brenda's evidence was different. In effect they disembarked from the vehicle and entered the house. I did not shoot them, I withdrew, I was not seen by them.

That very same evening I made the telephonic report to Slang van Zyl that I had a visual of Adv Omar, but that - I didn't give him any details over the phone, I decided that we would rendezvous the following day. He asked me why I didn't shoot Adv Omar and I explained that the circumstances were not favourable and that I would tell him all about it the following day.

I think he was in Cape Town on leave. At that stage I was staying in the Woodstock Holiday Inn. If I recall correctly, it was at the same time that Adv Anton Lubowski was shot dead because I had the number of a holiday flat where I contacted Slang van Zyl. I phoned him early that morning because throughout the night, I had visited night-clubs and I walked in, switched on the TV and on the six o'clock news I saw that Anton Lubowski had been assassinated in South-West Africa. I phoned Slang van Zyl and told him to switch on his television and I told him that Lubowski had fallen in South-West.

He undertook to come and see me later that morning, which he did. I think it was approximately ten or eleven o'clock. During the course of the morning, he came to my hotel to speak to me. We discussed the Lubowski incident and speculated on who had been involved in it.

Upon this occasion Mr van Zyl discussed the Cape Town bomb with me. He asked me about the other matters as well, but he first discussed the bomb attack. He told me that the bomb which had gone off in Athlone, had been his project and that the project was aimed at killing those who would have been responsible for a bomb campaign in Cape Town. It was aimed at killing those who had been in the meeting, that he had attached four kilograms of nails to the bomb with masking tape so as to product a greater shrapnel effect, that the project had not been correctly executed, because the remote control mechanism was faulty. He explained upon my questions that it didn't want to detonate, and that he had tried to fix it and that eventually when everybody had left the meeting, the bomb did explode and that some people sustained light injuries, but that it was their lucky day, because all of them should have sailed, which meant that all of them should actually have died.

I discussed the matter with him, and directly afterwards we discussed Adv Omar. I explained to van Zyl that Adv Omar had arrived home, but that there were unforeseen circumstances, that he was accompanied by a female person. I decided not to shoot him. He nearly went mad. He wanted to know why I hadn't shot him. He said that I had lost my chance. I told him that he had wanted it to look like a robbery, upon which he retorted that I should have killed the woman as well. I told him that I wasn't prepared to do this, and I was upset. After having shot Dr Webster and having seen that there was a lady with him at that time, I cannot say that I wouldn't have shot him, because there was pressure on me to perform the operation, but I was upset about it afterwards.

I knew that if I had shot Adv Omar there and if I hadn't shot the woman, I would have been observed upon my escape, I wouldn't have reached the highway before being apprehended.

I told him that I wasn't prepared to do things like this, and that I wouldn't do things like this, based upon which we had an altercation and he told me that he wasn't very satisfied with it, and I told him that I wasn't prepared to continue on this basis and to execute the project as such, unless there was precise pin-point information regarding Adv Omar's whereabouts, be it a UWC meeting or anything else. That is when I withdrew myself from the Omar incident.

MR COETZEE: You have testified now that certain information that was known to you, or was conveyed to you, about why Adv Omar was a target at that stage, did you yourself make any enquiries or follow ups, concerning the situation and the information that you had received?

MR BARNARD: No, Honourable Chairperson, I was not allowed to do it, and apart from that I, because Mr Omar was a high profile person in the media, I read about him a lot. Amongst others, that I can recall independently now, that there was a story that he had close contact with the Mandela family, that he knew Nelson Mandela and that he had UDF connections, but I had no information that I verified myself.

MR COETZEE: And then with regards to the costs and the remuneration that you received, can you explain to the Commission what this entailed?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, Mr van Zyl gave me an amount of R7 000-00 in cash to cover my costs. It had nothing to do with salaries. I made three trips to Cape Town and I stayed in good hotels, so that R7,000 I used for that.

MR COETZEE: Did you receive any production bonuses for this action?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not receive a production bonus, but I foresaw that if this project was completed, and was done well, I would have received a production bonus. Nobody told me this, but I just thought this myself.

MR COETZEE: Just to get clarity, at that stage, did you receive a salary from the CCB?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct.

MR COETZEE: And you say that it seemed as if Mr van Zyl was under a lot of pressure to execute this project, do you know who placed this pressure on him?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, no, I do not know where the pressure came from, but that it was a large amount of pressure is true. Mr van Zyl's got a specific type of personality, he is for example not a person, this is the way I summed him up, he is not the type of person who can be placed under that amount of pressure by somebody like Staal Burger. I thought the pressure came from a much higher level, but he never made known a line of command to me, and he said that this comes from Staal Burger.

At one stage I assumed this, because I knew how the system worked on their side. He never told me this, he never reported to me concerning this. He never made phone calls or he never discussed it when we were together, but I saw that there was a lot of pressure on him. At one stage I thought that this pressure must come from a political level.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, you were at that stage aware that you were not a member of the cell in which Mr Slang van Zyl operated in. The fact that he made use of you in this project, do you know why you were used, why you were specifically chosen to be applied in this?

MR BARNARD: No, Mr Chairperson, nobody told me anything, but I assumed after my discussion with Lafras Luitingh during March or April, I am not quite sure, and then after the execution of the Webster project, that this could have led to the fact that I was now approached in this way to do this work.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Barnard, you said yesterday that Luitingh was your handler, did he know about your involvement at the time, in the Omar project?

MR BARNARD: No Mr Chairperson, at that stage I did not have contact with him. The last time I had contact with Lafras Luitingh, that was in June, when he paid me the three months' salary. He did not know about it.

MR COETZEE: Did you, after June, or was there an opportunity where you could be contacted by the members of the CCB who wanted to make use of you?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I still had the same contact number, the same pager that was paid up front, nothing changed. I was contacted in that way so that other members, other CCB members, that had nothing to do with Region 6, could contact me in the same way.

MR COETZEE: You were also indeed during the criminal case, found guilty to attempted murder of Adv Omar? The fact remains that at that stage in evidence, you denied that you had any part in it, and that you were only there on a monitoring basis. Can you just explain this to the Committee and place this in context?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I denied everything. There were 34 charges laid against me in the High Court, and I denied everything.

It was not that I, the Omar case was an exception, this was something that I did.

MR COETZEE: But today, you do know that you were found guilty of it?

MR BARNARD: I am not running away of the guilt. Judge Els found me guilty because I did commit certain crimes, and I do know it myself. From an investigator's viewpoint, I do know I actively tried to execute the Omar project and to kill Adv Omar with that weapon, and to reach that goal in the end.

MR COETZEE: If we can then look at another project which was known as the "Apie Project". Can you just explain how you became involved and what did you do?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, yes, it was during one of these excursions, I think it was the second time that I went to Cape Town, it was in August 1989. As I have said, I booked in at the Inn on the Square, and Mr Slang van Zyl contacted me one evening and he arrived at the hotel. He was also booked into the same hotel, I think.

He told me that he was there for official business for the CCB. It had nothing to do with the Omar incident. It was about Bishop Tutu and that an item had to be placed at the Bishop's house and he asked me if I wanted to accompany him.

During the discussion that we had, Mr van Zyl told me that it would be a foetus of a baboon. He brought it with him on the plane. We made a few jokes concerning this. I asked him "what is this about" and he said he received an instruction to go and hang this thing up, and he wanted to know, I asked him did he know where the house was, and he said "yes".

He said we had to be very careful, there were two guards, and they could be armed. From there, we went to his room and he had a flask, it was placed in a bag and he showed me the baboon. I said it was a very ugly thing, but I used harsh words to explain that.

I said "yes, they are going to identify us with this baboon, because it looks like the Head of the Defence Force" and that was the only jokes that we made. It was in bad taste, but it was the only jokes that we made.

Then I told him "listen, I cannot understand why we must do this, that we must go through this risk, possible shooting, that there could be guards injured or killed, for something that seems to be mischief." He said "no, it is actually a very serious project". Then Mr van Zyl gave me a layout of a five step plan that was formulated by the CCB concerning this project on Bishop Tutu.

It was described as follows: the project consisted of five phases. This would be phase three, the next phase would be the hanging up of a hyena, probably at Bishop Tutu's house again. He was not involved in the first two phases, and he was also not involved in the next phase, the fifth phase. It would be to poison Trevor Tutu, his son, with some poison from a witch-doctor. He told me there was some unit from the CCB that had access to Tutu junior's food by means of people who were tasked, who worked on a servant and had access to the house. I have no details concerning this. That would be the five phase plan.

It did not really make sense that we would do something like that, but I realised that this was indeed serious business.

We met Peaches Gordon and another coloured man later that evening. My experience was that it was approximately after twelve that evening. We went to the Tutu house. Mr van Zyl indicated where we should go, up to the house of Bishop Tutu. It was a large estate. There were lights outside and there were also lights in the house.

At one part, the top part of the estate, we climbed over the fence. I climbed over first and I stood on the inside. Mr van Zyl climbed over and then there was Peaches Gordon, the three of us. With us we had the flask with the baboon that Mr van Zyl took from me, when he climbed over. We had six nails, six inches long, that according to Mr van Zyl's presentation would have been treated in some way, that it would have a witch-doctor connotation. Bishop Tutu would then understand, if he found these things, it would have a specific meaning from the witch-doctor's beliefs of his tribe.

These specific nails had to be placed on either side of a pathway or a driveway that was used by Bishop Tutu, it had to be nailed in on either side and the baboon had to be hung up on a place where he would find it. At a later stage, after we executed a part of this project, Mr van Zyl mentioned it to me. I think it was later that evening, or the next day, that the reason why the flask had to remain in the hessian bag was that Bishop Tutu had to see there was a strange object hanging from the tree, he had to be scared, he was not supposed to touch it. He was then supposed to get the police to come and look, to see what this is, maybe it is an explosive device or whatever, and the reason behind this was to create a record. There had to be a publication and there could be documentation concerning this, and Bishop Tutu can then phone the police.

There would be a charge number or he make a crimen injuria case and there must be a publication. The Defence Force wanted to create a background and a record over a period of time, that would show that Bishop Tutu's own people were busy with him, his own tribe was busy with him. They wanted it to appear that Bishop Tutu, because he asked for sanctions against the country, if his own people were angry at him, because of this, and that they were now busy with witch-doctor stuff because they were losing their jobs and there is no jobs created because of his actions.

This background had to be created and there had to be a record of this. If it would then happen that Mr Trevor Tutu was killed in the way in which they planned it, and it would show to state involvement or a finger could be pointed to the Security Branch or the National Party, then all this information and this background that they created, they would then take it out, they would use the documentation and the police visits would be placed as "look, this man's own people are busy with him", and that is why we made a study concerning the witch-doctor poison. It would have been herbal poison. It all had to point back to his own people and the State could then point these things out.

MR COETZEE: Did you have any, did you receive any specific remuneration or bonuses for this project?

MR BARNARD: No, I just assisted Mr van Zyl in this.

I would just like to say while I am recalling this, I knew that the end product in this case, was not directed towards, or was in the end directed to the death of Trevor Tutu and I did associate myself with it. I was satisfied that this was a good thing to do. I am not running away from my own guilt in this. I am also aware that in my evidence for how long it may take now, and, that I will incriminate myself in things that I did not apply for amnesty and also the evidence that I gave yesterday concerning the Webster case and all the others, I did not apply for amnesty for these cases, and I cannot apply for amnesty now.

I am doing it for a different reason. Like I said, there was an event that took place, that made me rethink all these things, and I decided to tell the truth in the spirit of reconciliation, and for myself. I wanted to get all this rubbish, put it all behind me. I am not running away from the fact that I knew that Mr Tutu junior was going to be killed, although the original project was directed against his father, Bishop Tutu senior.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, if we can now go to an incident that is overlapping in time, about what we have just spoken about, and that is the Lubowski incident.

Can you tell the Committee where you received your first information concerning Lubowski and how you became involved in it?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, the first time I contacted Lafras Luitingh and this was in January 1989, and this I read up on, in 1989 Lafras Luitingh during a co-ordinating session asked me if I knew the name Anton Lubowski. I said no, and I asked him if it was a Russian person. He said no, this specific Lubowski was involved in SWAPO and in South-West Africa, more specifically.

Mr Luitingh then asked me, because I had contacts there and we have discussed it before, contacts with the Security Branch and other contacts, and he asked me if I could collect information concerning the movements of Lubowski in South-West Africa.

I said "yes, I had a few contacts", of people who worked with me on a certain Branch and I had contact with them from time to time, but it is not the type of people that I could use or approach for this project.

I realised then that the CCB was really interested in Lubowski. It was also told to me that South-West Africa was now a priority area.

MR COETZEE: After this initial information that you received on Lubowski, did you have any further involvement in Adv Lubowski?

MR BARNARD: Yes, Mr Chairperson, I did. In June 1989 I was approached by a person by names of Kobus le Roux. He introduced himself to me and he said that he was also attached to the CCB and that he, it was also his real name, that he was serving in the South-West Africa district and he asked me if I could function or assist him there.

I was in the establishment phase of the buying of a house, not long after I was released from prison, and I said "no, I cannot see my way clear of going there permanently" and he asked me if I could go there part time, or work on a part time basis. I said "yes". There were a few meetings between the two of us. I left for South-West Africa, Namibia. Certain arrangements were made with me, that I would book into a hotel there in Windhoek and then contact Kobus le Roux on this side and give details about where I was.

Everything happened as I have just said. He gave me a certain amount of cash, I think it was R6 000-00 or R8 0000-00. This was to cover my costs. I left and I did as I planned. I went to the Continental Hotel in Windhoek and I conveyed the information to him. He was in Pretoria. The next day, during that evening, he arrived at my hotel room, we discussed certain matters, we had a discussion and he told me that an Adv Anton Lubowski was a priority target for the CCB and that he was authorised to deal with it, it was in his region.

I got the impression that they had worked extensively on Adv Lubowski and that there were various other matters surrounding Lubowski, before I was brought into this whole situation. He asked me if I was willing to, he first put to me that Lubowski will be killed in South-West Africa, and I assumed then he would be killed, and that he wanted to create a cut-off point. There was a Charles Nielsen, who was a coloured man from Rehoboth, he was a long-distance taxi driver, also short distances. He was recruited as an unconscious member by the CCB.

He wanted me to make contact with this person. The instructions was that when I made contact with him, with Mr Nielsen, the physical address had to be checked to ensure that this is the place where he lived and slept. I arranged a meeting with Nielsen together with Kobus le Roux. It was, I think it was outside the Kalahari Sun, but it was a Sun Hotel, somewhere in Windhoek. I met him there. He had a kombi, which was his taxi, and I had a conversation with him. Kobus le Roux handed over money. I do not know how much it was, he gave him.

I drove with him and he said he would point out a few places. It was not long after that that I started manipulating him. I took him to a few clubs, a few bars and at the end, we ended up at two o'clock in the morning, at Rehoboth, at his house. There we drank a few whiskies again. I realised that the people in the house knew him, he had keys to the house and this was his residence.

I returned, he dropped me off at a certain place. We then planned to meet up again the next day at a certain time, and a certain place. I reported to Kobus le Roux saying that I verified this man's address. Le Roux then handed over a video camera, he showed me how it worked. It was quite a modern one, but one that you can, a hand-held camera, but it also had a night vision on, that you could use in the dark.

He asked me to see Nielsen again the next day, and I had to task him to observe Mr Lubowski's house in Zanderberg, with this camera. He had to do it as often as possible, without drawing attention to him and he had to film this house from different angles. I accepted it and I handed this camera over to Mr Nielsen with the instructions.

He already knew about Lubowski, when I spoke to him about it, and he handed over a piece of paper on which the dates and times and at the bottom it said in pen "Mr L is a late mover and he moves alone", which I assumed was Mr Lubowski and he then asked me to hand it over to Kobus. He did not know him as Kobus, but I knew him as Kobus.

I reported to Kobus, told him I handed over the video camera, I gave him the piece of paper with this information and he said to me "no, Nielsen was tasked to observe Lubowski and that he had to write down the times and dates, about his movements at his house". Approximately a day afterwards, I again saw Nielsen. He had the video camera on him, he handed it over to me and he said that he had made this video.

I arranged for a meeting with Mr Kobus le Roux, we both looked through the tape, or looked at the tape. There were images of Mr Lubowski's house taken from different angles. All of it were taken in the day, or it appeared taken in the day. It was from a standing position and also from a moving vehicle, and you could see that somebody filmed the house from a moving vehicle.

Kobus le Roux was very satisfied and he told me that I must now withdraw from the Lubowski case, there was other work that I had to do, and they will continue with the Lubowski incident. I then withdrew.

MR COETZEE: Very well. What was Kobus' name within the CCB, do you know what it was?

MR BARNARD: I am not sure what his name was, he used the name Dewald and Willie in the time that I had contact with him, afterwards - I know today that his name is Kobus le Roux.

MR COETZEE: Do you know what region he worked for in the CCB?

MR BARNARD: No, I do not know in which region he worked. After a while, after we became better friends, he mentioned the name Muller and I have read this in the documentation, I do not know where I heard it, but I know that this Muller's name was attached to the CCB and that he was a Special Force soldier. He said he had connections with this person. But in what region he worked in, I do not know, I had no further contact.

MR COETZEE: Apart from the costs that were covered, did you receive any other remuneration for this?

MR BARNARD: No. I think there was about R1 200-00 that was left over, and he said I could keep it. This was after I returned back to Johannesburg.

MR COETZEE: Did you have any further contact or involvement in Lubowski?

MR BARNARD: Yes, Mr Chairperson. Mr Slang van Zyl tasked me at a certain stage to work on Lubowski while he was in South Africa. He would come here to address people or to attend meetings. The CCB had information about what was on his agenda. Mr van Zyl contacted me and I met with him in a business complex in Florida. He told me this is the story, they need information with regards to Lubowski, who he was going to contact, what his movements are, what his vehicle is and all the information that you could get on him, while he was in South Africa.

I was given the name Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town as being the first place where he would address people or would attend a dinner party. I received cash from Lubowski and a photograph, although I knew what he looked like, while I was in South-West Africa in June. He appeared in the newspapers at various times, and I also think I saw him on television, (indistinct) and all those people were on television on a regular basis, all on rallies where they addressed people. He was also in the newspaper, like the Windhoek Observer, and I bought this every day just to get the feel of the place.

I went to Cape Town. This was after the second Omar excursion, I would say August or September. It took place in the timeframe when this incident took place. I once again booked in to a hotel, and I took a taxi to the Mount Nelson Hotel, to go and look at the physical layout of the place, to try and find out where they would have a dinner party like this.

That evening, I returned approximately half past six. Later that evening, people arrived, they were all dressed in very formal suits and evening wear. There was a dinner party, I could not get access to the specific unit or section of the Mount Nelson Hotel that they used, I could get very close. I even saw Adv Lubowski, I had a visual, he was approximately three or four meters from me. I had, he was, he had a suit and a bowtie. I tried to get, or observe as much as I could while I was there.

At a later stage, I waited outside for the meeting to be concluded so that I could see with whom else he had made contact. I could not move in with, to the place where they were busy with their meeting or the dinner party itself. Lubowski came out, he was accompanied by others and they climbed into a kombi. I cannot recall the colour, I took the registration number and I decided to follow it. But it was not possible, because of the time of the evening. I do not know if it went to Hout Bay or Camps Bay.

I thought maybe the people would become a bit uncomfortable and I then withdrew. I made a report to Slang, but I also had contact with him. I think it was the next morning, when he said to me that they had information that Lubowski was flying to Johannesburg and that he was going to stay at the Johannesburg Country Club, where he was going to address people there or will attend a meeting there. It will be in the afternoon, and it was very clear that the CCB had pin-point information or they had somebody very close to him, they knew his whole agenda, about where he was going to be.

I took an earlier flight, they even knew what flight he was on. I took an earlier one and I landed in Johannesburg and I waited there for him. What then happened was that I spoke to Brenda Mills, she brought my vehicle to the airport. I waited there and Adv Lubowski disembarked from the plane on the scheduled flight as they had told me. I observed him, he went to one of the places where you can rent a vehicle.

I don't know if it was Avis or Imperial, but one of the offices inside the airport building. He rented a vehicle, I observed all of this. I followed him to the parking lot outside. He received a red BMW vehicle. It was still the old boxed shape, it was before the dolphin shape BMW. It was red of colour. I took down the registration number and I followed him. Mr Lubowski drove to the Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg, where I physically observed him, how he checked in. I found out his room number by phoning from a call box in the hotel lobby, after I waited a while and I asked if my friend, Lubowski, checked in. They gave me his room number and I said "I will go to his room number", and I also had the room number then. I hung around for a while and later that afternoon, I drove out to the Johannesburg Country Club. I observed the layout of this Country Club and also to see if I could get access. I also had to ensure or try to find out where they were going to have this function.

I was in position at about five o'clock that afternoon. The outside area is quite big, not everything was tarred. There were a lot of trees, etc. Lubowski arrived alone, but there were also other people moving around. He arrived alone, he parked quite far from the front door, and he got out and started walking. That was just after six.

I then once again, as I did at the Mount Nelson, follow him. I could not get to him. There were once again people in formal clothes, I would stand out, I was not an invited guest. There were a lot of security people outside, and once again I decided to sit outside and I thought if he comes out, he may go to another place. I did not know how long it would take. Approximately eleven o'clock that evening something strange happened.

Someone came out and climbed into Mr Lubowski's vehicle, a blond woman. Climbed into the BMW, switched it on and drove off. I was confused, and I wondered how I could have missed him, because he was quite a large man. I thought to myself that I wouldn't follow her, that I would just remain there. Approximately 10 to 15 minutes later, Adv Lubowski came out. He was in the company of three other men. They first stood around outside, chatting to one another. I noted then that they moved towards a vehicle which was parked in the parking area. It was a Rover sedan, one of the V8s. I took down the registration number.

They remained in the car and spoke for a while, approximately 10 minutes. All of them departed. He went with them. All four of them were in the vehicle. I followed them, they drove to the Rosebank Hotel. At the Rosebank Hotel they disembarked and entered the hotel. I myself parked and also entered the hotel. They were in the restaurant or the bar or the lounge, they were having cocktails in this place, these four persons together. They remained there for quite some time.

I went back to the same telephone and I contacted Slang van Zyl telephonically and told him "listen, I have surveilled this man the whole day long, I have all the information that you wanted, what am I supposed to do now"? In the heat of the moment we decided that Slang van Zyl would come to the hotel and that I would meet him outside the hotel. Van Zyl arrived, in the meantime I was there by myself and no one told me to do this, but I went up to Mr Lubowski's room to see where it was situated.

I tried the door and then I came back down. I waited for Mr van Zyl, he took approximately 40 minutes before he arrived and we spoke down in the parking area. I said to Mr van Zyl "look, I am ready, I have things here with me, this man is meek, he has been walking around here in the parking area by himself as well. It was very easy to be able to take him as an opportunity target, also at the Country Club, I could have nominated him at any time there, because he was walking around by himself in the dark." Van Zyl nearly had a heart attack, he said "no, never, there was no such order", but I did this on the grounds that I thought that the CCB was still after him. There was no doubt in my mind that they wanted to kill him in South-West during that excursion, and I thought "here is the ideal opportunity, this is the sort of work that I do, why don't I just take him out"?

Van Zyl nearly had a heart attack and he said "under no circumstances should I do anything other than my observation of Lubowski". That was the instruction and the instruction came from the highest level. He also said that Staal Burger would have me for breakfast if something went wrong with this.

I abided by his decision. Just to say I had an AK47 in the car, and I had a modified bayonet which I took with me to clubs and places like that. It was actually a murder weapon, I had it on me. He totally discouraged me to do anything other than the monitoring and I abided by that.

I conveyed all the information during a co-ordinating session between me and Mr van Zyl, I conveyed all the information to him, including the information pertaining to the movements. I also gave him a description of Mr Lubowski as I had viewed him, a physical description. The fact that he was a large man, that he was in shape, he was reasonably light-footed when he walked. He looked like the kind of man who had had training.

One would look out for that kind of thing, so he was light-footed and I also described his clothing. He was actually quite an impressive man, if one stood close to him. If one stood close to Adv Lubowski, he was an impressive man. I judged him to be 6"3, 6"4 in length. I conveyed all this information along with all the other physical descriptions of the vehicles and the persons who were with him to van Zyl, and that was the last of my involvement there.

MR COETZEE: So you were not any more involved with Mr Lubowski, his monitoring, anything else like that?

MR BARNARD: No Chairperson. As I have already testified, with the last excursion pertaining to Adv Omar in Cape Town, when we discussed the bomb, I have just lost the line of the story, could you just repeat your question, I was thinking about something else.

MR COETZEE: I asked you whether there was any further involvement in Adv Lubowski and I think that you wanted to mention the time that he was shot?

MR BARNARD: No, it is only the report that I made telephonically to van Zyl, that I had seen on television news that Adv Lubowski had been assassinated and then we speculated who could be responsible for the assassination later that day, when we rendezvoused.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, firstly may I ask you, were you given any special remuneration with the exception of your expenses when it came to monitoring Adv Lubowski, when you were tasked by Mr van Zyl?

MR BARNARD: No, I was only compensated for my expenses.

MR COETZEE: And according to your information regarding Adv Lubowski, do you know what his connection was with the South African Defence Force? Did you know if he was an agent, what was the situation?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, if Adv Lubowski was an agent of the South African Intelligence system, then all of us on this side of the table, worked for the KGB. He was framed subsequently and I will tell you why I say this, because I worked very closely with some people subsequently who told me that they specifically framed him. It only came to my attention when I was at DCC. It was something that I didn't like, although I didn't report it.

It was something that I did not approve of, the man had already been assassinated and his name was blackened afterwards. Originally after the shooting of Adv Lubowski, I followed the story quite closely in the media and in subsequent reports, and I saw that Donald Aitchison had been arrested. I knew immediately that it was Donald Aitchison whom I had recruited in Johannesburg.

I had various discussions with Calla Botha who was my blood-brother and we speculated regarding what could have taken place there. Then I saw at a certain stage that the Defence Force jumped out, and I think it was Magnus Malan himself, on national television and said that Adv Lubowski was a Military Intelligence informer and I simply could not believe it.

Except that it didn't make any sense to me, for us to follow this man around all over the show, and make videos of his home and his movements, the videos were made in order to kill him. I am not saying that I was indirectly involved, I was directly involved.

I think that there was also information at the disposal of the media that there was a bank account into which deposits would have been made, and all of that was false. I didn't know it at that stage.

However, it puzzled me and it bothered me. Later when I was recruited by DCC and I was brought into contact with Mr Verster, we knew each other due to our joint prison sentences for murder, we were in prison together, we were friends, there was a bond between us. After I had been working at DCC for quite a while, they introduced Mr Verster to me within my specific system where I was functioning. They brought him in as my co-ordinator, he was my direct boss.

CHAIRPERSON: You are saying Mr Verster, which Mr Verster?

MR BARNARD: That is Righ Verster, not Joe Verster.

CHAIRPERSON: Righ?

MR BARNARD: Righ Verster and I shared an interest in sports, we also shared various other interests, we did the same work, we had been in prison together, we had suffered together, we had exercised together in the past, so there was a special bond between us which was separate from the DCC activities. We were social with each other.

At the same time of my involvement with DCC and the brothels and the porn palaces and the escort agencies and the night club life that I led, I also established private systems by which I was the head of security of eight or nine night clubs, brothels and perhaps five or six casino's as well. I placed the bouncers there, I visited the places daily, I addressed security problems, conducted sensitive investigations, I paid off the police who had to be paid off to prevent police raids. I identified the crooked cops, I gave them their monthly pay. I contacted members of the City Council who might want to close these places down, therefore I was involved there on a daily and nightly basis.

The specific incident took place, I was already involved with cocaine at that stage, I and some of the prostitutes at one of the upmarket brothels in Morningside, Sandton, I already had shares in the business, 20 percent shares, I had established an office for myself there, I did my own thing from that point. Mr Verster was invited by me there, for the first time and a whole new world opened up to him. One couldn't keep him away from there after he had been there for the first time.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, I think if we refer to Mr Righ Verster, let us just refer to Righ Verster as such, so that there isn't any confusion between him and Joe Verster.

MR BARNARD: I understand. And so it happened that we had one of these cocaine parties where Mr Righ Verster was present, and he wanted to try this stuff as well, because it made everybody so friendly.

Then I said to him "If you try this stuff, you won't stop". He had already had a few drinks, so did I, and naturally we wanted to impress the ladies there, and he got onto cocaine. That is why I recall it so specifically, because on that particular evening, he and I were chatting about work, and we were quite high and we stumbled onto the topic of Mr Lubowski. That is when he disclosed his entire South-West involvement to me.

Before he became involved with DCC internally, he said that he and Price and a certain Clive, who I later also met at DCC, who was a former counter-intelligence spy, specifically performed work regarding Anton Lubowski. They had tried to recruit him, but he was not recruitable.

Then I said to him "but this man was allegedly an informer" and he said "no, the CCB caused all the shit, and we made him an informer". If he was an informer, he is an informer posthumously. That status was allocated to him posthumously.

And then I laughed, because we agreed that after his death, he was made an informer, and then I said "but how is that possible, because I have read things in the paper about bank accounts and what not", and he said "listen, if you are not an agent, we will make you one and it doesn't really matter who you are".

At a certain stage, he mentioned to me that Mr Marina Chiavelli, the former millionaire had passed away and he said that Chiavelli was also one who was supporting the ANC and giving them money.

It was a joint National and Military Intelligence operation to break him financially. He said "you saw what happened to him", and then he said "Douw Steyn from Auto & General was next on the list". That was the discussion that took place regarding Mr Lubowski as an agent.

MR VAN ECK: Sorry Mr Chairman, could he just repeat that portion?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Barnard, if you could just repeat what you have said from - just the discussion, from the time that you said he was made an informer after his death and what happened to Mr Chiavelli and the other person from Auto & General, if you can just repeat that please.

MR BARNARD: Very well Chairperson, yes, he said to me that a similar incident had taken place, an incident similar to that of Mr Lubowski had taken place with Mr Chiavelli, the former millionaire. He said it was a joint project of National Intelligence and Military Intelligence, in which he had also been involved to break Mr Chiavelli financially and that Douw Steyn from Auto & General, who was involved with the ANC, would be next on the list. All of this took place on that particular evening, when we had the cocaine party.

Then upon various subsequent occasions, as we worked together on a daily basis, I asked him about it, I asked him about this whole matter, because it puzzled me, the man would have been a priceless asset if he was an informer, there wasn't anybody more suitable. If one could recruit someone in SWAPO and get such a person to work with the South African government, then this was a priceless asset. Why did we kill him, why did somebody kill him at least? He told me upon many occasions when he was sober, while we were working and conducting coordinations, he told me numerous times the man was framed.

They had the capacity to create bank records for you, they had the capacity to do anything, nothing was impossible for them.

MR COETZEE: Very well, Mr Barnard. Is that the sum total of your knowledge regarding Anton Lubowski?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is my involvement. I am convinced to this very day, that the South African Security Police killed Anton Lubowski. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.

MR COETZEE: I see that it is five minutes before the tea adjournment and I don't want to go into the next situation, but could you just explain to me, your motor vehicle with which you were in South-West Africa stood at the airport during the shooting of Adv Lubowski. Could you just explain how this came to be that your vehicle was there?

MR BARNARD: Yes Chairperson. I was busy with my activities in South-West Africa and then after the Lubowski incident, I was tasked to kill Daniel Tjongarero, I would be the person to kill him.

I will testify about this when we come to the cross-border involvement. Just to give you a preamble to the events, at a certain stage Kobus le Roux came to me and he said that Tjongarero was no longer the target, and that it had changed to Hidipo Hamutenya and that I had to travel back to Pretoria, and come and speak to him there, and then I would have to be redeployed to South-West Africa.

What took place then was that I flew over here, and that I came to see him and the thing boiled over into a number of weeks. I left my vehicle at the airport there and then the thing with Slang van Zyl arose to send me on the first Omar excursion in July, and I did so. After I spoke to Kobus le Roux, I said "listen, how does this thing with Hamutenya look" and he said that they were waiting for certain detailed information still.

I told him that there was something else that I was going to be involved in and he assured me that I could continue, but that I should remain in contact, which I did. I came over here and then for a second time again, and then it happened that Anton Lubowski was shot in South-West Africa. There was no way that I would return. I arranged with Kobus le Roux for the vehicle to be fetched there and brought back to South Africa. It stood on the airport for months, however.

MR COETZEE: If at this stage we can proceed to the recruitment of Donald Aitchison, Chairperson, I can see that it is a few minutes before tea time, I don't want to begin with another aspect and then just before we get going, be interrupted, is it possible that this could be a suitable time for the adjournment?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes certainly, we will take a 20 minute tea adjournment at this stage.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

FERDINAND BARNARD: (s.u.o.)

EXAMINATION BY MR COETZEE: (Cont) Thank you Mr Chairperson. Just before we get to the recruitment of Aitchison, we heard from various witnesses about the security that was upheld concerning conscious and unconscious members and that there were also a very strong need to know basis, or need to know nothing basis, that these people were dealt with in that way. If you can just possibly place in context, what was your knowledge with regards to other members in the CCB and how it happened that you got to know from Staal Burger, Chap Maree, you knew about Calla Botha's involvement and then also Slang's involvement. If you can just give us a bit of background how you got to know about this.

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I had constant contact with Calla Botha as I have already said, we exercised together, we participated in sport at the rugby club and in discussions with him and also things that I observed, he had a pager just like me, he bought the same car at more or less the same time, in the same price range, and the way in which he acted, I think we both realised at the same time, we were running around the Florida Lake and we found out then that we were working for the same organisation, and through discussions with Mr Botha it came out that they were active as a cell and he told me about Chappie Maree's involvement and Mr Staal Burger's involvement, as well as Slang van Zyl.

At a later stage, as I have already said, I met Slang van Zyl, I already knew where he was working by means of his now ex-wife, or the wife he had then. I knew her because she was a Prosecutor, while I was a Detective, and that is how I met Slang van Zyl. It was against all the rules, but that is how we did it, we were all conscious members.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Barnard, we had evidence that there were regular meetings at the Sheep-for-Sale plot and, although meetings with Verster and Burger were just with one operative at a time, they would see each other at this "Skape te Koop" place, do you know anything about that?

MR BARNARD: I do not know anything about that, Mr Chairperson. I just know about how we worked on grassroots level, how we got to know people. Like I said Mr van Zyl, Mr Botha, how we had contact with each other. It was not encouraged, and we shouldn't have done it, but I cannot know a person for a long time and not talk about it. We were not supposed to discuss our projects with each other, which we did. Mr Chappie Maree, Wouter Basson and Mr Staal Burger, I never had contact with them, within the organisation and during that time and even before that, in 1988, I saw Chappie Maree at a social level, at a party of a hotel owner in the East Rand, I saw him there once. He did not know where I was working and he did not know where I was working, so we never discussed matters like that.

I had no contact at all with anybody else but Slang van Zyl and Calla Botha.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, just to add to the question that was just asked by the Chairperson. Did you attend regular meetings of the CCB where there were certain discussions concerning projects and the ways in which you had to act?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, no, the meetings that I attended were co-ordinating meetings with Lafras Luitingh, I was not involved in any other meetings.

MR COETZEE: Very well. You have now stated that you did not act according to the rules concerning the discussion of projects and what you were involved in.

Did you discuss certain projects with members?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did.

MR COETZEE: For example you mentioned that you spoke to Slang van Zyl, did he talk to you about, concerning the Athlone bomb?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, yes, for example after the Athlone bomb was planted and the incident took place, I discussed this with Calla Botha because then I became aware through a discussion with van Zyl, that Mr Botha was also involved in it. He did not tell me that himself, I do not know if I did not see him during that time, because we had different things to do and our movements were different, but at a certain opportunity I heard a story from van Zyl concerning the Athlone bomb and I took it up with Mr Botha and he had no problem in admitting that he was involved in it, because he is an explosives expert.

He did however, deny very strongly and said that what Mr van Zyl told me, and I will put it in his words, "is a load of shit". He said it was not the truth. He said that person is very arrogant, he personally worked with the explosives, there were no nails placed around it, he personally inspected the bomb, he is an explosives expert and he made a comment saying "you know, I do not even know why Slang involved me in it", it was placed on ice and he said "a chimpanzee can be taught to press that button". That is what he said to me.

I asked him out about it, and he said under no circumstances, or the order came from Gen Webb for the planting of the bomb, but the instructions were not to kill or injure anybody. That is why they had to make use of a remote control so that they could detonate the bomb once the people had left the building.

That made me doubt many things, because then I did not know why van Zyl gave his version of the story. The same with the "Apie Project". I also discussed it with Mr Botha and then I told him about the Five Phase plan. Mr Botha came to me and said that that was not what Slang van Zyl told him. Slang van Zyl told him that they are going to give him this baboon to hang up and he had no idea why he had to do it. "It looked like just fucking around", that is what he said. He did not know why he was hanging this thing up, and that is how he conveyed it to me.

He was quite upset about it that Mr van Zyl conveyed it in such a way to me.

MR COETZEE: Were there other aspects that you discussed concerning other projects, that you discussed with each other?

MR BARNARD: I cannot specifically recall, but I assume so. I discussed more or less everything with Calla Botha, we even exchanged sources and where I could assist him, I did, and if I had a problem, I knew that his door was always open and I could go to him.

MR COETZEE: The same bond that was between you and Botha, was it a similar bond that was between you and Mr van Zyl?

MR BARNARD: No. It was not a similar bond, but we were friends and I did like him. We could relate to each other, we had good discussions. I had respect for his investigative abilities and from the private environment and also from Brixton, I even visited his house. Also in the business world in which he was active, a large jewellery business, I was invited to parties and Christmas parties of these people, so we did interact on a social level.

We also worked closely together in the investigative environment. He could provide me with certain investigations and he was also a very experienced investigating officer. He would then involve me.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, then we can move to the recruitment of Donald Aitchison. Can you just explain to this Committee how it happened and when did it happen that you recruited Donald Aitchison?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I cannot specifically recall a time, but I think it was approximately in April 1989, because I was at that stage involved in the Webster case and the task had already been issued. It happened spontaneously actually.

Det-Sgt William Knox was a very good policeman and I had a lot of respect for him, and I still have today have a lot of respect for him. He was the person who taught me certain things after I left the Police College. He resigned from the Police Force and he established a private company, one of these armed response companies. He's got a very strong company today. He had offices in Troyville and every time when I was in the area of Hillbrow, I contacted him and go and visit him, and we discussed certain things.

That specific time, he was still attached to the police, but he was already in the phase of leaving the Police Force, he had this side-line business. When I went to go and see him at his offices, he told me that he was aware that I functioned in some intelligence unit, and he told me he was still finalising certain dockets and there was an Irish person, Donald Aitchison, who he arrested and he asked me if I did not want to use him because he's got a foreign passport. I have told Knox on a previous opportunity, I told him that I was looking for people with a foreign passport, somebody who was awake. He knew what I was looking for.

He then told me about this Irish person, Aitchison. I asked him what was the charges against him, and he said theft, he stole shoes from the OK Bazaars. Then I told him "how are you going to get this guy out" and he said he is on bail but he can speak to the people from the OK Bazaars and they may withdraw the charges. He then did this. I provided him money to pay for the shoes and they apologised and then he told the manager of the OK Bazaars that Aitchison is not quite sane, he does things that he does not know about, in other words he's got a mental knock. Then they felt sorry for him and they withdrew the case.

I went to go and meet him at the Bedford Centre, under an alias. I told, I asked him if he was willing, or I was working for a consortium, and I used that same cover. From the second meeting, Aitchison kept on going about this Z-Squad. Where he heard this, I do not know. I didn't even know about the Z-Squad.

Later I heard, I read in newspaper articles, I think it was the former Bureau of State Security under Jan Hendrik van der Berg, that there existed a Z-Squad and they referred to a certain unit of the CCB as the Z-Squad. I discouraged him, but he kept on going on. I kept on talking about the business and eventually I asked him to give me a background report about what his background consisted of. I got that from him, and in the meantime I made contact with Calla Botha. If I can recall correctly, he was on ice or something, or he was told to lay low. I provided him with the background of Aitchison, how I got to meet him. I gave him all this information, I gave him the written document of what Aitchison wrote and on this page, I told him "give yourself any name", I did not mean James Bond, and he called himself "The Cleaner". I then gave it to Mr Botha. Mr Botha put it into the system. I do not know whom he gave it to.

At a later stage I made certain enquiries. Mr Botha told me that the people in the CCB told him that Aitchison cannot be used, and that he must not be used. That is the last time that I heard about it.

MR COETZEE: Did you have any further contact with Donald Aitchison?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, any other, or the only contact that I had with him was when I was detained under Section 29, and the whole Terrorist Section, I was the only person detained. At a certain stage during my detention, they confronted me with Donald Aitchison. It was Col Jumbo Smit who confronted me. He came in with the Investigating Officers and Jaap Joubert from the Detective Branch in South Africa, and the investigating team was involved with my interrogation.

They came into my cell and they pushed him into my cell. I cannot recall how long I was detained by then. I looked at him and I said "no", then he mentioned my name. I think he said Andrew or something. I then pretended not to know him, but it was not very convincing. They locked him up in the cell with me for about two hours, but I thought maybe the cell was a bit rigged, they can, they took me out for interrogation, they can then place a bug in the cell. The more he started talking to me, the more I denied him, and then I started swearing and then he said "yes, he knew they were taping the conversation". I confronted him there, and I think he was also detained there while they did this investigation.

All the cells are soundproof, so you have no contact with anybody else. I then saw him again after he returned back to South-West Africa Namibia, I was released after three and a half months. When he was released from South West Africa, from prison, he came back to his girlfriend in Bedfordview and when I found out that he was released under Section 29, I did another thing that I shouldn't. I felt sorry for him and I did not want to leave him alone. I went to go and see him, or I went to see his girlfriend, and I assisted her financially.

I encouraged her and we built up some trust between us. I spoke to her over the phone, I went to visit her at the Bedford Centre, I took a girlfriend with me. I gave her some money and found out what her complaints were, and I tried to do what I could for them in the system. At a later stage he was released and then he contacted me on the number that I gave her. I went to see him also at the Bedford Centre where we drank a cup of coffee. We had a discussion, I asked him about the Lubowski murder and he told me, he did not want to admit to me that he murdered Lubowski, but he described others to me. I asked him for descriptions, I wanted him to ID the people who were using us and I told him "we were both locked up" and the people whom he described to me, were not anybody that I could really place or that I knew or who had contact with him and sent him around.

We spoke about money that was left in a hotel room for him, in a suitcase, under a bed. More or less the same as Chaps Maree said, it was all James Bond stories. I got the impression that people contacted him in South-West Africa and gave him money, but the description that he gave me, did not fit in with anybody that I knew.

MR COETZEE: There were also evidence concerning a book at a hotel, that was delivered. Do you know anything about the checking in of Aitchison in some hotel?

MR BARNARD: Are you now referring to the Royal Ascot Hotel?

MR COETZEE: Yes, I am referring to that.

MR BARNARD: Yes, Honourable Chairperson. What happened was, while Mr Aitchison was detained, Mr Calla Botha came to me, we had regular contact with each other, we knew we were both in contact with him, and there were problems. He told me that the people in his region or cell, are very worried or concerned about the meeting that took place in the Royal Ascot Hotel and that he was tasked to steal the registry. I told him that I would assist him.

We then left. It was not very easy, although if you want to do it the hard line way, you could go in with a weapon, but the foyer of the hotel was very busy, there were various staff members, it is quite a high counter and behind the counter, there is a very thick book. It was covered in leather, it was the only book there, and in my work as a Detective, I visited a lot of hotels, as a Narcotics Detective. I knew documentation like this, and I knew it looked like the register. That was the only thing that was laying there, and I had to move very quickly, because Mr Botha started complaining and tried to draw attention away from me.

While they were busy there, I grabbed the book and I walked out. I met him outside. We were quite satisfied with ourselves. Once we were about two kilometres from there, I realised it was the table book, where they made reservations for tables for the restaurant. We wanted to return and I realised there was only one way in which we could do it. We had to burglar the hotel. If things did not look right, we would have to do it as a stick up, and we have to take the cash as well.

When we parked in front of the hotel, Mr Alex Kouvaris got out of a vehicle, it was a BMW, he was with a blond woman. I knew he was a high profile person who owned a lot of night-clubs in Johannesburg, and I also knew that he had certain connections with Mr Burger. I did not know what the connections were, however. When I saw this, Calla told me that he is quite sure that Mr Burger targeted Mr Kouvaris to do the same thing, and we then withdrew.

Then at a later stage he told me that he was told not to attempt this again.

MR COETZEE: What did you do with the book, did you just throw it away?

MR BARNARD: Mr Botha took the book and I think he handed it over to his co-ordinator or manager, and they all laughed about it, and then threw it away.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, in essence this is your involvement in the CCB activities internally. Are there any other incidents in which you were involved in?

MR BARNARD: Not that I can really think of off the cuff. While I was busy with the McQuillan project, and I testified concerning Klaas de Jonge, there is just one aspect that I would like to highlight there.

I was told by Frans(sic) Luitingh on a certain request, that Mr Klaas de Jonge was going to be eliminated through an explosive device, through a post-box that he visited on a regular basis. The explosive device would be placed in the post-box. It will be placed close to his vehicle, but this was the Australian contact which I referred to. He would do it. He was an explosives expert, and that is how he would be killed.

Apart from that, I cannot think of anything else.

MR COETZEE: If we can then continue with certain foreign activities or projects. You have mentioned certain aspects concerning Adv Lubowski. Are there any other matters in which you were involved in abroad?

MR BARNARD: That is correct Mr Chairperson. I was involved abroad, not physically being abroad, apart from the South-West Africa excursion. We acted abroad on information that I placed into the system of the CCB.

MR COETZEE: Can you just refer to cases in which you provided such information?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I can. During October 1988, when I was activated, one of the first things that I did after I recruited McQuillan and that excursion of him to London took place, I met a mandrax smuggler, an international smuggler. I cannot say I recruited him, but I knew him before, when I was a Narcotics Detective and I worked on syndicates.

I re-recruited him, although I did not put it like that to the CCB, I knew he had a lot of good contacts as high up as even Tanzania.

I went to go and see him and the first information that he gave to me was, that I entered into the system, was verified. It was with regards to a house in Chunga, some zone in Lusaka, Zambia, being a terrorist infiltration house of the ANC and MK. I took this information, entered it into the system via Lafras Luitingh. Mr Luitingh returned to me after a few days. He was very interested or very excited. He told me that under no circumstances must I lose this person. He immediately gave me R5,000 in cash. He said the information was confirmed, and this was the type of information that they needed.

Then in the media I read certain reports that there was an explosive device and it was detonated in Lusaka at such a house that was attached to the ANC. I spoke to Mr Luitingh about this, and he denied it. He said it was just a coincidence, but I knew it was the same thing.

He came back with me, with money at a later stage, to again give to George.

MR COETZEE: Who is George?

MR BARNARD: George is the smuggler who provided me with the information. Then the same smuggler provided me with information concerning a house in Alexander Road, Hatfield, Harare. It was similar information, it was an MK infiltration house, where they were armed. I entered this information on the system in the same way.

They again handed over a few thousand rand that I should give to him. They came back to me and said that the information was confirmed. I cannot today really recall independently if I saw that something appeared in the media, or if they told me that they acted on it. They were very satisfied. I received a bonus after the second time. I think they gave me about R3,000 after I provided them the second time with some information.

I had another source that I newly recruited. It was also an international mandrax smuggler, who worked in the African area. He spoke about the Grassroots Bookshop in Harare as being an address that was visited by Stanley Madizela, who at that stage was the Head of the ANC in Zimbabwe, that he would there meet and have co-ordinating meetings at the Bookshop. Above the Bookshop, there was a flat or room and that they would meet there and have these co-ordinating meetings and that he was accompanied by three or four MK members at a time.

Once again, I cannot today recall if they acted on that, but somebody told me, I cannot independently confirm this, but if they acted or not, but once again, they were very satisfied with the information. They checked it out and it was verified, and at a certain stage, later, he told me that they acted on this premises and that Madizela was not there. I could not confirm that, I did not read it in the media. I do not know if they acted or not.

MR COETZEE: Just to place this into context, you have referred to your vehicle and you referred to Tjongarero

in Namibia. For the sake of clarity, can you explain how you became involved there and what your tasking was?

MR BARNARD: After I was instructed by Kobus le Roux to stand down from the Lubowski matter, after the video of his house was made and so forth, he told me that the target would now be Mr Daniel Tjongarero. Mr Tjongarero was a senior member of SWAPO, as I deduced. He lived internally, in other words he did not go into exile.

The CCB wanted to kill him in order to drive a wedge between the people of SWAPO who were returning from exile and those who remained on the inside. They had to create conflict between the two. That is how it was conveyed to me.

An address was given to me, it was the address of Mr Tjongarero in Katura neighbourhood. He also gave me binoculars, quite an expensive set of binoculars. I am not an expert in the field of binoculars, but it certainly would not have cost below R40,000 to R50,000, this was provided to me. It also had a night vision setting.

I traced the address and I found a small hill which I could use to penetrate, in other words, what I mean is that I could gain access through that without having to point a gun at a security guard, I could get to the place. There wasn't a regular stream of people there. From that position, I could observe the house, which I indeed did.

In my Section 29 affidavit I see that I said that the vehicle was a white Toyota Cressida. I cannot recall independently, but I do know that it was a sedan vehicle, with a short registration number. I saw that the vehicle left and returned to the residence quite regularly, from Katura to Windhoek. I obtained a description of the person when he disembarked at a certain point, and sent all that information back into the system, via Kobus le Roux, who came back to me and said that the information had been confirmed, and that it was indeed the target. There was a weapon available, and I said "look, the job is on, I can do it any time." I had driven besides Mr Tjongarero, I have been positioned right next to him at a traffic light late at night. I conveyed it as such, and then something curious took place.

A few days passed without anything happening. I was waiting for the firearm and so forth, and I started looking around for a vehicle to hijack to use for the job. Then he came to me and he said that the target had changed, that Mr Tjongarero would no longer be shot, that it was now Mr Hidipo Hamutenya. There were other people working on it, and I just had to remain patient.

In the meantime, he returned to Pretoria and then he had me come to Pretoria. I left everything there, that is when I left my vehicle there and went through to Pretoria to see what the situation was with Mr Hamutenya.

MR COETZEE: Did you do any work on the Hamutenya case?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not.

MR COETZEE: And then with regard to the election which was held in South-West Africa Namibia, were you involved in any way with that?

MR BARNARD: I was not physically involved in the election, but during the time that I spent there, the pre-election was held. That is when I was there, but I was not specifically involved there.

What did take place was that there were discussions, Kobus le Roux and I had social dealings, and at one point we had a conversation and he told me that he was involved with the Lubowski and Tjongarero matters, he and his people were involved in the disruption of the elections in Namibia. Then he gave me examples of how they planned to interrupt the elections. One had to do with poisonous snakes.

He conveyed it as such, that there were projects under way. He said that the CCB had a vegetable farm in Namibia, that that was allegedly the front.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, at this stage we have now been hearing evidence for some time, about so-called events that took place in Namibia or outside the country. This is all hearsay evidence from other people. I don't know how long we are going to continue listening to this hearsay evidence? It seems rather inadmissible and a waste of time and totally irrelevant to the proceedings that we are dealing with?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, it is quite clear what he is talking about now, is inadmissible. However, as we have said earlier, we are, we do have a bit of latitude when it comes to this sort of evidence in proceedings of this nature. How much longer will you be on this? We do have a time factor and as Mr Wessels says, it is not pertinent to the subject matter of the amnesty applications directly.

MR COETZEE: Chairperson, indeed it might be hearsay evidence, but these are aspects which came to Mr Barnard's attention which he would like to disclose.

It is brief. There are two incidents that he wants to refer to. There isn't anything that will take much longer, but there is much evidence to follow. In the scheme of things, it is a very minor aspect of his evidence, and I will ask him to refer to it very briefly, if the Committee would allow me to do so.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, may we be permitted to make a submission with regard to the objection?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR BIZOS: There is a difference between hearsay evidence and statements made in furtherance of a conspiracy during the course of the conspiracy, when the evidence is admissible in order to prove the nature and objectives of the conspiracy that we are dealing with here.

We do not agree that this is hearsay evidence and that it is inadmissible, although we would associate ourselves with your remarks that they should possibly be bridged, for the sake of saving time, but most certainly anything that is said in the furtherance of the conspiracy during the course of the conspiracy, is admissible. There is very clear authority in the Appellate Division and other decisions to that effect, Mr Chairman.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, we had this argument on the first day of the proceedings, the Act is very clear on that. The Act says there is a certain procedure to be followed, that all relevant information is to be supplied in regard to that act for which amnesty is being applied for.

This is an abuse of the process that is set up by the Act. My objection remains.

CHAIRPERSON: We will allow it to continue, but if it can be as brief as possible, the questions, the matters that he has heard from other people.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, would you refer to it very briefly without going into unnecessary detail? Could you just tell us what you heard?

MR BARNARD: Yes Chairperson, in essence Mr le Roux said to me in a nutshell that there was a project where poisonous snakes were purchased in South Africa, in the Northern Transvaal, that they were placed in a specially manufactured cage, in a carrier bag with a mechanism which, when activated, would make the bottom of the case drop out. An unknown agent was recruited in Namibia, who would then attend a large meeting of SWAPO members, which would be addressed by former exiles. This person would have caused a stampede among the people present, by activating this cage. If people were bitten by the snakes, then it would be as such, but the idea was to get people to trample each other to death during such a stampede.

Whether this really took place, whether the plan was ever implemented, I don't know. Furthermore he told me of the sabotage of vehicles, that a project was to be launched which would disrupt SWAPO's logistical structure, which would involve taxi's, which transported people to the major centres such as Keetmanshoop and Swakopmund.

There were mixtures of liquid which were manufactured to get the vehicles to stall. Experiments were conducted with gas cans which would be placed in the exhaust systems of the cars as well as causing an explosion in the silencer systems of the cars. Then there were also persons in SWAPO who were targeted, for their vehicles to be burnt out so as to discourage other white people from becoming members of SWAPO.

I thought that the second scenario was a complete waste of time, and I said so, but this was what was conveyed to me. Then with regard to the Hamutenya incident, there were no developments. As I have already told you, later I flew back to Pretoria so that I could be further informed regarding Namibia, but this never took place.

Then there was the Mati Attasari incident, in which I was personally involved in South-West. Mr Mati Attasari was the same person who along with Cyril Ramaphosa visited the stockpile locations. He was the Chief Representative of the United Nations, UNTAG in Namibia at that stage.

Kobus le Roux came to see me one evening in the hotel and told me that there was something else that had to be done, that he had been tasked about this, and he used words to the effect that "Mati Attasari had to be fucked up good and well." He asked whether I would be prepared to do so. He was not supposed to be killed, but he had to receive a good hiding.

He asked whether there was any information available and I was told that the CCB had information available that Attasari on the following evening, would be at the Keetmanshoop Hotel attending a meeting, or addressing a meeting, I am not certain which one of the two. There were two vehicle registration numbers and two descriptions. One was a sedan vehicle, and the other was a United Nations UNTAG kombi.

They said that he didn't move with bodyguards, but that he did have a driver and that the meeting at the hotel would commence at approximately eight o'clock that evening. I discussed the matter with him somewhat, he would assist me with regard to the getaway vehicle. I thought of taking a baseball bat, we drove to the premises to reconnoitre it, and there was a regular flow of pedestrian traffic in and out of the hotel. It did not lend itself to the use of a baseball bat.

We had to figure out what to take, which would injure the person without killing him. I foresaw that once I saw him, I would run into him and simply do him in. What then took place was that I suggested to Mr le Roux that I suggested to Mr le Roux that he buy me an iron saw because the grip handle was a very good knuckle buster, one could make a good knuckle buster out of such a handle.

I knew this due to my movements in and around the Johannesburg night-clubs and because with the gangster wars in the earlier years, and that was a favourite weapon and I was also involved in this whole set-up with this people at that stage.

I knew what sort of damage such a weapon could cause and I knew that it also offered absolute protection to one's hands in case of injury or cuts or bruises. It was also the kind of thing that one could conceal in a pocket and then bring out at the last instant.

However, there was always the possibility especially if one was attacking somebody who was older than oneself, and also smaller than oneself. I knew what he looked like, I had seen pictures of him in the media, they had given me a photo of him as well. If one were to hit him and hit him in the wrong place, one could kill him. I said this to Mr le Roux, and I said "there are no guarantees with the job. I am going to try, I will try to hit him on his body and attack his limbs and make a quick getaway".

We had a 4 x 4 vehicle with false number plates, which we were going to use as the getaway vehicle. We went to reconnoitre the place, we bought two iron saws. One for me to use the handle of, and I thought that we should take the other so that I could modify it to a certain pro forma, but it was fine just the way it was. Then we departed to execute the project.

Attasari did not arrive. We waited the whole evening, until approximately 23H00 that evening, when we withdrew. The following day he came to me, that is Mr le Roux, and he said that the order was quite serious, that we were on standby, that they were trying to obtain further information regarding where Mr Attasari would be next, but it never materialised.

MR COETZEE: Very well. Was there any other involvement in which you yourself were involved, externally?

MR BARNARD: I might just mention, perhaps I should have mentioned this with the McQuillan project, at a certain stage McQuillan came to give me a certain document. This document was about Mr Ronnie Kasrils and one Eleanor. I don't know whether that was his wife, but the name was Eleanor.

There was an address in Golders Green in London and among others, it was stipulated that a hit could be carried out at any time. That was stipulated on the document. Surveillance had been conducted on the house and a hit could be carried out at any time.

The same document contained detailed information regarding Messrs Aziz and Essop Pahad and their movements, their residences, their residential addresses, the places that they visited in London. I sent this information into the system. Later it was said that they were very impressed with the information, but that no action could be taken in London specifically at that point, because Mrs Margaret Thatcher was the only Western or European political leader who was still favourably inclined towards the South African government, to a certain extent and that no such action could be carried out in London specifically.

MR COETZEE: If I understand correctly, this completes your involvement with the CCB? Is there anything else that you could possibly recall that you would like to add?

MR BARNARD: Not that I can recall, Chairperson.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, after your detention and much later, with the disbandment of the CCB, up to and including the dissolution, you indeed enjoyed all the benefits, such as medical aid, vehicle subsidies, and so forth?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR COETZEE: And the vehicle that you received, which you had indeed referred to, is that still in your possession?

MR BARNARD: I kept that vehicle until after the dissolution of the CCB at which point the vehicle was given to me, no one took it away from me or asked for it. At a later stage, I traded the other vehicle in to obtain a different vehicle.

MR COETZEE: And was there any reason for you to believe that up to the dissolution of the CCB, you were not a member of the CCB?

MR BARNARD: No, there was no such reason.

MR COETZEE: After the dissolution of the CCB, you went to DCC? How did it come to be that you became involved with DCC?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I was approached after my Section 29 detention, after I was released from detention. I went to the Attorneys who had acted on behalf of me, Scholtz and Botha, they had been appointed by the Defence Force. I went to their offices and there was a telephonic discussion between the Attorney and someone else, who requested that the CCB needed to know what my financial needs were.

I stated a certain amount which I cannot recall, I think it was R6 000-00. They notified me that I should go the following day, that they had R12,000 for me. I went there and fetched the cash. I was instructed to go on holiday.

When I returned from holiday two weeks later, a telephone number was given to me and I was instructed to dial the number. The number was the personal car telephone number of Gen Witkop Badenhorst from Chief of Staff Information, Military Intelligence. I spoke to him and he told me that he wanted to talk to me, that there was also an arrangement between me and him to meet with each other at Adv Hennie Goosen's offices, who was also acting for him in a civil matter at that stage.

We were to meet two days later. I met Gen Badenhorst there and he asked me if I wasn't interested in working for Military Intelligence. I was indeed interested, because I didn't want to be unemployed. He said that people would contact me. This happened shortly afterwards. I was recruited physically by two persons, two officers from MI, namely Col Terrence Skelen and Col Gerrie Bornman.

It was just outside Pretoria where I had my first rendezvous with them. Over a period of approximately two to three weeks approximately, I became involved and I was appointed as an agent with DCC.

MR COETZEE: Who was your contact person or how would you establish and maintain contact through the organisation?

MR BARNARD: My first handlers were Commandant Terrence Skelen and Gerrie Bornman. I was given a pager and telephone numbers, and I was taken at a certain stage, to a smallholding outside Pretoria, near Lynwood Road and they gave it the name "Oom Gert se Gat". It was in some form of a veil, one would go up a small hill and then in the descent after the hill, it was situated. All activities would take place there henceforth.

MR COETZEE: Were you ever explained why you were recruited for DCC and what your tasking in the DCC would be?

MR BARNARD: I was told and it was immediately clear to me that those who had already established a network, did not wish to lose the network. They also told me that MK and the ANC were very closely involved with crime and criminal factions and they wanted to expand the network that I had established, and that they were willing to finance it. I also received such specific tasks as well.

MR COETZEE: What was the awareness of your involvement with DCC, was it an office where all of you had coffee together, did you chat about what you were doing there?

MR BARNARD: No Chairperson, indeed it was not so. They made it very clear to me that I was functioning in a covert capacity, DCC was the covert section of Military Intelligence but that I would be covert in that covert division, in other words I did not visit the Arak Building at all. The Arak Building was the heart of DCC so to speak. I was not allowed to be seen there, nobody who was attached to me was permitted to visit the place. It was testified here that they didn't know that I was working for DCC. I didn't know that either. When I heard him say that he and Wouter Basson and Chap Maree had been involved there, I was quite surprised, because I went to Chap Maree one day, I ran into him after I had had my hair cut one day, and I found him in the parking area, I offered him a job. Then he had been working there for a long time already and he was even more senior than I was, and I didn't even know about it. He didn't tell me either.

I kept on with him, because I liked him. I respected him and I tried to get him in, because this would strengthen my position. He didn't want to know anything, however. So when I first heard here what was really going on, I realised that I had actually made quite a fool of myself, but it wasn't anything like that. I functioned on a completely covert basis.

I attended co-ordination sessions, I established my own substructure and I established a premises in Johannesburg from which I would operate. It was a front.

MR COETZEE: What was the premises?

MR BARNARD: There has been various forms of evidence in the inquest and during my trial to Waverley House. I established a brothel in Waverley along with Eugene de Kock from Vlakplaas, with whom I regularly had contact and had close liaison. He is also a friend of mine.

His involvement in the Waverley House has been misinterpreted by many witnesses as a Vlakplaas operation, but it was purely an MI/DCC safehouse and premises, but Mr de Kock provided certain logistical support to me. He assisted me in furnishing the place, in fitting refrigerators, in arranging swiftly for the installation of telephones and so forth. At the same time, I made the premises available to him as a place where he could debrief sensitive sources or just as a place to visit, or perhaps, if he wanted to set up someone in a complimentary position, sometimes he would just visit the place and come and see me. Sometimes it would be 15 or 20 of them at a time, sometimes three, sometimes it was him alone, sometimes he was with others.

MR LAX: Can I just ask something, sorry. The translation came through, set up someone in a complimentary position? Compromising?

MR BARNARD: Compromising position, sorry.

INTERPRETER: The interpreter apologises, it was misheard.

MR BARNARD: It all depends how you look at it as well, because it is a bordello.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, you established the system and this house, what was the basic idea, what would you have used it for, you yourself, as a member of DCC?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I used it for planning, they later appointed me as a chief agent, there were other agents who resorted under me, and I would speak to them there, and give them their tasks there. I became a co-ordinator.

What happened was that I had contact with the Heads in the system. They would give me a specific task at a place called The Table, where the information was put together in the broader context, like a puzzle. I would receive information and send it through to those resorting below me and give them specific tasks.

They would report back to me, and I would report it back during the co-ordination sessions.

MR COETZEE: What sort of tasks and what sort of information?

MR BARNARD: Honourable Chairperson, it was actually very general, regarding anything that had to do with MK and its activities, my specific task for me was to focus on the special operation units in MK and MK's involvement in crime.

MR COETZEE: And did you establish your substructure with your agents?

MR BARNARD: Yes. It snowballed so quickly and grew so quickly that it actually caught everybody unawares. There were numerous successes and money was not a problem. The money just came in.

Later on for example, I took someone like Eugene Riley and recruited him and he was appointed on a probationary period as an agent. Later, because he proved to be a good operative, they appointed him as a fixed agent and he himself, had his own substructure. Every agent in turn had its own substructure of sources and informers and I was at the pinnacle of this hierarchy. Just to indicate the sensitivity of the house and the application of the house, when it happened that Vlakplaas was scaled down, Mr de Kock came to me for an interview and offered that some of his top askaris and informers would be prepared to come over to me.

He didn't want to send them over to anybody else and he didn't want them to be without an income. It was also decided that due to the sensitivity of some of these sources, they could not be seen by me anywhere else, except there, because it was a place where there was easy access and not that much traffic overnight and over weekends. The brothel which was managed there by the persons who I had put in command, didn't know about the other persons who were coming and going, so it wouldn't have drawn any attention of neighbouring businesses or neighbours as such.

MR COETZEE: You established the system, you collected the information and you were earning the satisfaction of your handler. Could you just tell the Committee of these askaris who were handed over to you by Eugene de Kock, what was the value of it?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, before I answer the question and elaborate on it, I would just like to add that I don't have any problem with disclosing the name of any person who was an operative with me, or who was involved with me, or who gave me orders or with whom I was involved in specific tasks, but what I am not prepared to do under any circumstances is to disclose the identity of any informer, whether the person was an askari or whether the person was an informer, whatever the case may be, I am not prepared to do so, because it will jeopardise those persons, and I feel that in the same spirit of reconciliation, it would not be the proper thing to do, because many of those people had no other choice but to play along with us.

It is not like these grand recces who make me sick to the bone, who gave orders to me and who ran to go and testify in Wouter Basson's case. No one pressurised them to do it, but all of them came running in with a Bible under the arm, and gave evidence against these people. However, the informers were in a completely different situation, they were pressurised and some of the askaris were placed in the position where they had to cooperate or die.

Sketched against that background, I do not wish to disclose the identities, but I am more than prepared to say or to indicate what I did with them, without disclosing their identities.

MR COETZEE: Were they valuable, just to get back to the evidence?

MR BARNARD: Yes, there were many of those who were prominent, some of the best persons from Eugene de Kock, I bought over from him. When I say that, I don't say that Mr de Kock received money for it, DCC had the system whereby one would feed in the person's particulars and access into the system and a value estimation would be made of this person's access, a test run would be conducted to see what kind of information the person could provide, and then it would be decided that X amount would be allocated with which he or she could be bought.

That recruitment bonus would then be a bonus which would be used to motivate this man in the first place, to prove to him that he would be looked after. I received an MK Commander in this fashion, as well as someone who was highly prominent in the counter-intelligence unit of the ANC. Two such persons were brought to me and then there were also others who were recruited by me or who came to me via de Kock.

This specific Commander became successful overnight, because he had access to all the important decision making cells, where MK would meet. He was involved in all such meetings and structures. He kept us one step ahead, so to speak.

The intelligence that he provided to me, was of inestimable value and I could see immediately that this was intelligence on a completely different level. If a new structure were to be established today in a certain area, I cannot say which area, because that would identify him, but if a new structure was established on a certain day, I would know about it on the same day, and I would know about all the changes taking place in all the structures. It was of inestimable value.

It fortified our system.

MR COETZEE: Can you tell us who your substructure was? You have already stated that Eugene Riley was your subagent, who else was involved?

MR BARNARD: There were also other agents who were involved, they are not applicants for amnesty, but there was Sam Malgas and two others who were also agents, and then in the substructure, I had Mark Francis, but this is in the sub-network of informers, who physically dealt with criminals on grassroots level, Christopher Human, there were numerous of them.

MR COETZEE: And this is where you received the information that you would send up to Righ Verster?

MR BARNARD: That is correct, Righ Verster was incorporated at a certain point because he had been at the Head Office of DCC originally, but he was a sensitive case due to his background, he had spent time in prison. He was also involved in the Zulu factions. The one faction hired him and then he shot dead some of the soldiers from the other faction in the mountains, so he was the type of guy who was a very sensitive issue.

He, Verster, Price, myself, Anton Nieuwoudt, who was a former DG of Ciskei and a Colonel in Military Intelligence and the story which was told to me was that he had something or other to do with the death of Lennox Sebe, or Charles Sebe, I cannot recall, it was one of the two, who was killed in the Ciskei.

Because he was of such a sensitive nature, he was not allowed to visit the Head Office of DCC, he had to be handled in a completely different fashion, so he was also involved.

MR COETZEE: It is also commonly known that during the time that you were involved in DCC and even subsequently, you were also involved in crime, and you were charged with various criminal offences which you committed when you were with DCC, could you possibly explain to the Committee what was the nature of your work and what gave rise to your involvement in crime?

MR BARNARD: It is correct Chairperson. I am not trying to politicise all the crimes that I committed, it would be futile at this point, but what happened was that I began to live the life of a criminal every day. I liaised with criminals every day. I liaised on their level every day, I visited the same places as they did. I spent days and nights in clubs, escort agencies and brothels. At a certain stage, I had a whole system of nine escort agencies surrounding Shell House which I could name up, like that.

I began keeping a record of them, it was actually a front, but I was busy with Military Intelligence. I used drugs with these people, I had access to buildings, I tasked people within the criminal underworld to move in on MK members who had been identified, to establish contact with them, to make friends with them. I established a prostitution network where prostitutes were tasked with long-term and short-term plans. Long-term would be for them to hire a flat near Shell House, in the Diplomat Hotel which was furnished and rent it. It was equipped with telephones, video cameras and sound equipment which would then record persons. Two prostitutes would be placed in the apartment who would then specifically work on these MK members.

They had to get them to stay there and entertain them with alcohol and drugs, then we would get hold of their keys. In this way make duplicates, take documents that they had on them. Some of the conversations they had, were also recorded and this would then be used to get them in a situation where they were planted with drugs and stolen items and so forth.

Short-term, prostitutes would sleep with them, and then they would explain or arrange that the prostitute would go out with the MK member, but use a vehicle which she knew was stolen and she wouldn't tell him that, she would say that she needed to fetch something in Eldorado Park, like drugs and that he should take the car and just drive around the block, because otherwise they would appear to be suspicious, and then an MI team would be rigged from the police and as soon as she withdrew from the place, she would be picked up and the man wouldn't know that he would be driving a stolen car, and perhaps there would be a gun that was planted in the vehicle.

The police would pick him up and he would be involved. He would be directly incriminated in an offence without even being political, his bail would be refused or opposed and in that way, we would disrupt MK activities. That was just an example of the things that we did.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Coetzee, I don't think we need to spend too much time on the DCC activities. We don't need the details for the purpose of the application.

MR COETZEE: Mr Commissioner, there is just one incident which is of rather importance, which I just wanted to build up to, which Mr Barnard will testify about now.

Mr Barnard, very well, we are now not going to go into details concerning the DCC activities, but there is actually one aspect that you feel very seriously about, concerning your DCC involvement, and this is in relation to a robbery in Lusasaneng in Bophuthatswana where you were involved and also found guilty.

Can you just possibly start there and tell the Commission what happened after that robbery?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, just before I get there, there was a situation that arose at a certain stage where the whole information or intelligence system on which we worked, the whole monster machinery that I built up, and at various times people told me that we were the top performers in the country, we were very effective, and that now they were going to cut certain fundings, there were problems, there were two schools of thought in the higher levels of the hierarchy.

There were problems now. The MK, ANC, was in the country and the targets changed, we have to focus on the SACP, then we have to focus on MK, then we are not allowed to go close to them, then we have to focus on APLA. There was also a problem with funding, we could not get hold of the funds that we were used to.

Then Righ Verster addressed me at a certain stage where he told me that we have to try and get hold of our own funds to keep up the system, because we do not have the support from the top any more.

Then we made a decision and he brought me under the impression that it was also authorised from higher up that we must now generate money, but by means of taking on the criminals and must not rob a bank or rob somebody on the street, but I should focus on drug dealers. I created a team with Eugene Riley, myself, Mark Francis and another coloured person.

They were the main characters, and one of the first robberies that we did, was 12 000 mandrax tables, I sold it five or six times. Every time I sell it through a specific person, Marak Francis who was an underworld figure that I recruited, he would act as the seller. People from Newcastle would come to buy the tablets, he would give them a good price, they buy it, and as they drive away with the tablets, we will have a police vehicle, pull them off the road and take it back. I did it and sold it at various opportunities and various times.

We would keep a third of the money for ourselves, a third would be given to the person who did the front-line work, and a third would then be used in the system. But it rotted at the end, the whole process that we were busy with.

I robbed the Nigerians in Johannesburg, I robbed them of all their drugs, and if I was convicted of that, I would have done 500 more years of prison service. Things got out of hand.

One of the robberies that we committed was in Lusasaneng in Bophuthatswana. Things went wrong, there was a lot of shooting. Eugene Riley was wounded in the face and in the body. He was not arrested at the scene, but after they chased him, he was arrested. I got away and another person got away. Eugene Riley and Mark Francis were arrested.

To give you some background on Mark Francis, he was a very prominent member in the Johannesburg underworld, who also served a sentence for a bank robbery. I also knew him from when I was a Detective at the SANAP Branch. I then made him an informer. I knew him from the prison and I pulled him into the system.

At a later stage he received a salary and he organised for certain access. He knew about the system, especially about the unit that I ran in Hillbrow and in Johannesburg Central. Things went wrong at the Lusasaneng. This robbery that went wrong, it was a bona fide robbery. They had R600 000 that they robbed from somebody else, they were switching diamonds and this money was at a specific premises. We hit the target at about four o'clock in the morning, myself, Riley and another person who drove the vehicle.

We had balaclavas on, we penetrated the house and then when the shooting took place, Riley fell, other people were wounded as well. We got away, myself and another person, but Riley and Francis were arrested at a later stage.

I was found guilty of the robbery and what happened then was, when we arrived back in Johannesburg, Mr Francis, while he was arrested, he admitted that, or he implicated me in front of a Magistrate, he said that we gave him Uzzis. I was a member of the CCB. Amongst others, the investigative team who detained me concerning the Webster murder, went to Bophuthatswana to go and see him there, he made a report to them. On the grounds of his allegation they came back to me, but I denied everything.

I got Francis and Riley out on bail. I got them out. When they arrived back in Johannesburg, I took Mr Francis to an Attorney and he made a statement to counter his previous statement, because I knew they were going to use the first statement in order to deliver me out, but he had already made a statement after he was released, that he only implicated me because he saw that this was what the people wanted and he thought it was hit-squad activities, and he used that, but that indeed it was not true, I did not accompany and he was putting it in a different way, now that there was no pressure on him. He was very scared of me, because I knew this person created a lot of problems for me, but the statement cleared the way for me, that they cannot deliver me out to Bophuthatswana, and there were no way in which they could get to me. I was not charged. Eugene Riley and Francis were both charged.

Then I received information from a prostitute that Francis said that before he went to jail in Bophuthatswana, before he is going to jail in Bophuthatswana, he will expose all my activities in my unit. Apparently he made contact with members in Brixton and at the same stage Eugene Riley received the same information from a different source, a police source.

Myself and Eugene Riley then realised that this is a really big problem and I had no other choice, but to report this to Righ Verster because my bosses Gerrie Bornman and Righ Verster, they all had meetings with Mr Francis, where they questioned him. Carol-Ann Burt and Christopher Human, they all knew.

I handed over this information to him, what this man was planning to do and within a day, Verster came back to me and he told me that the instruction was "this person must immediately be killed." I said "this is not a problem, I will shoot him". He said "he must not be shot, it must seem, it must look as if it is a gang related attack", the same way as Dr Webster was killed. We had to use a different method.

I then thought about it, I thought about using a knife, or to hit him until he died. Mr Riley had a trust between the two of them, because they acted in Lusasaneng together. First it was just once a week, then twice a week, and later it was just once a month.

We would go then on a specific day, to go and report and the previous evening we discussed that Eugene Riley will get Francis to go to a certain alley in Hillbrow, Berea, and I would then wait there and kill him there. That same time, when this happened, there was also an issue with Vlakplaas, I had problem with Tokarev Bezuidenhout. What made the whole issue more sensitive was that I already tasked Francis to work on Bezuidenhout in Berea, who lived in some Mansions, I cannot recall. It was very close to the hotel that Staal Burger had at that time, in Berea.

They used drugs together, they drank cough medicine together and we wanted to make use of him, and he knew that we were busy working on Tokarev Bezuidenhout. Things worked in that way that I got out of the vehicle with a baseball bat, it was a Sunday evening, I walked into the alley and at the bottom of the alley, it is an alley behind a street, it is very dark. There is an entrance that was built in, I waited there, Mr Riley walked around with Mr Francis. He told him that he hid mandrax there and that he wanted Francis to test it for Chinese people who wanted to buy it. It was only samples that had to be tested, and he pulled Francis into the alley. I came from the back, with the baseball bat and I hit him. The first blow that I dealt him, was very hard, but something happened and he ducked and I hit him on the arm or the shoulder, and he fell down.

He is not my size, he is much smaller. Riley jumped to the front, picked Francis up from the ground and he said "Mark, they are attacking us". At that stage I was able to hit him against his head, I could hear his head explode. He fell and he never got up. I placed the baseball bat behind me and walked away, but he started shouting. It all happened in a few seconds. I walked up into the alley and Mr Riley followed me.

I left the alley, got into a vehicle that we parked there beforehand. I placed the bat in a plastic bag and I put it in a rubbish bin. We drove to the Westdene Dam and I threw the bat into the Westdene Dam, over the fence. Myself and Riley drove. We went to go and pick up petrol that we bought beforehand. We all got into a rubbish bag and we took all our clothes off, our shoes as well, we put it in bags, we dressed in clothes that we had ready. We took the petrol, doused the clothes and set it alight.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, can I ask you, did you receive a production bonus for this incident?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not Mr Chairperson, I was told that I was responsible for this problem, it was my problem and I had to sort it out myself. The system had to be protected against exposure.

MR COETZEE: There were various other involvements of DCC that was political of nature, but as the Chairperson said, it is not really relevant to this proceedings. Up to when were you still a member of DCC?

MR BARNARD: Up until they disbanded.

MR COETZEE: And afterwards there was also the Goldstone Commission that did an investigation concerning DCC's involvement?

MR BARNARD: That is correct Mr Chairperson. What happened was that the Goldstone Commission in that same time, while I was involved in the Webster formal post mortem inquest, the Goldstone Commission exposed something in the media. They raided the DCC Arak Building, the Headquarters and they got hold, and they exposed myself and my unit. I wrote a document on request, I made or presented them with a planning strategy, how we can disrupt MK, what we could do to disrupt them, because they were so close to the criminal world, I made such a presentation or submission and in broader terms it dealt with, I told them where they were involved with crime and where they were not involved in criminal activities, we had to frame them by infiltrating criminals and place that person in a compromising position and then arrest them.

That is what it was in broader terms, it was a very big document. I mentioned certain agents that I proposed to use, night-club owners, bouncers, prostitutes, criminals, all of them had to be used for this project, and I also arranged for access, access in terms of the voters' roll, the South African Bureau's computers, the Traffic Department, Telkom, Receiver of Revenue, all the records, I had access to all of these departments, and as part of this document, I included all of this.

I also recruited somebody by means of putting pressure on him. He had to do with the computer systems in Shell House, people of DCC were used to deal with that, because I had no knowledge of computers. But the person that I recruited by placing pressure on him, he gave them access to these computers. This document was found by Judge Goldstone, I cannot believe that DCC kept that document, because you can see it is CCB type of actions. When this document was exposed in the media, Judge Goldstone informed the media, it was on all the main news bulletins, and they made a big halloo-balloo that I was a convicted criminal and that I was applied, and that the State section was turned into a monster, I supported the system. I consulted with the officers and decided to take the punch, I will go in and testify in front of the Goldstone Commission because I was subpoenaed to appear before them, that I was the author of the document.

That was the presentation that I made, and how I explained it, but that was never implemented. The reason why it was not implemented, I told them, was because my Commanders came to me and said it is a CCB type of operation, we do not work like that in DCC. We are a support structure of the police and only an Intelligence collection service.

I misled the Goldstone Commission by telling them that this whole unit was not applied in such a way, which was not the truth. The Goldstone Commission, after they exposed it in the media, a day or two later, with Attorney Piet du Plessis, sitting next to me, we called for a press conference, stating the Defence Force's side. Where on national and international TV, I denied that it was implemented and I attacked Judge Goldstone's integrity by saying I was disappointed in the fact that he only presented the one side, that although I did make the presentation, it was never accepted or implemented.

This was however not the truth. It was approved and it was done in that way.

MR COETZEE: You then continued with your life after the DCC disbanded and you were then at a later stage charged and arrested, and are now serving a sentence? Mr Barnard, the fact of the matter remains, you cannot get amnesty irrespective of what you have just told the Commission. The reason why you are in prison now, and apart from the fact that you applied for amnesty for the attempted murder on Dullah Omar, why are you making these revelations now, what is the purpose?

MR BARNARD: Well Mr Chairperson, I did not want to make any revelations, initially I said I was not interested in that. I looked at the whole issue surrounding Dullah Omar and Bishop Tutu, that if Slang van Zyl incriminates me in any way, I would then create a safety net concerning the TRC process, that was my whole idea, I would support him in all his applications, up until the second appearance in front of the Commission.

I am not proud about what I did, not about anything. I was misled, I am disappointed in myself, in my naiveté and it is something that I have to live with, but at the end of the day, I am in a situation currently where I spend 97 percent of the day in solitary confinement. This is the situation for the last 27 months.

I have been in prison now for three months, longer than three months and where I have spent 27 months in C-Max, which is South Africa's Alcatraz. I am detained under these circumstances. You can compare it with sitting in this berth in which the interpreters are sitting, to be let out between eight and eleven in the morning for three hours' exercise, you have to wash your clothes, you have to shower and you must come back. The point that I am trying to make is that psychologically all these issues started bothering me, but I wanted to play the game as I did before, I wanted to continue with the fraud and the lies, still up until the second part of the sitting. Something happened here that really touched me, and if you will allow me, I will quickly describe this to you.

By nature of the situation, when something like this happens to one as had happened to me, I played the game, all the way with everyone, and then everyone left me. I am in the situation where I received an instruction from Slang van Zyl, but he himself came and testified against me and I got ten years' imprisonment. No one forced him to do so, no one made any threats against him. He came to me that morning at the court and said "good morning", went and sat in the bench and put me away for ten years.

This wasn't the only evidence which caused damage. There was the Judge and he is not stupid. This is a man, he could see, who came from the system, who knew what was going on, so he would make the link with Webster and all the other things that he was testifying about, by nature of the situation.

The same with Lafras Luitingh. He did the same and Righ Verster, three persons who gave instructions to me, who were more senior in the organisation than I was. All three testified against me in my criminal trial and sent me to prison. And all of them are walking about freely outside. For no moment would I want 35 more people to come to prison. I cannot really see how that would promote reconciliation, and I do not want to be part of that.

A large proportion of what I am doing here today, is because I know that this is evidence which cannot be used in criminal proceedings. What made me come here to tell the truth is basically the straw that broke the camel's back. Since the first session at the Head Office, as I was led in and out, I was the closest to the gallery where the victims were seated and I watched them closely.

I saw that they were doubtful, that they were frustrated. I could see that they were enraged when they saw that someone wasn't speaking the truth and I began to ponder these things. What happened to me personally is when I walked passed them every afternoon, although they were angry at the witnesses, I don't blame them, I would have felt exactly the same way, perhaps even more so, every afternoon as I was led passed them, they greeted me in a friendly manner and wished me well.

Most prominently Dullah Omar's wife, Mrs Omar. At first I thought that they were being sarcastic, as if they felt that they had me in a position. I thought that they were relishing in the moment, that was the impression that I had. Indeed that was not the case. Upon the second occasion, here, as you can recall it was in winter, and there were queries which were made by Mrs Omar, and she wanted to know why I didn't have a jacket.

Upon a following occasion she wanted to know who was feeding me, and this doesn't come from my own people, they went to the hotel during the day. No one here from my own people was worried whether I had anything to eat or not. You will recall in the first session last time, Calla Botha wasn't here, there were only two people who were supporting me. In three years no one from DCC or the CCB, no one from the entire Security set-up came to visit me once in prison, with the exception of Mr Calla Botha who came to see me every month and Mr Chap Maree.

Both of them have supported me both financially and otherwise, and then it would take those who suffered as a result of my deeds and my offences, who came to me and put the coals on my forehead. They performed acts of kindness towards me, while I hurt them. They were worried about whether I was warm enough, whether I had enough to eat, and what I realised here is that these people were offering a hand of reconciliation to me.

It upset me tremendously, I lay awake at night in my cell from that moment onwards, night after night. When I arrived here the following day and walked passed again and Mrs Omar said to me that I must have a good night's rest and that she would pray for me, it was a dam wall that burst within me, and at that moment, I decided that under no circumstances could I ever return here and lie further to these people.

I hope now that what I have said here today, will help to relieve the burden of uncertainty, especially when it comes to me. By nature of the matter, I am deeply regretful regarding what I had done. I am not trying to put the blame for what I have done, on anybody else's shoulders, I did what I did and I believe that there must be retribution for what I have done. I took lives and there are irreversible consequences as a result of this. I injured others, I tried to kill others and I have a deep sense of regret regarding what I did, not the fact that I was caught, but it has become so much more important than this for me.

I do not wish to insult the amnesty process in any way, but if I were to be granted amnesty for anything that I have done, it would be of academic interest and there is only one place for me to go after this, and that is C-Max and solitary confinement. There is no way in which I could walk out of these doors and go elsewhere, I know that. For me it has become sufficient enough and significant enough, that I reconcile with the victims, that I have the opportunity to express my regret for what I have done to them.

They are much better people than I am. I would like to put all of this behind me, I want to do this for my own peace of mind, and for my own state of mind, and for my own conscience. I have friends who are supporting me, people that were not part of the world that I was involved in, they have supported me since day 1. They have stayed with me since I was locked up, to this very day. They have told me to speak the truth, every single time. They encouraged me to submit applications, I went against the advice of my parents and my friends because I was stubborn, because there was something in me that was preventing me from walking with you one day and selling you out, the next. I simply cannot do that. To me it is like climbing a mountain, what I have done here today.

What Mrs Omar and the others did for me, awakened sentiments within me which meant that I could no longer see my way open to come here and lie. For me it is not about putting Joe Verster in a precarious position, I don't want him to go to jail. I don't want the spineless politicians to go to jail, although I must admit that someone like Roelf Meyer and Pik Botha would look rather good in one of the C-Max jump-suits. I have thought numerous times that it would be quite pleasant to see them, just for a week in C-Max, so that they could see how it feels.

But I don't want all of us to be sitting there, 45 in a row, every morning in C-Max. What kind of reconciliation is that? That isn't reconciliation, I don't want that. I want the politicians who betrayed us and who sold us out, just to come forward and say, like Siphiwe Nyanda who is the Head of the Military, who had everything to lose. I sit in my cell and I read what that man has done. He accepts responsibility for his people who didn't even act under his direct instructions, collectively he comes forward and he says "that man did this and that. I was in command at that point in time, in that area, and I will accept full responsibility for what he has done". Why can one of these persons like Pik Botha who is a real chameleon, I have seen him running over to the ANC now, he is an adder, the ANC must be warned, "if you let that man into your circles, you will be bitten".

Furthermore he is a war criminal and a diamond smuggler, along with Jonas Savimbi, he is also a war criminal. Then there is Roelf Meyer who sold me out completely on TV. He didn't even know that I was working for DCC, but what happened was when this whole thing burst with the Goldstone Commission, Roelf Meyer went and issued a statement and said that the Military didn't know anything about me. But when he realised how big and how sensitive the thing was, that it had to be discussed on the highest of levels, they came to me with a document that I had to sign so that I wouldn't embarrass the Defence Force and so forth and just shifted me around.

Roelf Meyer was the one who composed the documents. I had to shift. In the meantime he lied to Aziz Pahad on TV and I watched this, I watched him sell me out. I watched him say "we know nothing about this man, he is a calculated criminal, he is a liar", they are the ones who sponsored the very likes of me. But there he would sell me out. I am not alone in this.

Kevin Wood who was in Zimbabwe and who is being detained in a high maximum security institution, they all did these things for the same reasons as I. They were betrayed in exactly the same way as I. I have two of Kevin Wood's letters to me. I brought them with, if you wish to see them, you can read them. I will explain the essence of it to you.

I just want to sketch to you what we are dealing with in terms of the politicians, such as Pik Botha and FW de Klerk. FW de Klerk makes as if he didn't have anything to do with it, I would like to tell you that he is the biggest conman on two legs. He is the biggest conman, he has conned the international community to such an extent that they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, which I feel is a slap in the face to Nelson Mandela, if ever there was one.

Slang van Zyl, who has been touring around testifying against everybody like the Boswell Wilkie Circus, who gave the same evidence in the Wouter Basson case; FW de Klerk who states that he didn't know about the existence of the CCB, it was the most interesting thing that I had seen in a long time, the following day in the newspaper, after Slang van Zyl gave evidence, I listened the afternoon before on 702, but the following day in the newspaper, there was a report which stated that FW de Klerk has come out of his corner and has stated that this proves indeed that he did not know about the existence of the CCB.

Chairperson, he would start off in such a way that would make even an Olympic champion jealous of such speed. It is like two children saying that they didn't steal the biscuits. He must have known. How could anybody still believe to this very day that these politicians did not know what we were busy with? But they refuse to admit it.

Do you know why? It is because they are sitting in the front rows with healthy pensions, no one can touch them, they system is engineered in such a way that nothing can be attached to them. What is the problem? They don't have a problem. Kevin Wood writes to me that for 10 years he struggled to have his South African birth right recognised by the former National Party government, the very same people who abused him and put him in the situation that he is in today.

When the ANC took over, in 1994, and this is in his letter, my Advocate has it in his possession, in his own words, he has written me this in the last two years, the ANC government was established, and within three to four months after the application, the ANC government came along and he writes -

"... then a black government did the honourable thing".

He wrote a letter to Pik Botha. Pik Botha was then the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, and he responded and he quotes in the letter to me on what date the letter of Pik Botha was sent to him and that Pik Botha wrote that it is regrettable that he is in the situation that he finds himself in, after justifiable official operations were conducted. He sent that letter to Alex Boraine of the TRC and Mr Pik "Chameleon" Botha went and misconstrued everything and told Alex Boraine that he simply did that in order to improve the circumstances of the people up there. He didn't mean to give official recognition to such persons, and this is what we are dealing with.

Kevin Wood isn't even asking to be released, he is asking to be transferred to South Africa, that is all. Our own people are betraying us, there is no way in which they will help us.

The same with FW de Klerk and Roelf Meyer, Neil Barnard from National Intelligence. He stands there with that little face of his, all he needs is a halo, he stands like a little "voortrekker" waiting in line for sweets, but he is actually the devil, he is the devil because he is the physical person who is responsible for the situation that Kevin Wood finds himself in.

He isn't concerned with anything or anybody, he denies the very existence of these people, and that is how it continues. I have deviated from the path somewhat.

MR COETZEE: You may continue.

MR BARNARD: In other words Chairperson, if you would grant me the opportunity, I would like to make an unconditional apology to the victims. I would like to apologise for any share that I had, whether direct or indirect in any of the things that caused problems for them, that caused tragedy and tears for them, that created uncertainty in their lives, and particularly because Mrs Omar is here today, I would like to say that her attitude has meant that I have done what I have done here, yesterday and today, specifically that tipped the scales for me and led me to speak the truth.

I would like to thank her because it is valuable to me. It was with malice and an evil heart that I came to your residence where you and your family were supposed to feel safe and I came with the express purpose of killing your husband and the head of your household, Dullah Omar, I did everything in my power to materialise this plan. I know today that it would have been utterly wasted.

Furthermore I am in a prison where originally the prison was constructed for executions, and I cannot tell you how many times I have thought that if it wasn't for the efforts of people like Adv Dullah Omar to abolish capital punishment, I would have been a dead man. So what happens now? I am doing everything in my power to kill him and to cause his family damage, but they pray for me and they do everything to assist me and indirectly, they save my life.

I cannot express my regret. In some bizarre manner, it gives me satisfaction to know that I am paying for what I have done. My greatest desire is no longer to be released from prison, I would like to become the old Ferdi Barnard once again. I would like to become what I was before I became involved in this mess, before the police, before everything. Even if it has to take place in a prison cell, even if I spend the rest of my natural life in a super maximum correctional facility, it has become important to me that people try to understand my circumstances and that they try to forgive me.

There is a life after this, and if it means that I will spend the rest of my life in prison, I would like to do so with a clear conscience, with a peaceful state of mind away from all this mess that I have helped to create.

My parents and my family are decent people. My friends are decent, straight forward people. They do not deserve what I have done to them. I owe them an apology as well. I owe Dr Webster's next-of-kin, in particular Ms Maggie Friedman, an unconditional apology. I know it does not change anything. You know how it feels for me, it feels as if a man comes to you and jumps into bed with your wife and then the next minute just says "sorry", what does that do? It does not change the situation, because the damage is done.

Sorry is what you say when you spill a drink on a man and if you do it again, you are looking for trouble. What I feel and what I have experienced, goes so much deeper than that. I cannot express to you in words how I feel. I just want you to try to find a place in your heart somewhere you could forgive me. I have made mistakes, I am being punished for them, I am taking the punishment like a man, I don't want to put anybody else in prison, I don't want to testify against them.

I will continue to meet out my sentence as such. Thank you Chairperson.

MR COETZEE: Thank you.

NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR COETZEE

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Barnard, we will take the lunch adjournment.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

FERDINAND BARNARD: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr du Plessis, do you have any questions you would like to ask?

MR H DU PLESSIS: No, I have no questions, thank you.

Mr Chairperson, no. I would like to ask some questions maybe at a later stage, but at this stage, none.

NO QUESTIONS BY MR H DU PLESSIS

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Martini?

MR MARTINI: Chairperson, just for the record, Mr van Zyl has testified in as far as Mr Barnard's evidence is inconsistent with or differs to the evidence of Mr van Zyl, it is denied. But similarly at this stage, I would reserve the right to cross-examine once the opponents have cross-examined, if it becomes necessary to question Mr Barnard at a later stage.

CHAIRPERSON: Who are the opponents?

MR MARTINI: Mr Bizos at the inception was advised that he represented certain opponents to amnesty.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Mr van Eck? Sorry?

MR BIZOS: I have no specific objection to the proposal made, but this is an enquiry. The applicant has chosen to give evidence once. I don't think that, and I am giving notice of this, that we will consider our position and would ask that we are entitled to have Mr van Zyl and others that have given evidence, called for further cross-examination on the evidence given by Mr Barnard.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you. Mr van Eck?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VAN ECK: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Barnard, during the time when you were with Mr Botha there and did the observation on Bruce White, would you agree that while you were standing there, that you were quite visible and formed a visible picture?

MR BARNARD: Yes, Mr Chairperson, we formed a visible picture but there was no other way in which we could do it.

We had to create the impression that we were two people standing on the corner of a road, and having a conversation. We did not stand on the same corner, every single time, we moved around.

MR VAN ECK: You testified that your impression was that Bruce White had to be killed?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I testified with that regard.

MR VAN ECK: It is my instructions from Mr Botha that the killing of Mr White was not in the framework of that observation, will you agree with that?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I did not say that Mr Botha told me that we had to kill Bruce White, this was my own perception. That is how I thought about the whole matter, because I knew the CCB's workings and I viewed it in a very serious light. I knew that we were not an intelligence collection service, and that was the perception that I had. If I can recall correctly, this incident took place in June 1989 and this was after I killed David Webster.

That could have been a factor that led to the fact that I thought that this would be the next person, but it did not come from Mr Botha or anybody else. He made it very clear to me that it was only observation.

MR VAN ECK: So it was only your own perception?

MR BARNARD: That is correct, yes.

MR VAN ECK: If we go to the Webster incident, can you recall that Mr Botha more than a year ago told you in prison that he is going to make known his role in the Webster incident?

MR BARNARD: That is correct Mr Chairperson, he did say that.

MR VAN ECK: Can you recall that Mr Botha also told you during that time that he had conversations or meetings with the Director of Public Prosecution, Mr Pretorius, where he already made a full statement concerning the Webster incident?

MR BARNARD: That is correct, that is how it happened, and Mr Botha did inform me about what he told him and he also gave me a copy of the statement in a visit to me.

MR VAN ECK: The discussions to which you have referred to with Mr van Zyl, concerning the Athlone incident and the baboon foetus, I assume it was also directly after these various incidents or projects?

MR BARNARD: Honourable Chairperson, I cannot specifically say it was shortly thereafter, but it was quite fresh in my memory.

MR VAN ECK: What I am trying to say here is, was it in the same year?

MR BARNARD: Yes, it was definitely in the same year.

MR VAN ECK: Mr Botha's evidence will be that he cannot recall these specific conversations, but if they did occur, his reaction would have been the way in which you described it?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I cannot say what Mr Botha can remember and not remember but it did happen like that. I do take note of what you have just told me.

MR VAN ECK: I've got no further questions, thank you chairperson.

NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VAN ECK

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr van Eck. Mr Wessels, do you have any questions that you would like to put to Mr Barnard?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR WESSELS: Yes, Mr Chairperson, I have questions. I will ask some questions and then I will ask for the matter to be postponed, to enable me to get some documentation and to prepare fully for the cross-examination of Mr Barnard. But I will proceed in the meantime with a few questions I have.

Mr Barnard, you are currently serving a sentence?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct.

MR WESSELS: What does your sentence entail?

MR BARNARD: It was two life sentences and 63 additional years.

MR WESSELS: Why were you sentenced?

MR BARNARD: Various crimes, amongst others murder, attempted murder, bomb explosions, possession of explosives, defeating the ends of justice, fraud, possession of machine guns. That is what I can recall now and armed robbery.

MR WESSELS: The life sentences that you are currently serving, the one sentence is for the death of Mr Webster and the other one?

MR BARNARD: The murder of Mark Lionel Francis.

MR WESSELS: And the attempted murder, you got ten years' sentence, attempted murder on Adv Omar?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: What did you get for the fraud charges?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, it is impossible for me to say. There must be documentation that will be able to assist you, there were various charges and convictions. The only one that remained with me is the life sentence.

If you are sentenced for a life sentence, all the rest fall away, because you've only got one life to serve, you do not have more than one. I did not really bother with the rest. I never had insight into it again, apart from the fact that I was in shock when I was sentenced, the one thing that remained with me was the life sentence. I did not go back to see what I got for the other charges, but I am sure the documentation is available, maybe through my Attorney.

MR WESSELS: You are now here today, you have just opened your heart and you made a full disclosure, you are telling the truth?

MR BARNARD: Yes, today and yesterday.

MR WESSELS: Is this the full truth, and the whole truth?

MR BARNARD: The way in which I recalled it, yes.

MR WESSELS: Did you take the Commission into your confidence and told them about all the incidents that you were involved in?

MR BARNARD: No Mr Chairperson, I cannot say that because there were various things that I could have left out. You must please remember that I was a drug addict for years. I became numb and isolated, my whole life became as small as a soccer ball, and that was my whole universe.

I cannot tell you off the cuff that I made known all the criminal activities in which I was involved in. I am however willing, if somebody pointed out something to me, that I will testify about any additional criminal activities. If it would mean that further charges will be laid against me, or if I would then receive further sentences, I do not care. I have already incriminated myself in my evidence-in-chief. If there are further investigations or further prosecutions in this regard, it really does not matter to me.

If I get seven life sentences, I've only got one life, it doesn't really matter.

MR WESSELS: You see, Mr Barnard, it is very easy for you to come here and say what you want to say because of the protection that you get from prison. You come here and make very serious allegations against certain people and it doesn't really matter, because you are already serving two life sentences, so it really does not matter what happens to you further on. Nothing more serious can happen to you?

MR BARNARD: That is not correct Mr Chairperson. I am doing it because it is the truth. I am the first one, and I have said it in my evidence-in-chief, I was a stranger to the truth and the truth may not be easily acceptable, because he is just as big a liar as I was, or am.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, you say that you cannot recall if you committed any other crimes, you were a drug addict, you are now in prison and you could have forgotten about it?

MR BARNARD: Sir, what I am saying is that I led a life of crime, sometimes under the influence of drugs, sometimes when I was sober and sharp. I cannot say to you now what other crimes I committed.

If you pointed out to me, I will testify about it. If the Attorney-General comes to me and takes my fingerprints, so be it, it does not really matter.

MR WESSELS: But why can you not recall it, that is my question to you?

MR BARNARD: Sir, because it is not really important. I am in prison, I do not care if there are any further charges. It does not matter.

MR WESSELS: It will not affect your memory, the fact that it does not matter?

MR BARNARD: I think we can deal with it very simply, tell me what I did and I will tell you if I did it or not.

MR WESSELS: No Mr Barnard, I want to know from you why you cannot remember any other criminal activities in which you were involved in, is your memory not very good concerning this?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did commit further criminal activities, but I just cannot recall it.

MR WESSELS: I want to know why you cannot recall the other criminal activities, is it a problem with your memory, is it because of the drugs you took or are still taking, what is the reason for your bad memory?

MR BARNARD: I cannot tell you sir, I cannot remember all the things that I did in my past. In the same way, if you or your client can do it, then I would ask you to phone the Guinness Book of Records and it would be a rarity then.

MR WESSELS: Well, it is very strange to me and remarkable rather, that certain incidents you can recall and you can provide us with a lot of details, but you cannot even recall if you committed any other crimes in the past, because your memory does not allow you to do it. That is what I find very remarkable.

MR BARNARD: Sir, no criminal who is arrested and sentenced, not one of them are sentenced for all criminal or crimes that he or she committed. It is exactly the same with me. I cannot recall everything. The things that I can recall, you can begin to play with words and a choice of words, was the light on or off, what was the colour of Joe Verster's bowtie, I cannot tell you.

But where I was involved in, and who was with me and who gave me the instructions, that I can recall specifically.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, is it possible that you were involved in other murders in the past?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I was involved in murders in my police capacity, that I see today as murder, but what was dealt with then as ... I cannot recall, but in terms of where you were authorised to shoot as a policeman. We violated that whole section any way, which way we could.

MR WESSELS: Can you indeed recall that you did commit other murders?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Do you remember it now for the first time?

MR BARNARD: No, not for the first time.

MR WESSELS: Why didn't you tell me before that there were other murders that you committed while you were a policeman?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, that is not what I understood, that that is what you wanted. It was found through legal post mortem inquests that it was punishable manslaughter, certain scenes we manipulated, we took the weapons away, although we were shooting first, we planted weapons, we manipulated the system, we took the right officer to the scene, so that the scene can be dealt with in the right way from the beginning. It was not a planned murder but we were guilty that afterwards we manipulated the events to suit us.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, is it possible that you were involved in murders outside of the police or in your capacity as a policeman?

MR BARNARD: I am sure I would have recalled it.

MR WESSELS: You would have recalled it?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I would have.

MR WESSELS: And you say you cannot recall anything. Then why do you say "no, I wasn't"?

MR BARNARD: I am saying now, as I just gave you the answer, take it or leave it.

MR WESSELS: Can you not recall if you were involved in murders outside your capacity as a policeman?

MR BARNARD: I say if I was, I am sure that I would have remembered it.

MR WESSELS: But you cannot recall it?

MR BARNARD: No.

MR WESSELS: I see. That is also a remarkable answer. Were you involved in serious acts of violence, serious assaults?

MR BARNARD: Sir, the life which I led, was a life of violence. I do not know how to explain this to you, I live in the night-club life, I am a night person. I went through the bouncer wars, since I left matric, I cannot stay out of a night-club. I have been stabbed, I have stabbed people. I have ended up in hospital after assaults on me, attacks that you cannot believe. My whole body full of stitches, and in the process, I have also injured people in a violent way, yes.

Sometimes in self defence and sometimes in fighting.

MR WESSELS: Was this before you joined the police that you did these things?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, no. I boxed for a club, but I do not think it resorts under that, that is a sport.

But while I was at school, in standard 9 and 10, I was involved in various fights, yes, outside of school.

MR WESSELS: Did you commit crimes before you joined the police?

MR BARNARD: No.

MR WESSELS: Did you start when you joined the police?

MR BARNARD: Yes, at a certain stage.

MR WESSELS: And did you start to lie while you were in the police?

MR BARNARD: Yes, it could be that I have told a lie or two before, yes, I cannot recall that though.

MR WESSELS: In 1984 you were found guilty of murder, how many charges?

MR BARNARD: Two charges of murder, one of attempted murder and three of vehicle theft.

MR WESSELS: Did you plead not guilty?

MR BARNARD: I did.

MR WESSELS: And did you lie in the court when you gave evidence?

MR BARNARD: From the beginning to the end, yes.

MR WESSELS: You came here and said that you have been lying for 12 years, now it seems as if you have been lying for more than that?

MR BARNARD: Well sir, if it will make you feel better, I have been lying for 24 years.

MR WESSELS: But you are also very apt liar?

MR BARNARD: (No interpretation)

MR WESSELS: And you have told us here before the Committee everything that you could, about Joe Verster?

MR BARNARD: Everything that I could recall.

MR WESSELS: Is there any reason why you would not be able to recall other incidents?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I cannot think of any reason, but it is possible that I could not recall other or certain incidents.

MR WESSELS: How did he teach you to become a more competent traitor?

MR BARNARD: Perhaps that was an incorrect choice of words, but within the system that they recruited me in, I was instructed to lie about just about everything from day 1, regarding my work. I wasn't allowed to tell anybody what I really was.

He encouraged me more than making me more competent, but one would become highly competent if one had enough experience in something.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, who are the persons who visited you in prison since you have been sentenced?

MR BARNARD: Me?

MR WESSELS: Yes?

MR BARNARD: There are family members who visit me. Do you want their names?

MR WESSELS: Let us make it easy. You have already mentioned that Mr Botha has visited you. Is there any other CCB member who has visited you?

MR BARNARD: There was a National Intelligence Demolitions Expert who has visited me.

MR WESSELS: Did Brenda Mills visit you?

MR BARNARD: No, she did not.

MR WESSELS: And you say that the witnesses who testified against you in the murder trial or in the trial of the charge of murder of Dr Webster, you say that the only one of them who spoke the truth was Brenda Mills and Jacques Pauw?

MR BARNARD: No, that is not what I said. I said that they were the only persons to whom I made the admission of unlawful conduct.

They conveyed it as such when they made their statements during my trial. Mr Pauw testified about only one incident. Brenda Mills is a woman scorned. She was one of the most correct witnesses who gave evidence, but subsequently I read some of the documents and I read sections of the decision and there many things that she said so that she could get her needle in.

I don't blame her for that. But the other witnesses were all manipulated in some or other way, either by the AG or by their own human weakness and they betrayed me. My evidence is that the admission that I made of my unlawful conduct, was made to Brenda Mills and Jacques Pauw.

MR WESSELS: In as far as it concerns the Webster murder and what Brenda Mills testified about, regarding that incident, what did she say that wasn't true?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall that.

MR WESSELS: Anything?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall that. The essence of her evidence was that I monitored Dr Webster's house, that I took her with sometimes, that I shot Dr Webster dead, that I used a certain vehicle, that I made a report to her and so forth. Perhaps you are driving at the idea that I wanted to impress Joe Verster and that she said that I wanted to do something about the organisation.

If she says that, I don't know where she has that from. But I wouldn't tell her, my girlfriend, who I am trying to impress, that I am trying to impress somebody else by shooting somebody dead, that does not make sense.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, the finding of Judge Els that Brenda Mills' evidence which reads as follows and I refer to Bundle G, page 77, you state that all of this is a lie?

MR BARNARD: I haven't said anything yet, I would like to hear the evidence first.

MR WESSELS: Then listen, she testifies as follows and the Judge quotes from the record apparently because it is in quotation marks

"... why did he do it on the 1st of May 1989?"

The response is -

"... well, as I said, the opportunity was there which he had been looking for, and he wanted to. He wanted to show within the organisation that he had what it took to be an assassin in his words. He wanted to rise up within the organisation. He did not, he wanted to be a handler, and he just wanted to be important."

Is her evidence true or false?

MR BARNARD: That section of her evidence is false. If you close your eyes, you can hear Anton Ackerman, the AG speaking there and not Brenda Mills.

MR WESSELS: So you would say that Adv Ackerman tried to present a false version through her?

MR BARNARD: I don't think so, but somewhere along the line this idea was planted in her mind. She gave that evidence, because I never said anything like that to her, under no circumstances.

MR WESSELS: So you are trying to say that Adv Ackerman planted this idea in her mind in order to render this false evidence before the Court?

MR BARNARD: Not necessarily, it may be so, or it may possibly be that she decided that seeing as she was going to nail me, she would do it good and well. Such suggestions were reported in the media as a reason for the commission of the Webster murder, it would appear that somebody said something like that to her.

MR WESSELS: You suggested that Adv Ackerman should be the one, isn't that so Mr Barnard?

MR BARNARD: Yes, but he doesn't have to be the only one.

MR WESSELS: Why are you trying to implicate Adv Ackerman in something which would be unethical if not blatantly dishonest?

MR BARNARD: Because I don't like him.

MR WESSELS: Yes, Mr Barnard. You see, that is what I am going to put to you, that all the persons that you have decided have betrayed you, will be the persons that you will implicate in some or other manner. You will hand out shots left, right and centre, but if there are persons whom you believe, have supported you and have stood by you, like Mr Botha, you will try to protect them, but Slang van Zyl, Joe Verster and Lafras Luitingh are convenient candidates to be implicated in a web of lies? Isn't that so?

MR BARNARD: No, that is not true. Let me tell you if I wanted to knock these persons, then all three of them would have been in the cells that you have just mentioned.

The Attorney-General and his team came to visit me 17 times, after I was detained. Their offer was for me to be removed immediately from C-Max and similar circumstances, that I can choose which correctional facility I would like to be in, if I gave my co-operation. I was promised by Adv Torie Pretorius who came to visit me personally, he said "work with me, give me statements against the others, we will take you out of C-Max within 48 hours" and they even went as far as offering me a lesser sentence which would be arranged with the AG and the Minister of Justice. That was offered to me.

Here are my legal representatives with me, it was reported to them. On the contrary, I had a plague from the AG's office, around me, because they wouldn't take no for an answer. I wrote them a letter at one point, asking them to desist from visiting me because I didn't want to cooperate with them.

So if that was my plan, it would have been the golden opportunity to tell the Attorney-General "listen, these people are bothering me and I am angry with them, I will give you the statements against them."

MR WESSELS: Brenda Mills had nothing to do with any CCB member or the CCB as a structure?

MR BARNARD: No. Her connection was with me as far as I know.

MR WESSELS: One would think that if you had told her that you shot Webster as you admit you indeed did, she would have asked you why you did it?

MR BARNARD: I don't think she would have asked me because from the very beginning I told her that this man was a project and that he would be killed. I didn't give her the reasons why he had to be killed, he was part of the enemy.

MR WESSELS: Well, then one finds it surprising that she testified what I have just read to you and didn't simply state that it was a CCB project which Barnard had to execute.

MR BARNARD: Except of course if the scenario is true as I have put it to you, that someone put the idea in her mind.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, in the post mortem inquest into the death of Dr Webster, Mr Verster testified that the report was made to him by Mr Luitingh that you admitted having killed Dr Webster, do you recall this?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I cannot recall specifically that Joe Verster gave evidence. At that stage he was acting under a disguise, the court was not attended, I was not permitted to be in attendance while he gave evidence, it was held in camera.

I was advised by Mr du Plessis, my legal representative on my left, at that stage, that it would incriminate Verster in the way that you have suggested.

MR WESSELS: He was not in disguise upon this occasion.

MR BARNARD: I am convinced that he was in disguise, if he wasn't disguised, then he was smuggled in in some or other way, I was not permitted to attend the proceedings.

MR WESSELS: Mr Luitingh gave evidence against you during those proceedings?

MR BARNARD: That was conveyed to me as such, I did not listen to his evidence.

MR WESSELS: They testified that you made the allegation against Mr Luitingh that you shot Webster?

MR BARNARD: Yes, they gave that evidence, I was told about it.

MR WESSELS: Consequently you and the CCB came into confrontation with each other, at that stage, regarding what the correct versions were, isn't that so?

MR BARNARD: That is correct Chairperson. The situation originated that Joe Verster who had walked the whole road with me, denied everything about the Webster incident and when the chips were down and they saw that there was a possible prosecution, if Judge Stegman were to make a finding that it was a CCB project, we could all be charged, and they all turned.

When I looked again, they had all turned and they were all incriminating me.

MR WESSELS: And indeed you say that you received the instruction from them to kill Dr Webster?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: So they let you down, the CCB and those two persons specifically, let you down?

MR BARNARD: That is what I have said.

MR WESSELS: The Defence Force also did not support you, is that correct?

MR BARNARD: Are you referring to the CCB?

MR WESSELS: In terms of the CCB?

MR BARNARD: Yes, they did not.

MR WESSELS: And in terms of the CCB?

MR BARNARD: They supported me in as far as it involved legal expenses, I didn't have a contract with them. What I found strange was that all of these things were happening, hundreds of thousands of rands were expended on my legal expenses, however this was for something illegal according to them.

MR WESSELS: And after you left DCC, did the Military or the Defence Force give you any support?

MR BARNARD: After I left? No.

MR WESSELS: When did the State arrest you on the charges for which you are currently in prison?

MR BARNARD: The 29th or the 30th of August 1997.

MR WESSELS: I see. You were not released on bail, you were taken into custody?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I was in custody and I did not apply for bail for various reasons, the primary consideration was that every witness who made a statement was asked whether or not they feared for their lives, whether they were afraid of me, whether I made any remarks about violence and there was no real prospect of my release on bail.

I didn't wish to waste any money, I didn't want to waste any time and that was also the advice that I received from my legal team, I decided to remain on the inside and to wait for the trial to get under way.

MR WESSELS: You were aware of the charges against you and also of these witnesses who were going to testify against you, isn't that so?

MR BARNARD: I was not aware of all the witnesses, I was aware of some of the witnesses. Some of which who in terms of a certain section, were not put on the list of witnesses, I did not have their statements. This took place during the trial.

I would arrive at the venue and my Attorney would tell me that they had Brenda Mills that morning, for example. I would have an opportunity to read the statement at that time. We would consult and the proceedings would continue.

MR WESSELS: You must have realised, or at least you knew that you were guilty of the charges, isn't that correct?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Naturally. And you must have known that the State had a very strong case against you?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I knew that.

MR WESSELS: You must have realised that when you were found guilty as you foresaw would probably happen, that you would receive a very heavy sentence?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Most probably life?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: According to your evidence here, the murder of Dr Webster, in as far as it affected your position, would have been the perfect example of a case for which you could have received amnesty?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Why didn't you apply for amnesty at that point, if this version of yours is the truth?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, for a very simple reason. The CCB handled me in a different fashion. I was not in a structured system as it was presented to me by Calla Botha and Slang van Zyl, where presentations were made where other members could substantiate presentations, where there was an established structure or pro forma according to which things were conducted. I was a lone figure and incriminated a such, along with Lafras Luitingh and Joe Verster, who had already during the post-mortem inquest incriminated me during the formal presentation of evidence.

All they would have to do, if I had gone and said "okay, I am applying for amnesty, here are the facts" as I have done, all they would have to do is deny it. They would substantiate each other and there would be a very good chance of my refusal of amnesty. Then I would stand alone and Joe Verster would be laughing at me. That is why I did not apply for amnesty.

MR WESSELS: You see, I find it problematic to accept that story because you enter a hearing regarding which you will most probably be found guilty and receive a life sentence, wouldn't it be more advisable to take the chance and to take on Luitingh and Verster in an amnesty hearing, rather than being completely unarmed in a criminal trial?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, if I recall correctly the criminal trial began when the amnesty cut-off date had already passed.

MR WESSELS: Yes, that is correct regarding the criminal trial, but you were arrested and you submitted your amnesty statement while you were in custody?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: At that stage you already knew?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, although we are not acting for Mr Barnard, I think that it is only fair to draw to the Committee's attention, and to our learned friend through you, that the amnesty applications could not be made after May 1987.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, that wasn't the final cut-off date, it was extended to the end of December 1997.

MR BIZOS: The conviction, he was arrested at the end of ...

CHAIRPERSON: End of August.

MR BIZOS: August?

CHAIRPERSON: The cut-off, the final cut-off, it kept on being extended various times, but the very last time was the end of September 1997, it was the last one.

MR BIZOS: And we don't know the date of the witness' conviction, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Bizos.

MR BIZOS: I am reasonably certain that it was after that.

MR BARNARD: I was sentenced on the 4th of June 1998.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, so nonetheless you decided that you would enter this trial during which you would most probably be found guilty and sentenced to life, rather than apply for amnesty and take the chance of not being believed, and Joe Verster and Lafras Luitingh being believed before an Amnesty Committee, is that what you are saying?

MR BARNARD: Yes. As I have just summarised it, that was my reasoning.

MR WESSELS: Very well. You went through he trial and you were found guilty on what date?

MR BARNARD: On the 6th of June 1998.

MR WESSELS: You were found guilty of murder and you must have been advised, or you must have known yourself, that the sentence that you would receive for the murder of Dr Webster, would be one of life long imprisonment?

MR BARNARD: I didn't necessarily know that, Chairperson. The Judge or Presiding Officer could exercise his discretion as to which I should receive 10, 20 years or life long imprisonment. I could not foresee what the Judge's decision would be.

MR WESSELS: But you could have formulated a reasonably good idea of what would happen?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, particularly having a previous conviction for two murders?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct, I definitely foresaw problems, there is no doubt about that.

MR WESSELS: What did you offer in mitigation of your circumstances?

MR BARNARD: I did not give any evidence in mitigation.

MR WESSELS: Why didn't you upon that occasion disclose that what you did, was indeed an instruction which was given to you by the former State, that this was not a private matter, or a frolic of your own that you had embarked upon, but that it was actually an instruction given by the former State for which others could receive amnesty, should they have applied for amnesty for this?

MR BARNARD: There was always the possibility of an appeal, which I considered, and I simply didn't do it, that is all. The Presiding Judge, if I recall correctly, in his decision remarked that the CCB indeed would either have been involved, or if it wasn't a CCB instruction, they would at least have associated themselves after the deed.

MR WESSELS: But that would have served as mitigation for you and the Judge would have been able to exercise his discretion for a lighter sentence?

MR BARNARD: That is possible, I didn't do view it like that at that point.

MR WESSELS: Why not?

MR BARNARD: I don't know, I cannot explain it to you.

MR WESSELS: I will tell you why. You didn't do it, because it wasn't the truth? It was at a later stage that you decided that the time had come for you to implicate Luitingh and Verster in the Webster incident, after you sat mulling over it in your cell for 97 percent of your time, and your desire for vengeance began to grow against these persons whom you believed, were against you in the past?

MR BARNARD: What objective could I achieve, to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? No. It wouldn't have worked that way. If I had wanted that, I would have given the Attorney-General an appropriate statement with all the appropriate facts and all these people would have been in the cells with me and every morning we would unlock the cells and all of us would have stood together in a row, to go and fetch our porridge.

It does not work that way. Of all the conscious operatives, Ferdi Barnard is the only one who went to prison, and it isn't only because of my own doing as the suggestion has been made. Then there is also those from DCC, not one of the DCC members are in prison, only Ferdi Barnard.

I have made it clear, I don't wish to bring 45 more persons into jail, because then I will have to look at Joe Verster's face every single day, and I really don't want that.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, the reason why you did not apply for amnesty was because you do not qualify for amnesty, because when you shot Dr Webster, you did not do it as a member of a State organisation, you did it for your own interests?

MR BARNARD: That is not correct, honourable Chairperson. I do not take that seriously.

MR WESSELS: That is why at that stage, you did not apply for amnesty?

MR BARNARD: What you are saying is not correct, no.

MR WESSELS: Why did you apply for amnesty for the Omar case, or incident?

MR BARNARD: Sir, if I can place it in perspective, in the way which I recall it, I discussed the possibility of amnesty with my legal representative. I read Slang van Zyl's statements and I was under the impression that van Zyl testified at the TRC and that he incriminated me there. But apart from that, I applied for the Bishop Tutu case, concerning the baboon foetus, as well as Adv Dullah Omar case, because I have already been incriminated by the statement that Slang van Zyl made in 1988 or whenever.

That is the reason why I did it, I took my chance with the rest. I did not want to admit to anything else, I did not submit any other application for the reasons that I have just given you, for Webster and other reasons. It was for that specific reason why I applied for those two. It was to create a safety net if I was found guilty and Slang van Zyl testified against me, then I've got a safety net to fall back, and that would be the TRC process.

The same thing with the Adv Omar case. When her daughter testified, it was applicable to me. They could not be more correct. The only reason why I applied for amnesty was to prevent possible charges. I admitted, that is what I did, and in my case it was definitely the correct summary I made, or assumption that I made.

MR WESSELS: You see, you created a safety net for yourself where it was applicable. The only place where you did not create a safety net, was with the Webster incident.

MR BARNARD: What do you want me to comment on?

MR WESSELS: The reason for that was simply that it was not possible because you shot Dr Webster on your own initiative, or on the instruction of somebody else, but not the CCB?

MR BARNARD: No sir, I did not know that I was going to be found guilty on the Webster case, I am not Nostradamus, I did not know this. Apart from that, I did not know about all the people who have climbed out of the woodwork and said that I made certain statements to them. I was not found at the scene, there was no ballistic tests done, they did not find the weapon on me, there were no signs left at the scene. I was found guilty on the grounds of, that people came and told me that I made - it is a tactic that I have used before.

MR WESSELS: Yes, you knew that it was a case that the government will win against you, Mr Barnard?

MR BARNARD: I did not know the nature of it. I did not know who was going to come forward and tell.

MR WESSELS: But you knew that the State was going to make use of that?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I thought that possibly they might use it.

MR WESSELS: You also knew that through all the years, your biggest problem was that you could not keep your mouth shut?

MR BARNARD: This is how it was presented in the media, and what was told, but the truth is far from it. I made the statement and what I testified in front of this Committee and also to Righ Verster, I made that statement when we were involved at the DCC.

He originally came to me and first made certain disclosures to me concerning the Webster incident. I actually thought he was part of the DCC as well, and at a certain stage we discussed this matter, and I told him that I killed Webster. I did not have any reason to lie to him. But all the other witnesses, the dope smokers, the prostitutes, Jacques Pauw and Righ Verster, they were the only ones who told the truth. I am not talking about Lafras Luitingh, he knew right from the beginning that he was part of the planning and he did not tell the truth.

The Attorney-General and his authority will be able to seize that person, it is a civil person. He will first make a statement in order to ensure that he will not get bail. "You can see there is photographs, look how he killed this person, he hit him over the head with a bat", they will create a psychosis of fear in order to oppose the bail. Then they will tell this person, what do you know about Mr Barnard, then the witness will come forward and tell everything that he knows about this person, some will be the truth, most of it will be the truth and they will ask him "sir, didn't he tell you that he killed Dr Webster", what do you think that person will say then, especially if he was an accomplice?

Adv Anton Ackerman's amnesty, it was a circus, the way in which he handed it out left, right and centre. If the people outside, the public knew, look at Eugene de Kock, Wouter Basson and myself, how many got a Section 204 indemnity. In most cases, all these people were accomplices.

The people who were not accomplices, and Mr Jacques Pauw, they were the people who indeed admitted to it.

MR WESSELS: And Mr Righ Verster, he also told the truth, you have just said?

MR BARNARD: I said he told the truth concerning the statement that he made, but Righ Verster was not an accomplice in some of the other crimes.

MR WESSELS: But yesterday you said the only two people who told the truth with certain of the statements that you made, were Brenda and Jacques?

MR BARNARD: Yes sir, we are playing with words.

MR WESSELS: No sir, we are not playing with words. We are talking about the identity of a person who you yesterday said lied by implication, because you did not mention him as a person who told the truth?

MR BARNARD: Very well, I did not mention him, but I will mention him today.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you after your arrest in August 1997, seriously consider applying for amnesty in respect of Dr Webster's murder, after you had been arrested, the last month before you could get applications in?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I did consider it, but I was scared or concerned that, you must now remember that Joe Verster came with me all the way. He agreed with me and he denied all involvement in the Webster incident.

When it was coming to an end or a point and there was a formal inquest, then the people, all in the Defence Force, they fought in the Bush War, and they all ganged up against me. People testified against me that I did not even know, Jerry Botes, one of them. And the reason, when I thought about amnesty applications, I thought "let's say I go, all these people will gang up against me again, they will be able to prove certain statements and I had nobody to support me".

CHAIRPERSON: Because those reasons aside, you would have had a definite advantage if you did apply, or benefit, for amnesty, because that would have put a hold on your trial?

MR BARNARD: That is possible, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: They wouldn't have conducted your trial until the conclusion of your amnesty hearing?

MR BARNARD: I understand so, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And at that time, wouldn't that have been a benefit for you at least, a bit of breathing space?

MR BARNARD: Sir, what does it help if I stand on one place, in the end I still go to jail? When I qualify now for parole is when I am 65, if I did it the other way, I would have qualified when I am 70? They would have sent me right to an old age home when I left jail.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Barnard, you are a person who constantly built safety nets around you and you acted in your own interest, is that correct?

MR BARNARD: No, it sounds as if you are talking about your client, Mr Wessels.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, I am putting it to you, it is your evidence that you created safety nets around you, in your own interest, is that not true?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I testified concerning that, and concerning the projects that I testified about.

MR WESSELS: Well, try to answer my question correctly, do not try to refer it back to my client.

MR BARNARD: Well, shoot then.

MR WESSELS: If you committed these acts, why did you not create a safety net or try to establish one as the Chairperson put to you, when you applied for amnesty, then everything would have been postponed up until the time when you were in a better position?

MR BARNARD: I did not consider it in such a way, and I did not do it in that way.

MR WESSELS: What is surprising is that you did not consider that option, you are a very intelligent person, you had been qualified?

MR BARNARD: Thank you for the compliment.

MR WESSELS: Why did you not think of that very basic way of action?

MR BARNARD: Sir, I cannot give you an answer, because I do not have an answer.

MR WESSELS: No, Mr Barnard, it is because you lie about that, because you never had a chance to get amnesty, because you were never involved in the CCB?

MR BARNARD: I did not want to apply for amnesty, I knew that these Defence Force members were all friends and had already proven at that stage that they will gang up against me, that they wanted to send me, want me to get the death sentence. I was not willing to take that chance. I knew what they could fabricate, and I did not want to take that chance.

MR WESSELS: It was in 1992 and your arrest took place in 1997?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: The amnesty procedure was established in 1995, is that correct Mr Barnard?

MR BARNARD: Yes, what about it?

MR WESSELS: Well, it had nothing to do with what happened at the post mortem inquest?

MR BARNARD: I am just telling you how I felt about the whole system and the way in which I could not trust them.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, is your evidence that everything that you did in 1989 from the Webster incident, up until the baboon incident and the attempted murder of Omar, and all the other incidents, are you a fully fledged member of the CCB and that you received a salary and that you were in the same position as all the other conscious members, you were a member of this organisation and you could get all the advantages of it?

MR BARNARD: As I testified, Mr Lafras Luitingh told me that everything will be dealt with, that I will receive my money a month beforehand. He gave me one month, R12 000-00 that would be the salary for June, July and August.

MR WESSELS: That is so, but that is an administrative process that you are talking about, but in so far as your membership, you were a member of the CCB from 1989 until they disbanded?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I was a member for them for 18 months.

MR WESSELS: 18 months and there is no doubt about that?

MR BARNARD: No, the Attorney-General, Anton Ackerman, could prove that with the document that he presented.

MR WESSELS: It would be to your advantage then to become part of a State organisation if you were in trouble with the police?

MR BARNARD: I don't know how beneficial that was, because it doesn't seem to have helped anybody else, up to this point, regarding everything they have said regarding State support and investigations. Everybody else would have been locked up, it didn't really worked that well.

MR WESSELS: But at that stage, when you were with the CCB in 1989, you were still under the impression that you would enjoy protection from the CCB as you were told at the very beginning when you joined?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: If problems were to arise?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: It is history which took place years later, which proved that there was no protection?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Would you grant me a moment's indulgence, please Chairperson?

CHAIRPERSON: Do you want a short adjournment, Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, while you were in Section 29 detention in 1989, in December 1989, you made two statements? Mr Chairman, the one statement appears on page 82 of Bundle B.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, with the greatest respect, the line of cross-examination has been directed, it has been put to this witness that "the reason why you did not apply for amnesty was because you could not say that you were a member of the SADF or the CCB or any other State organisation", that is contradicted by page 205 of the witness' application, Mr Chairman, in Bundle A, in which he says "an office bearer or employer of the State or any former State, state the department or division - SADF (Special Forces), CCB and DKI", so that I submit that to put to this witness that he did not apply for amnesty because he did not consider himself as any, as a member of any organisation, is contradicted by the facts before you and may I draw attention to the fact that the Attorney that probably helped him in relation to this, also acted for the other gentleman that applied for amnesty.

With respect, the cross-examination is based upon patently incorrect information.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, may I ask Mr Bizos not to interrupt me in my cross-examination? He is not acting for the witness, he doesn't seem to understand my cross-examination, because what he is saying now, I am cross-examining on, is totally incorrect. Perhaps he should just listen to what I am saying and then he would better understand what is going on.

MR BIZOS: I have indicated how I understood it. Perhaps my learned friend would be good enough to indicate which portion of his cross-examination I misunderstood, but we can leave the matter there for ...

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels, you can continue with your questioning. You have referred us now to page 205, thank you.

MR BIZOS: A, 205.

CHAIRPERSON: I have that, and then the other reference was B82, is that correct? This is the reference of the statement?

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, on page 85 you state the following in your statement

"... during April 1989, two incidents occurred with me which I believe led to my discharge from the organisation. Firstly the incident when Louis gave me an instruction, Louis is Lafras Luitingh, to collect information regarding Brig Basie Smit and secondly the incident at Sandton Security Branch when I and McQuillan were interrogated. When Louis spoke to me shortly afterwards, he told me that I was discharged, unless I was prepared to go and work permanently abroad. This was already in April 1989. I then refused and requested an interview with Jack van Staden, the Head. Louis said that the aforementioned instruction came from Jack and that Jack could not or would not speak to me. Thus in reality, I was already officially discharged from the organisation in April 1989, after the incidents of Brig Basie Smit and the incident with Sandton Security Branch."

Did you make that statement?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did.

MR WESSELS: Is it the truth?

MR BARNARD: No, it is not the truth, Chairperson. This is specifically the tactic of distancing that I made use of, while I was in Section 29 detention, and I realised that I would have to distance myself from the CCB. I did this while under detention in terms of Section 29, I fabricated the story.

The section regarding Gen Basie Smit was not true, I was never tasked to work on him. I tried to create a possibly credible scenario from particulars that they had given me and questions that they had asked me, and aspects that I fabricated myself. I wanted to remove myself from the context of the organisation for obvious reasons, due to the incident of 1 May, I wanted to indicate that I was no longer part of the CCB, before the murder of Dr Webster, because I realised that I was still a member of the CCB at that stage, which would have created an ever greater suggestion that I did the job, which wasn't true.

MR WESSELS: But you knew that you could end up in very serious trouble regarding the Webster incident?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: At that stage you believed that the organisation could protect you?

MR BARNARD: That they could possibly assist me, but I cannot recall how far my period of arrest had ensued when this took place. But many other things happened while I was under Section 29 detention, which made me realise that the organisation was going to sacrifice me.

I didn't know who to trust any more.

MR WESSELS: You have already testified that at that stage, you thought that the organisation could assist you?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I thought so. But I did not necessarily know that they were going to assist me. There was no assurance or guarantee.

MR WESSELS: But to distance yourself from the organisation from that point, while you were in solitary confinement after you knew that you were responsible for Dr Webster's murder, would have been reckless, if it wasn't the truth,

MR BARNARD: Why? It would not have been reckless. Suppose I incriminated myself and I did not distance myself from the organisation, what difference would it make? Would they stop covering me because I did that? They wouldn't.

MR WESSELS: To remain part of the organisation would have been the most suitable network of security that you needed at that point in time?

MR BARNARD: I beg your pardon, but it would have been sorted out on other levels, and not necessarily with the investigative team which were working with me. I did not believe at any point that the investigative team would walk in there and say "listen, let's have a braai, everything is over, let's go". I didn't think that those were their contacts, those persons who were involved with my interrogation and the investigation against me.

The investigators were indeed much better investigators than those who found me guilty, and they were far more honest as well. I don't want to evaluate everybody according to the same criteria, but Brig Floris Mostert would definitely have sent me to the gallows if it was within their capacity at that point, but there were people working against them, and the CCB also worked against them. Generals on the general level in Pretoria in the police system, also worked against them.

People were sent to me who penetrated into my cell at night where I was kept, and among others Col Eugene de Kock was also used as an instrument. You can fetch him, he will testify to that here, he will support that. Joe Verster had nothing to do with the Webster incident, but Joe Verster was very interested in affidavits and was interested in the levels upon which these statements were made. I would get a copy of these statements from Eugene de Kock. Joe Verster would also have copies of the statements, why was he involved if he didn't have anything to do with it? He should have stayed away from it, shouldn't he?

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, you say that you were a member of the CCB for 18 months?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct.

MR WESSELS: You were not only a conscious collaborator?

MR BARNARD: That is the first time that I have heard of that term, it sounds like a Jack of all trades, a potpourri that you have concocted.

MR WESSELS: Could you just repeat that?

MR BARNARD: That is the first time that I have heard of a conscious collaborator or co-worker. You are rather conscious or you are not? I was a conscious member.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, look at page 213 of Bundle A. Page 213, it is the final page of that Bundle. Is that your signature?

MR BARNARD: Yes, it is.

MR WESSELS: This is your amnesty application and your statement. Please look at page 212, paragraph 2. Please read this out to the Committee for the record.

MR BARNARD

"... My actions as referred to in Annexures A and B hereto, were performed with a political objective and for political reasons in the supposition that it was a State objective, always in execution of my orders as a member of the CCB and or as a conscious collaborator or co-worker of the CCB."

MR WESSELS: Yes, that is where it all comes out, Mr Barnard, those are your words?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I signed it. Then I apologise to you sir.

MR WESSELS: No, you don't have to apologise to me, sir, why did you lie?

MR BARNARD: I didn't lie.

MR WESSELS: You testified that you had never previously heard of the phrase "a conscious co-worker or colleague, you are either a member or not", those were your words?

MR BARNARD: Yes, and I was a member.

MR WESSELS: Then why did you lie here?

MR BARNARD: I didn't lie. I said that I hadn't heard the phrase before, it was new to me.

MR WESSELS: Not only did you lie about not having heard it before, you made use of it yourself?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I concede, I made use of it, that is so. It is a big problem, I see, but I do concede to it.

CHAIRPERSON: In the sentence here you say that you acted as a member of the CCB and or as a conscious co-worker or co-collaborator, why did you put that and or, why did you qualify being a member of the CCB?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, if I recall correctly, it is because at a certain stage I was handled in a different way. This was after Lafras Luitingh told me that I would be handled in a different way, and after that, it started to occur that I would be contacted by people from other places, such as Slang van Zyl, as I have already testified.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, I put it to you that it is quite simple, why you made use of those words. You knew that you were discharged in April, at the very latest, in 1989. You were also aware that Slang van Zyl and Calla Botha applied you in their projects and that they were not permitted to do so?

MR BARNARD: I was not aware as to whether or not they had the authorisation to do so, but I was under the impression that not everything was cleared on the higher levels.

MR WESSELS: Who would be those persons?

MR BARNARD: People such as Joe Verster and Staal Burger and further up.

MR WESSELS: Naturally. And that is why you knew that it was totally contradictory to the rules of the organisation that a person such as you, could be applied in a project?

MR BARNARD: Why a person like me, they specifically recruited people like me? They were looking specifically for people like me.

MR WESSELS: You knew that Mr Botha and Mr van Zyl were not authorised to apply you in their projects, due to your knowledge?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I knew that.

MR WESSELS: Yes, that is why you made use of these words, to cover yourself for those incidents in which you had to indicate in terms of the law, whether or not you were a member of a State organisation, or a co-worker in a State structure. You knew that it was unlawful to make use of those words, but you did so in order to place yourself within the parameters of the Act?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not, I was a member of the CCB until I was discharged.

MR WESSELS: Then I want to know why did you make use of the phrase "and or conscious co-worker"?

MR BARNARD: I cannot tell you.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, you were approached to join at the end of 1988, is that correct?

MR BARNARD: The CCB?

MR WESSELS: Yes?

MR BARNARD: No sir, I was approached early in 1988.

MR WESSELS: When did you join the CCB?

MR BARNARD: I was discharged from prison in December 1987, the first few months of 1988, during that time, I was approached, and I think I was recruited in July 1988.

MR WESSELS: How dit it come to be that you were recruited?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I knew a person in prison by the name of Theuns Kruger who was a Special Forces operative, or recce. We became friends, we exercised together in prison, we spent approximately three years together. He was released at an early stage of his sentence, due to special Defence Force amnesty and he told me before the time that he was going to be working for a specialist Defence Force organisation, that he had put feelers out to determine whether or not the people would be interested in me as well. He gave me his wife's telephone number and said that as soon as I was released, I should contact him at that number.

Furthermore at a later stage, he went and visited my parents in Nylstroom. He knew them due to the visiting hours when we met one another in the courtyard for visitations. He also left another telephone number with my parents for me to contact him upon my release.

MR WESSELS: Did you contact him upon your release?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did.

MR WESSELS: And did you tell him that you were desirous to become part of that organisation?

MR BARNARD: No, originally I contacted him just to renew our friendship, because we were very good friends in prison, and he then told me or asked me how I was finding the work that I was doing at that stage. I told him it was very stereotypical work and that I was looking out for something better. That is when he made me the offer and asked whether or not I would be interested in working with him.

MR WESSELS: Did he tell you that he would get someone to speak to you about it?

MR BARNARD: He said that someone would contact me.

MR WESSELS: Who was the person that contacted you?

MR BARNARD: I received a telephone call at my girlfriend's apartment one morning, seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and I was told that it was Jack van Staden. He said that he wanted to speak to me regarding a possible work offer, that I could be interested in.

MR WESSELS: Did you make an appointment?

MR BARNARD: Yes, we made an appointment at one or other hotel in Pretoria.

MR WESSELS: And this was Mr Verster who appeared to have been the person who contacted you?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And did you meet there?

MR BARNARD: Yes, we did.

MR WESSELS: What did he tell you? What was he offering?

MR BARNARD: Mr Verster originally gave me a cover story that we gave to everybody else, that he was a representative of a consortium of businessmen, who could damage the country's economy, who were enemies of a conglomerate of business people who were investing in the South African economy, COSATU and other Trade Unions as well as the PAC and the SACP and that they were looking for people who could destabilise these people and work on them.

He didn't really give much detail and he told me that he knew that I must have many questions, but that I should try to tolerate the situation.

MR WESSELS: Was Lafras Luitingh present?

MR BARNARD: No, he was not.

MR WESSELS: And did he tell you that somebody would contact you? Someone who would be your handler?

MR BARNARD: No Chairperson, there was a second meeting with Mr Verster and upon the second meeting he brought in another person later in the discussion, in the room with us and this person was the Head of Security who introduced himself as Johan or Frank and he also had an interview with me.

At that stage I had not yet met Lafras Luitingh. It was upon a third occasion at the Holiday Inn at Millpark when Lafras Luitingh was introduced to me and then all three of them were present, and I was told that I had received the job and that I could begin, and that my liaison would be with Lafras Luitingh in future.

MR WESSELS: Was it Lafras who told you that you should formulate a false name for yourself and obtain false identity documents in that name?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: You got the name HJ. van Staden? Jack van Staden?

MR BARNARD: No, not Jack van Staden, HJ. van Staden, Hermanus Jakobus van Staden.

MR WESSELS: Was it part of your sense of humour to tease Mr Verster as it were?

MR BARNARD: No, I don't think I did so consciously. What happened was that Danie Phaal said to me that I shouldn't choose a name such as Shaun McIntyre or McIntosh so that someone could see that I was an Irishman or a Scotsman, I should get something that suited a "boerseun", a good Afrikaans name, that is why I chose Hermanus Jakobus van Staden, so it wasn't purposeful.

MR WESSELS: You knew that Joe Verster had the false name of Jack van Staden?

MR BARNARD: Yes, actually I couldn't really remember van Staden, it was always Jack. It wasn't like James Bond, Bond, James Bond, van Staden, Jack van Staden every time I saw him.

MR WESSELS: Is it your poor memory that serves you?

MR BARNARD: No, I am just telling you what I remember.

MR WESSELS: It is purely coincidental that you chose the name HJ. van Staden?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: You say that you received no training?

MR BARNARD: Not at the CCB, no.

MR WESSELS: You had to learn as time passed, how things worked in the CCB?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I learnt a lot and Lafras Luitingh did inform me as time went by. If there were questions, I went and discussed it with him.

MR WESSELS: Mr Luitingh, did he create the impression with you that security is of the utmost importance?

MR BARNARD: He did, yes.

MR WESSELS: And that Verster was fanatical about the security?

MR BARNARD: I do not think that he specifically told me that, but I did get the impression yes, that security was a very important factor, yes.

MR WESSELS: Very well. Did he tell you that whatever you do, you must act in such a way that it will not be traceable back to the organisation?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Or to an individual?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: In other words you had to make use of agents?

MR BARNARD: No sir, in what sense, what agents?

MR WESSELS: To prevent that it be traceable back to the organisation, you had to find other people to do the work?

MR BARNARD: No sir, I had to do the job. I did get criminal contacts to get information, but I myself, did the work.

MR WESSELS: That would have then resulted in it being traceable back to the organisation, because you are a member of the organisation?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I was a conscious member of the organisation, but at that stage and during the Webster incident, I did not show Lafras Luitingh that I knew him. That is Louis Uys and Jack van Staden was Jack van Staden. I did not tell them "you are actually Joe Verster, what do you say about that", I did not tell them that, they did not know about it.

MR WESSELS: You then started working and you testified that there was the McQuillan incident where at two opportunities, tension was created between yourself and Lafras Luitingh in that information was leaked concerning your involvement and this could have compromised the organisation?

MR BARNARD: That is correct yes, there were such incidents.

MR WESSELS: The first incident, when did this happen?

MR BARNARD: It was in 1988 or 1989, the first incident took place with the compromising of McQuillan, the first excursion when he was sent to London, the Klaas de Jonge incident, when he leaked out the project and that is when he told me that the whole world knows about the 15 000 dollars of McQuillan and that we have to lay low, or that I have to lay low.

MR WESSELS: And that your involvement was known?

MR BARNARD: No, he told me that McQuillan, that the liaison with McQuillan was known, he did not specifically say that I was involved. He did not give me the details about what exactly leaked out and where it leaked out.

At a later stage he said that they received information that McQuillan and George Mitchell was both connected to Zimbabwe as well as ties with Military Intelligence.

MR WESSELS: But he blamed you for that?

MR BARNARD: Well, he tried to place the blame in front of me, but we had words about that. I felt that I did everything according to the book, the leak did not occur with me. The way in which I met McQuillan and Mitchell's connection, I conveyed all of that to Lafras Luitingh. I was not allowed to go around and make enquiries about where this person fits in. That was not part of the organisation.

MR WESSELS: What was Luitingh's allegations against you, where would you then have acted in the wrong?

MR BARNARD: Sir, he told me that the whole world knew about McQuillan and the money and that I had to lay low and to suspend the operation.

I argued with him and I said that from my side, nobody could have heard about it. Mr Luitingh just told me "this is the story, this is the instruction, you have to withdraw".

MR WESSELS: Did he suggest that you spoke about this project to somebody?

MR BARNARD: He did not necessarily suggest it, but somebody made a mistake that led to the fact that McQuillan's contact with the Intelligence system, or our system, was blown up and that the money was made public.

MR WESSELS: Mr Luitingh thought that you were responsible for it?

MR BARNARD: He might have suggested it, yes, but he did not say it directly, it would have been ridiculous.

MR WESSELS: The Basie Smit incident to which you have referred in your Section 29 statement, is that true?

MR BARNARD: No, it is not true. I never worked on Basie Smit. I just put it in there, it is one of the things that I did under the pressure of the Section 29 statement, to keep the police busy and to put the ball in their court. At the same time, I wanted to give them something, because you cannot give them anything, if you do not give them something, you will never get out.

I made many false allegations.

MR WESSELS: The following that happened was that McQuillan was arrested, is that correct? --- I do not know if he was arrested sir, he was pulled in for interrogation. If you look at it again, it could be that he was arrested yes, but nobody told me that he was arrested. He was pulled in by Viktor of the Security Branch, it was March of 1989. It was after the second excursion with the Alvaro Figarero.

MR WESSELS: Then you went and you spoke to Brig Viktor and you got McQuillan out, you felt sorry for him and you tried to assist him, is that correct?

MR BARNARD: yes.

MR WESSELS: And in the process, you compromised the organisation?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I did.

MR WESSELS: And Mr Luitingh accepted, was very upset about it?

MR BARNARD: In my Section 29 statement, I disclose that they found out about it in some way. That is not true, I reported it, the whole issue around McQuillan. He told me that I had to leave McQuillan alone, which I then did.

MR WESSELS: Did you speak to Mr Verster concerning that, at that time, about McQuillan?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not.

MR WESSELS: In other words you just spoke to Luitingh?

MR BARNARD: Yes, as far as I can recall, only Luitingh.

MR WESSELS: And did Luitingh not tell you that Verster was upset about your actions and the fact that you compromised the organisation?

MR BARNARD: Yes, he did.

MR WESSELS: And that Verster was very angry about it?

MR BARNARD: Yes, he said there is, he is not very happy that I admitted that it could have been Special Forces. I made a mistake there.

MR WESSELS: Yes. And your instructions were that now you have to lay low?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Did they tell you for what period of time you have to lay low?

MR BARNARD: No sir. It happened often that if I was involved in something and they told me to lay low.

MR WESSELS: At that stage that was now the first time that you had to lay low, you were now part of the CCB?

MR BARNARD: No, I don't think it was very long, it was for a very short period of time.

MR WESSELS: Did they give you a period of time during which you had to lay low, or did they just tell you "lay low"?

MR BARNARD: They just told me to lay low. They did not specify the time.

MR WESSELS: That was in April 1989?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall if it was March or April or when in March or April, I cannot specify the specific time.

MR WESSELS: When were you again approached by Mr Verster or Mr Luitingh?

MR BARNARD: Sir, if it was in March, I keep on thinking it was in March, I was contacted by Mr Luitingh. It happened that he addressed me and he mentioned to me that Mr Verster wanted to see me, and that was then the run up to the Webster incident.

MR WESSELS: Did you then see Verster and Luitingh together?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Was this in March?

MR BARNARD: I assume it was in March or April, I cannot specifically say, sir. It is difficult to recall all the dates.

MR WESSELS: If it was early April, otherwise late March?

MR BARNARD: I cannot say that, I cannot recall.

MR WESSELS: There you then met the two together, can you tell us exactly what you can recall what happened?

MR BARNARD: I was alone with Lafras Luitingh first of all.

MR WESSELS: Where was that?

MR BARNARD: It was in Ponti, it was very high up, I think it was probably the 50th or 52nd floor. I had a flat that myself and Lafras Luitingh used on the 35th floor, the 36th floor, that I myself rented, but I was given an instruction to go to another facility in Ponti.

When I arrived there Lafras Luitingh was already there. We sat down and spoke and it was there that he told me that I was going to be dealt with in a different way, that I will be applied possibly abroad, in foreign countries.

MR WESSELS: Excuse me?

MR BARNARD: That I had to be applied abroad or I was going to be applied abroad and that I will get my salary on a three-monthly basis. While we were sitting there, Joe Verster arrived and I was then addressed concerning David Webster and Mr Jay Naidoo and that Webster was a priority target.

It was Johannesburg, it was my region, because I knew the area very well, they were complimenting me at that stage. Mr Luitingh didn't do a lot of the talking, Joe Verster was talking the most, and I then undertook to gather as much information as possible about them, but on more than one opportunity Mr Verster emphasised that Mr Webster is the priority target.

MR WESSELS: What do you mean when you say priority target?

MR BARNARD: He was a priority, I had to do everything possible to get to know what his movements are and what he was doing.

MR WESSELS: Did he at that stage tell you that this person was going to fall?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall if it was then or the second time that I met him afterwards, but I got the impression that they were very serious about him.

MR WESSELS: Let us first talk about the first meeting in the flat. Jay Naidoo's name was mentioned and Webster's name was mentioned as people who you had to gather information on?

MR BARNARD: Yes, but they were interested in specialised information about their movements, it was specifically their movements. For me, I experienced it as definitely information geared to their specific movements and I already had the idea about what was going to happen to them, because why would you need that type of information, you are there for the maximum disruption.

MR WESSELS: And at that first opportunity did you realise that Dr Webster had to be killed?

MR BARNARD: Sir, I foresaw that possibility yes, but I cannot specifically say now that "yes, he was going to be killed", but I did foresee it, yes.

MR WESSELS: Did you then start working on it?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Did you do any work on Jay Naidoo?

MR BARNARD: I did work on Jay Naidoo, but I did not spend a lot of time on it. I rather worked on the Webster case.

MR WESSELS: What did you do concerning Jay Naidoo?

MR BARNARD: I tasked certain sources that I knew in the area, I was told that he lived in Yeoville, an address was not available, but I was told that he was involved, this is information that I received from Verster, that he was involved with a white woman. I think she was from Port Elizabeth. I had to go and see if I could find him, and gather more information on him, which I then did.

MR WESSELS: You also at the same time, worked on the Webster case, what did you do?

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, at that first opportunity I received a photograph, I have testified about that, with the newspaper clippings and the file and certain notes were made in it, two addresses and then I started, the first time I went to go and look at the physical layout of the place, the roads around it, because if I had to do observation on it, I had to find out first of all what would be a suitable place to do it from, where I won't draw a lot of attention to me.

It was a one way, it was south/north and at the end there was a T-junction. All these things made it very difficult to observe the house or the area. It was a one way, and it was very easy to be spotted, once you remained there for a while.

And then timely or untimely, during the evening, three o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon, every time I had the opportunity, I drove there, pass, take registration numbers if there were cars outside, and tried to find out what I can observe at the house itself.

Then at a certain stage, when I went out, I liked to go to Bedfordview, the Bedfordview Centre, friends had clubs and restaurants, I knew people who had a jewellery shop, so I liked to go there. If I go out, let's say for a weekend with my girlfriend, Brenda Mills at that stage, I would drive passed his house. If there was something, I would ask her to write down the registration number, then we would go out for the evening and when I come back, I would also pass the house again.

I did it in that way, in order to form a picture about the activities surrounding the house.

MR WESSELS: Over what period ...

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Wessels, why did you involve Brenda Mills in this at all, what ...

MR BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I did not know that I was going to be specifically tasked for the killing and I was careless. I was working for the security department for the State, I told her that. She is not a vindictive person, I probably made her that way because of my actions.

She wouldn't have testified in that way, if I continued or continued our relationship as it was, but something happened to me that made me berserk, the drugs and all the pressure, the job and the involvement with prostitutes and other women, that made her turn at the end of the day.

At that stage I did not foresee it at all. She was actually my confidante. I shared everything with her, and she worshipped the ground I walked on.

MR WESSELS: Did you also tell her at that stage that Dr Webster would be killed?

MR BARNARD: Sir, I think I did admit it yes, I cannot specifically say, but the possibility is there, yes.

MR WESSELS: And how long did this observation take?

MR BARNARD: It was a few days.

MR WESSELS: What is a few days, two days or more?

MR BARNARD: It could have been more than two days, I would say five or six days.

MR WESSELS: Five or six days?

MR BARNARD: Yes. It could be four days too, I am not quite sure.

MR WESSELS: And did you then find out a pattern of movement?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not find out a pattern, but if I passed the house, I would see when the lights were switched off in the evening, and what activities there were in the street around the house, vehicles standing around, but I could not really establish a routine there, no.

MR WESSELS: So your information was not completed? What Mr Verster expected from you?

MR BARNARD: I could not get a lot of information, it was a very difficult area to observe.

MR WESSELS: Did you then attend a second meeting with him?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: And did you then report to them that you are struggling to establish a routine or to find out what the route was?

MR BARNARD: Yes, but I also then mentioned to Joe Verster and I confirmed Mr Webster's address because they weren't quite sure about Dunbar or Eleanor Street, addresses. I got the registration number of one of the vehicles that he used and more than one opportunity I saw this vehicle at the Eleanor Street house. I reported that, and the information that I had, I also told them that it then came out that Dr Webster will be killed.

MR WESSELS: How did this come up, Mr Barnard?

MR BARNARD: Joe Verster told me.

MR WESSELS: What did he say?

MR BARNARD: He told me Dr Webster had to be killed, and it was very urgent.

MR WESSELS: Did he tell you that you had to kill him?

MR BARNARD: Yes, they told me that I had to kill him.

MR WESSELS: At that same opportunity?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: And what else did they tell you?

MR BARNARD: Sir, that I then had to go and do the planning about how I was going to do it. I have already disclosed certain information or plans that I thought it would be an opportunity target.

MR WESSELS: What is an opportunity target?

MR BARNARD: If there is a suitable opportunity, the person will be killed, in other words there is not a fixed plan like the Pope, nine o'clock, he will stand on the steps of some cathedral.

MR WESSELS: There was not a specific plan that you worked out in which you would kill him, when you had the opportunity, you would kill him?

MR BARNARD: Yes, I said that, but I also thought that I would shoot him.

MR WESSELS: And you had to do this?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: Whenever it was convenient for you?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And did they ask you how or in what way it would take place, what weapon you would use or weren't they interested in those particulars? Did you have to use your own discretion?

MR BARNARD: No, it was precisely with this case that the presentation was made.

MR WESSELS: When you said it?

MR BARNARD: No, it was upon this occasion that I said that I thought it would be most advisable to use a firearm, I foresaw that it could be a drive-by shooting, in other words as he came out of the house or as he was entering the house, and I presented it as such. I also suggested that a firearm be used, because I foresaw that a shotgun should be used.

It wasn't a rigid, structured pro forma which I have heard the others here, testify about. There wasn't any talk of anything like that, it also wasn't a lengthy submission, and not many questions were asked to me.

MR WESSELS: Was it more of an informal discussion?

MR BARNARD: No, I wouldn't say it was that, it was very serious and Joe Verster asked me a number of questions. The details of which I cannot recall, and he was satisfied, and he said that I could go ahead, but that it was a matter of urgency and at a later stage, I was told that even if I had to penetrate the house, the operation had to be executed, because a number of days had gone by, and I might have to penetrate the house.

They were afraid that Dr Webster could do something which could cause irreparable damage to the country, and to that I refer to the thing that he discovered in the Kosi Bay vicinity. It was very emphatically conveyed to me that either he was going to make a presentation on this before the United Nations or there would be a report, but there was some or other rumour or information to this effect, and this had to be stopped.

It was the same with all the other projects, with the exception that the pro forma wasn't exactly the same as it was with the other members. It didn't function exactly the same way.

MR WESSELS: Did they tell you that this was an extremely important person who enjoyed a high profile?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, to a reasonable extent, I had knowledge of Dr Webster. This was due to information that I had acquired prior to the incident, I read much about activists and their activities. I read press reports such as the reports in the Weekly Mail, the Vrye Weekblad, the New Nation and so forth. In this way I picked up a lot.

There were also quite a number of advertisements which were placed regarding meetings of organisations such as NUSAS and I knew about Dr Webster, although I didn't know precisely how high his profile was.

MR WESSELS: But by nature of the instruction that Joe

Verster was personally going to be involved in, and Lafras Luitingh and with regard to Dr Webster's profile, you must have thought that it was a very important instruction?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: And a very sensitive instruction?

MR BARNARD: Yes, any project would be sensitive.

MR WESSELS: Naturally. And that the greatest measure of secrecy would be at the order of the day?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Because if anything were to leak out to the organisation, it would have enormous repercussions, not only for your organisation, but for the government?

MR BARNARD: And for me, that is correct.

MR WESSELS: And for you?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that is correct.

MR WESSELS: But for Mr Verster and for Mr Luitingh it would have held the same implications as for you, and perhaps a little more serious?

MR BARNARD: If they were identified, yes.

MR WESSELS: Did they give you any specific instructions regarding your modus operandi or was that left to your own discretion, could you act according to the circumstances?

MR BARNARD: Yes, they left it up to my discretion. But I foresaw that the most suitable place was the one way street because it had its down sides with the observation, but it definitely had its up side for the execution of the operation, because one could not be physically observed from the front, or at least from the direction in which one would go after having committed the deed.

MR WESSELS: And did you interpret your instruction as that you had to act alone?

MR BARNARD: Yes, that was my interpretation and I don't think that they would have approved if I was involved and I implicated somebody else, as I did with Calla Botha.

MR WESSELS: Yes. You received the instruction to shoot Dr Webster with a gun?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Was there a decision at that point regarding which sort of firearm would be used?

MR BARNARD: If I have it correctly, a shotgun was to be used according to the proposal that I made because I had access to a shotgun and I also thought that in that vicinity, if you shot someone, even if it was only one shot, it could be confused with the sound of a vehicle back-firing.

It was also an effective murder weapon, a shotgun, if loaded with the correct bullets, would have the same effect as an 8mm or a 9mm gun.

MR WESSELS: Did you tell them to provide you with a firearm or did you have your own firearm that you could use?

MR BARNARD: I stated that I had weaponry at my disposal. I had an assortment of shotguns, six or seven at that stage, if I can recall correctly.

MR WESSELS: Did you tell them that you would be making use of a shotgun with a sawn-off butt?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall that I said that, it is possible that I said so. I did not have a sawn-off shotgun at that point, I especially modified one for this project and at the same time, or shortly afterwards, I arrived at George Mitchell's house and at first he gave me a Tokarev pistol, because we shared a passion for weapons.

We looked at the magazine in his bar, where there were various firearms and then he fetched a nickel-plated Tokarev and he got hold of this firearm somewhere abroad. He showed me the modifications and then he went to fetch the shotgun, a shotgun that he had in his cupboard. It was a licensed shotgun, but a nice short shotgun. When I saw the shotgun, it triggered the thought in my mind that this would be the ideal shotgun, the ideal size and everything.

I think within a day or two subsequently I departed to a farm on the South Coast and I went to practice shooting with the gun.

MR WESSELS: You went to practice?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: You returned and you were satisfied that you could accurately fire the gun?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: Did you see Verster or Luitingh again before the day of the murder?

MR BARNARD: No, not that I can recall.

MR WESSELS: How long after your return from the South Coast did you shoot Dr Webster?

MR BARNARD: It was shortly afterwards.

MR WESSELS: What is shortly afterwards?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall, I cannot tell you. I gave George Mitchell's shotgun back to him, and it may have been within 10 days or two weeks that the job was done. I cannot affix myself to times, because I don't know.

MR WESSELS: What was the lapse of time between the meeting when you received the instruction to kill Dr Webster and the day upon which you indeed killed him?

MR BARNARD: I cannot tell you because I don't know whether it was March or April and I don't know when in March or April it would have been, I cannot determine that, I don't know.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you talking three days or 20 days?

MR BARNARD: No, more than three days, Chairperson. Along with the observation and everything, I really cannot tell you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels, can I just ask one question, did you use George Mitchell's shotgun to ...

MR BARNARD: No, no.

CHAIRPERSON: You just practised with it?

MR BARNARD: I practised with it, because I saw that it was approximately the size which I would be able to handle well in a vehicle. I had a standing invitation at the farm on the South Coast, I have visited these friends of mine on the South Coast before.

CHAIRPERSON: So you practised with the short shotgun and then you thought it was okay, then you went to your own stock and got a shotgun and sawn-off the barrel?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Amongst other modifications?

MR BARNARD: I shortened the barrel and I attached a pistol grip.

CHAIRPERSON: Your shotgun, was that a licensed shotgun?

MR BARNARD: No sir.

CHAIRPERSON: The one that you used?

MR BARNARD: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Where did you get that from?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I had various weapons which I had collected over a period of time, some of them I received from Vlakplaas members, others I obtained in the criminal world. At one point I had three trunks full of weapons, which I stored in different places. These were weapons which I obtained myself.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it a double barrel shotgun?

MR BARNARD: Yes, it was a double barrel shotgun.

CHAIRPERSON: With 12 bore type thing?

MR BARNARD: Yes, 12 bore, double barrel shotgun.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wessels?

MR WESSELS: How long before the incident did you involve Calla Botha?

MR BARNARD: A few days. A few days before the incident, I cannot recall the precise date, but we went three or four times and then it happened that we found Dr Webster and I shot him.

MR WESSELS: Did you tell him from the very beginning "listen, we are going to shoot Dr Webster if the opportunity presented itself"?

MR BARNARD: That is correct, when I went to see him at his house, I immediately informed him of that.

MR WESSELS: What did you tell him?

MR BARNARD: I told him that it was a project which Joe and them had initiated, that I had received the instruction from Joe Verster and Lafras Luitingh. He put certain questions to me, that was Calla Botha. I told him that the presentation was conducted in Ponti.

MR WESSELS: What did he ask you?

MR BARNARD: He asked me who was involved, who was there, what the instruction was, the information that I have just given you. In the general I informed him of the circumstances and I also told him what the reason would be for Dr Webster's murder.

MR WESSELS: Did he ask you whether or not you had authorisation to involve him?

MR BARNARD: I don't think that he was under any mis-impression regarding this. He declared himself willing to go and to assist me. I don't think that he held any illusions that he would be unlawfully involved, in terms of the organisation. He knew it was illegal and so did I in terms of regulations.

MR WESSELS: What do you mean, in terms of the rules and regulations of the organisation, but nonetheless he was prepared to break the organisational rules and to become involved in this project of yours?

MR BARNARD: Well, it must be common knowledge that it was the case.

MR WESSELS: I see. You also didn't tell Lafras Luitingh or Verster that you were going to be using him?

MR BARNARD: No, I did not.

MR WESSELS: Why not?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I don't know, I did not inform them. I thought to myself that it would be more advisable if I took someone with me, and as I testified, I trusted Calla Botha, I knew that he could function well under pressure, we had spent a lot of time together where we had depended on each other for our lives. Not necessarily in this milieu.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I keep intervening. Sorry Mr Wessels, when you were at the meeting with Luitingh and Verster and it was approved that a shotgun would be used, etc, was it contemplated that it would be a drive-by shooting?

MR BARNARD: Chairperson, I did not put it that specifically, but I thought that as an opportunity target, the possibility could arise that it would be a drive-by shooting.

CHAIRPERSON: One would imagine that if there was that possibility, that it would be a drive-by shooting that two people would be used?

MR BARNARD: Two people, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: It would be difficult to drive and ...

MR BARNARD: Although we did not go into those details. The last I heard was that it might be necessary for me to penetrate the house, but in my own mind I thought that a drive-by shooting, and I also conveyed it as such at a certain stage. But nobody asked me if I was going to use anybody else, no one told me that I wasn't allowed to.

But for me it was the understanding that I should state if I required another person in my presentation, and I didn't do that.

MR LAX: Sorry, could I just, did anyone tell you you could use another person?

MR BARNARD: No, nobody said that.

MR WESSELS: Mr Barnard, when you discussed the plan or the murder, weren't the different possibilities discussed?

MR BARNARD: The possibilities were limited due to the layout of the place and the lack of specialist information regarding Dr Webster's movements. The possibilities were limited to the extent that I did not see my way open to attack David Webster at Wits and I also didn't bother to conduct thorough reconnaissance of that place. His residence, despite the problems with the layout and observation, suited me like a glove when I realised later on that it was a one way street with a T-junction. There were no other possibilities which were discussed.

I proposed this possibility and it was accepted.

MR WESSELS: Which possibility, the possibility of the drive-by shooting?

MR BARNARD: No, the possibility that he could be murdered while entering or exiting his house. He didn't have to be in his vehicle.

MR WESSELS: But did Mr Verster or Mr Luitingh not express any interest in further details, didn't they ask you how you thought you could do it and what your escape route would be, and that sort of detail? Wasn't that discussed?

MR BARNARD: I cannot recall that such details were discussed. I was told that if I did the job, I should be able to get away, by nature of the situation. I didn't tell them "left in this street, right in that street" and so forth. I didn't conduct that kind of planning, because one can turn left into the street and there can be a five ton truck in front of you.

I didn't discuss anything like that.

MR WESSELS: You see, if you were to be apprehended, let's say your escape route didn't function efficiently, and you were apprehended, the entire organisation would be jeopardised.

MR BARNARD: Why?

MR WESSELS: Because you would be arrested and then there would be the risk that you could expose them?

MR BARNARD: No, but that was not necessarily the case.

MR WESSELS: But it was highly probable?

MR BARNARD: It was possible, I would concede that it was possible.

MR WESSELS: Naturally.

MR BARNARD: Well, here I was arrested for three years already and not one of them has seen the inside of a jail.

MR WESSELS: That is the problem.

MR BARNARD: That is your problem, not mine because I am finished with them.

MR WESSELS: In the great lapse of time between your version of yesterday and your version of today and the date upon which it occurred, let us not deviate from the course, you say that they were not interested in further particulars regarding how you thought you would conduct the elimination and what your escape route would be?

MR BARNARD: The people agreed with my proposal and gave me the go-ahead.

MR WESSELS: What was the proposal?

MR BARNARD: That I foresaw that Dr Webster would be killed outside his house while leaving or entering his house.

MR WESSELS: And how would you kill him? Would you shoot him from a helicopter?

MR BARNARD: No, from a vehicle. I would have gone with a vehicle and climbed out of the vehicle and shot him, either one of the two.

MR WESSELS: So there was mention of a vehicle?

MR BARNARD: Yes.

MR WESSELS: And the drive-by shooting was the accepted plan?

MR BARNARD: Yes, among others, but the drive-by for me wasn't necessarily shooting from a moving vehicle, one can stop and shoot the person as happened with the Chris Hani murder.

Januz Walus stopped, climbed out of the vehicle, went to the driveway, shot him, went back and drove off.

MR WESSELS: And he was arrested within two hours?

MR BARNARD: Yes, because he was driving with a red vehicle and he had the firearm in the car.

MR WESSELS: But Mr Barnard, if for example, you were to drive and you were alone in the vehicle and you drove passed the house as you indeed drove on the day when Dr Webster was shot, it would have meant that Dr Webster would have been on the left side of the road?

MR BARNARD: That is correct.

MR WESSELS: So in order to shoot him, you would have had to stop, climb out, walk around the back, shoot him, get back into the vehicle and drive off?

MR BARNARD: No, with a short shotgun, especially if you are left-handed like me, you can open the window and lean out. Especially at the point where I saw him disembarking from the vehicle, if I straightened my arm with the firearm and leant out of the window, I could shoot him at point blank range as he was climbing out of his bakkie, but subsequently I thought that I might have to remain in motion, and that is why I decided to involve Calla Botha and to use him to drive the vehicle to ensure that this job would be done clean and well.

MR WESSELS: And it was not discussed with Verster and Luitingh that you could possibly make use of somebody to help you or to assist you?

MR BARNARD: No, it was not discussed and they did not tell me that I should not do it.

MR WESSELS: They did not ask you if you thought that maybe you needed somebody to drive the vehicle?

MR BARNARD: No sir.

MR WESSELS: You had to go and get your own shotgun, you had to modify it yourself, so that it would suit yourself?

MR BARNARD: Sir, they knew I could do it, I told them that I had weapons.

MR WESSELS: But if you made use of your own weapon, then there is a possibility that that weapon can be traced back to you?

MR BARNARD: If it was a licensed weapon, in my name, yes, certainly, but there is no way that I would get hold of a firearm license, I never had one. When I applied for one and Eugene de Kock went to the Head of the Firearm Department he said that this person is not allowed to have a breadknife in his possession.

MR WESSELS: If you now made use of a weapon that you got hold of yourself, then that weapon could have been identified?

MR BARNARD: No sir. I do not think so, I do not agree with you, because if I made use of a weapon that can be traced back to me, but if I make use of a weapon, I take off the serial number which is very simple.

MR WESSELS: But this weapon that you used, you gave the name Buks Benadi, it was a well known weapon, a lot of people knew that you had such a weapon?

MR BARNARD: Yes, sir, but it was not Buks Benadi who committed the murder. I had various sawn-off shotguns, Buks Benadi was the most famous.

MR WESSELS: I am just indicating to you how a weapon can be identified and be connected to a specific person and that it can compromise you in a certain way?

MR BARNARD: Yes, it could.

MR WESSELS: But not you or Joe Verster or Lafras Luitingh ever considered this?

MR BARNARD: No, they did not. Why they did not do it, I do not know.

MR WESSELS: You see Mr Barnard, I find it astonishing that people like Joe Verster, Lafras Luitingh who were fanatical about security, about procedures, will go to you, an untrained, unreliable criminal and orally tell you "go and kill Dr Webster" and then leave it over to your discretion about how to do it, what weapon you can use, what methods you can use, the escape plan or route that you had to work out yourself and that they were willing to take that risk? It seems ridiculous to me.

MR BARNARD: It may seem like that, but that is how it happened. The thing is that these people knew that I could do it. I was recruited initially, remember when I testified about the documentation and the qualifications, they did not want to see it, I was qualified for this type of work, and it became very clear at a later stage that I was qualified specifically for these tasks. It happened in such a way that if I was trained or not trained, we can debate about that, I can tell you now, if you refer to shooting, then Joe Verster can at any time come and we can go to a shooting range and I will show who can shoot and who cannot shoot.

MR WESSELS: I do not doubt your ability to kill other people, but what I am trying to refer to is your training concerning or in the concept of security, to follow procedures, to prevent you being caught and to compromise the government and the organisation and to expose them in the process.

This is the type of lack of training that I am talking about.

MR BARNARD: I understand what you are saying and I do concede that I did not follow certain rules and that there were certain breaks, but it does not change the fact that Joe Verster gave me the instruction with Lafras Luitingh and that I followed it and that I committed this murder.

MR WESSELS: The fact that Joe Verster, you said that, the fact that you told him that they can give you the instruction is astonishing Mr Barnard, and it is against all the workings of the CCB, as we have heard from other witnesses, even this single incident, there is a reckless way in which you, an unreliable person, is left with the discretion to act in the way in which you want to.

You can use a weapon from your own arsenal and you are given free reign in this very sensitive operation?

MR BARNARD: Sir, if there is one operation that is more sensitive, then it would be the Adv Omar case, because of his stature. Do you know what they did there? They got a gangster, who is far worse than what I am, and they made use of him and at the end of the day Slang van Zyl asked him to destroy the poison and he had to also destroy the Makarov with the silencer.

MR WESSELS: But the difference Mr Barnard is that they made use of cut-off points.

MR BARNARD: What cut-off points?

MR WESSELS: The idea was that he would act as an agent and that it will not be traceable back to the organisation.

MR BARNARD: But we do know today that it is not true?

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, will it be convenient to take the adjournment at this stage?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I have been told to inform you that tomorrow morning we will be sitting downstairs where we were at the last time we met here, a few weeks ago, in that room, not in this room. This room apparently is being used by the owners, so we will meet in the room that opens up to the main street.

And also unfortunately tomorrow, we will only be able to sit until one o'clock, we will be adjourning at one o'clock tomorrow.

MR WESSELS: Sorry Chairperson, I couldn't hear you.

CHAIRPERSON: We will adjourn until half past nine tomorrow, in the room downstairs, the room that we were in previously when we will continue with Mr Barnard's evidence and we will adjourn for the day at one o'clock tomorrow, we have to adjourn at 1 o'clock. Thank you.

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