Amnesty Hearings

CHAIRPERSON: Today is Thursday, 28th January 1999. It is the continuation of the amnesty application of Mr Bellingan. The Panel and appearances are as previously indicated on the record.

Mr Bellingan, I remind you that you are still under oath.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Trengove, have you got any further questions?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR TRENGOVE: (cont)

Mr Bellingan, did you ever use the name Scheffer in any of your undercover operations?

MR BELLINGAN: I can't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You can't recall? I'd like to turn to the so-called list of hits. I'm afraid I, despite your frequent description of it, still don't understand what it was. Can you please explain to me again.

MR BELLINGAN: That was a list which I had drawn up, Mr Chairman, which contained certain information concerning operations which involved members of, or colleagues of mine, people in the Security Branch, sensitive operations, Mr Chairman, operations which could conceivably cause people to want to co-operate, to want to join the, let's call it the traitors that were exposing operations.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, that description is so elusive as to tell me nothing. Please confine yourself to what the document contained, not what its effect might have been. So far you've told us it contained sensitive information about operations of the security police, that is to say nothing.

MR BELLINGAN: It was not only the Security Branch, Mr Chairman ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, please start at the beginning and tell me what it contained, not what it didn't contain.

MR BELLINGAN: It contained a list of incidents, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So it was just a list of incidents like the list in, I think it's page 88 of your second amnesty application?

MR BELLINGAN: Something like that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, juts have a look at that list. Let me find it, it doesn't seem to be - ja, the introduction is at the foot of 88 and it goes on from there through to 91. Was that what it looked like?

MR BELLINGAN: It did not look like this, Mr Chairman, it was a list of incidents. It looked similar to this, a list of incidents including certain Stratcom operations as well. It was not just killings, Mr Chairman, it was a bit broader than that. It was for example, bomb explosions etc. It was in my handwriting, it was my notes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Which incidents did it identify?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall all the incidents, Mr Chairman, but incidents such as these that are mentioned over here ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, not "such as", including don't be confusing and unspecific, please be as specific as you can.

MR BELLINGAN: At the time I compiled this list I thought long and hard about what incidents were on the list from what I could remember, Mr Chairman, so it was, I spent some time putting together this list over here. I also left out some, for example the one I mentioned the other day, the Chachacha Road incident. I don't think on this list I've mentioned things with I was involved, in other words in my application somewhere I said included in that was incidents in which I was involved as well.

So things like Cosatu House, Cry Freedom, Khotso House, was on my notes of the time but is not pages 89 to 91 over here, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I think I understand your answer but just for the sake of the record, there's room for confusion. In your answer you referred from time to time to this list and then you pointed to the document in front of you. Those references were to the list which commences at page 89 of your second amnesty application, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So the list in your amnesty application was your best recollection of at least some of the incidents listed in the hit-list.

MR BELLINGAN: But also somewhere in my amnesty application I explain that this included in that information that was in the envelope, was things I was involved in.

MR TRENGOVE: You don't listen to my question.

MR TRENGOVE: The list at page 89 is a list of incidents which to the best of your recollection were amongst those included in the hit-list.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But you say the hit-list went on and mentioned other incidents as well.

MR BELLINGAN: In the documentation were other incidents as well, Mr Chairman. Aside from my listed things there were also things that Janine had mentioned.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm talking about the hit-list and then you give me answers about the documentation. Please confine yourself to the so-called hit-list. Did the hit-list contain anything other than the list of incidents which commences at page 89 of your amnesty application?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What else did it contain?

MR BELLINGAN: It contained, as I've said, the Cry Freedom incident, it contained the Khotso House, the Cosatu House, the, a couple of bombings, Mr Chairman, some outside the country and some inside the country too.

MR TRENGOVE: Why did you not list those incidents in your amnesty application when you made your best attempt to list all the incidents which have been listed in the hit-list?

MR BELLINGAN: I've tried to explain, Mr Chairman, that I have mentioned somewhere over here in this document, that there were other incidents in which I was involved which are not mentioned over here.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but please answer the question. Why aren't they here?

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't think it was necessary, Mr Chairman, this is not an exact, I'm not trying to replicate my notes that I had in my briefcase over here.

MR TRENGOVE: Why not? Why list some but not all?

MR BELLINGAN: Well firstly, it's too long ago, Mr Chairman, I can't remember what my notes were exactly.

MR TRENGOVE: So when you made this list you'd forgotten about the other incidents, is that the explanation?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I hadn't forgotten about them, Mr Chairman. I've explained already that in here I've said that there were other incidents, but I've mentioned that in my amnesty, in the course of all the schedules I mention them, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: For what purpose did you prepare the hit-list?

MR BELLINGAN: At the time we had a problem with what they called "verraaiers" or people that became a risk, people that were keen on, or possibly going to be leaving. One of my functions was to look at the psychological state if you were, of people, of agents, or sources, handlers.

I had to be alert and aware to the risk of people that were stressed out about things. At the time with the changes in the country, there were more and more people that were joining the ANC. One of my immediate supervisors on Stratcom joined the ANC at the time, Mr Chairman. There were approaches to me even. It was a highly sensitive controversial and difficult time. So to make myself alert as to who I'm dealing with over here, am I dealing with one of these people that's been involved in these types of operations, is it his agent, is it his source that I'm dealing with, the handlers around him and the people around him. There was a thing called the Domino Principle, Mr Chairman, if one of those people topples then they all topple.

MR TRENGOVE: I still don't understand. I thought I did initially, I thought you were explaining to us that you were trying to, as it were, compile a profile of a traitor but the explanation ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Not at, Mr Chairman, it was a list of incidents which would prompt my memory as to which people were potentially at risk in view of the knowledge that I had that people were already being recruited into the ANC's intelligence structures, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I don't understand, could you please start again and explain to me slowly.

MR BELLINGAN: Certainly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What you were doing and why.

MR BELLINGAN: I was making notes for myself, Mr Chairman, at the time to prompt my memory as to who, when I had dealings with various divisions, when I had dealings with various units, for example one of my planned duties was to evaluate all of the Askaris at Vlakplaas and the handlers and the people involved over there. It was a highly sensitive matter, I needed to be aware of who I was dealing with, Mr Chairman. What were the lists of sensitive matters that were involved over there, was this person in a high risk category automatically, how would that person be feeling in terms his potential exposure in terms of his need to seek insurance as it were.

People were having to, getting the feeling that they had to look after themselves. There were people like Dirk Coetzee who were forced to speak, Mr Chairman, they were forced to speak out. So there was a reaction, counter-reaction, counter-reaction on top of that again type of situation. And in order to enable me to alert myself to these things, I needed to have a list of such things to prompt my memory. For example, if I went to the Eastern Cape, I would need to know, if I saw somebody over there in Ficksburg for example, I would need to alert myself to the fact that potentially I'm dealing with someone here who is feeling very stressed out and are there any signs of it, what has he said to the agents.

I would see the agents and the handlers without, in the absence of each other, Mr Chairman, and there would be a lot of disclosures made to me by the agents concerning the handlers for example, it was a highly sensitive situation.

In fact on the one course that I was on there was a complaint because I was submitting reports to my superior about information on a unit in, I think at the time, in Soweto about someone who was a potential risk, who in fact, then the agent did go and join the ANC and I knew and via my report I submitted it, but the handler was not aware of that. So there was this kind of who should I talk to, who should I tell. It was not an easy situation, Mr Chairman. Those were my notes for myself.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, we're going to submit to the Commission that this answer of yours is simply an application of the hint to maintain a cover story, be confusing. Because frankly, you've now given the explanation four or five times and I still don't have

the faintest idea what the list was prepared for.

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps I could say it again, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, please do that.

MR BELLINGAN: It was a list for my use ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute. Was it a list of incidents?

MR BELLINGAN: It was a list of incidents, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: That's all?

MR BELLINGAN: Together with it was my annotations which would refer me to people's names which refer me to possible source numbers. It would prompt my memory, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: So is it a list of incidents and those members of the, let's call them intelligence community, and their sources, informers and agents who were involved in a particular incident? So if you take your list and you take the killing of Steve Biko on page 89, then you would have all the names of the security police and whoever else who were involved in that killing?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, I wouldn't then have a date, I would just say have Biko and then I would have a couple of lines next to it for example, with some names of people. For example a colleague of mine, Deon, I would maybe have one or two annotations around it.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, yes. So if one looks at your hit-list, one is able to see who killed Steve Biko?

MR BELLINGAN: It would require further explanation, Mr Chairman, but most certainly with a little bit of explanation one would be able to see who killed Steve Biko.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, yes. Now if you had the list in front of you, not somebody else, if you had the list in front of you, you would be able to see from the list, you'd take the killing of Steve Biko and you'd be able to see who was responsible for the killing?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Was that what this list was all about?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR TRENGOVE: So the list identified incidents of unlawful conduct of the Security Forces, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Together with the names of the members responsible for those incidents?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, you shake you heard as if you resign yourself to my proposition. Is it correct or is it not correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Well the names were not spelt out in full, Mr Chairman, it would still, I would know what I meant over there by those names but it's not everybody who could just pick up the list and say. I mean you would have to know about Biko for example, to know there was no full elaborate history associated with it, it's just as I've explained, Biko, some names. For example, the example I gave as Deon, then you would have to know that that refers to Gideon Nieuwoudt.

CHAIRPERSON: So if Janine looked at the list she would see a number of incidents, the killing of Steve Biko with some annotations which she wouldn't necessarily be able to decipher, to understand?

MR BELLINGAN: Well the problem, Mr Chairman, is that Janine knew very well about those incidents because I had given her some elaborate explanations already about covert operations.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you explained to her how the hit-list works?

MR BELLINGAN: No, not the hit-list, Mr Chairman, not at all, but ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: But how was she going to know, look if you had written Deon there?

MR BELLINGAN: Well she would know who Deon was.

CHAIRPERSON: And your other annotations, would she have been able to understand them?

MR BELLINGAN: I suppose most of them, Mr Chairman, or many of them.

CHAIRPERSON: And somebody outside?

MR BELLINGAN: Not necessarily, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And a security policeman?

MR BELLINGAN: Oh yes, a security policemen would, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR TRENGOVE: So what the hit-list would tell the informed reader is who the people were that were responsible for these incidents?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Anything else?

MR BELLINGAN: No.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, we now know what the list, what the content of the list was. Could you just explain to me again, having compiled the list of incidents together with the names of the people responsible for those incidents, why did you do it, what was its purpose?

MR BELLINGAN: Once again, Mr Chairman, it was for my use in order to alert me to potential problem staff, potential problem agents, problem areas, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Oh, you mean these are security policemen with a serious crime on their conscience?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And why was it necessary for you to list all the security policemen with serious crimes on their conscience?

MR BELLINGAN: As I've explained, Mr Chairman, because they were huge problem areas in the context of our work at the time, in the context of the changes.

MR TRENGOVE: You mean because they were potential candidates for defection?

MR BELLINGAN: Not just that, Mr Chairman, but also people who would be potentially in need of psychological assistance. And our problem was, if I may just elaborate, that it was not a situation where they could just of their own accord go and see somebody about their problems they may be experiencing because that would put them into a huge risk category. How would they possible indulge in therapy concerning this problem, when they may not speak about it, Mr Chairman. So, for example, I had the problem with the chap who was involved in the, the one Watson brother in Gaberone, he was starting to crack up.

There was an investigation where he was also suspected and what do we do with the fellow, what, who do we refer him to. It would be far better if we could refer him to people who worked for me, psychologists that I trusted, experience people that could take care of those problems.

MR TRENGOVE: Was it just as a social service to these policemen or was the real purpose to protect against the risk that they might defect?

MR BELLINGAN: It was from the point - it was not, my perspective was not just a purely helping one for these people, but obviously that played a small part in it. It was more like the element of defection that was a concern to me, it was more like the risk that they pose that was a concern to me.

MR TRENGOVE: I see.

MR BELLINGAN: But obviously the human element was not lost on me.

MR TRENGOVE: So the whole purpose was, the whole purpose of the exercise was to minimise the risk of defection?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who instructed you to undertake this project?

MR BELLINGAN: Nobody instructed me to draw up this list, Mr Chairman, the broader project ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, let me make it quite clear, who instructed you to undertake the task of identifying people who are at risk of defection because of the crimes on their conscience?

MR BELLINGAN: It was part of my duties, Mr Chairman, I was not called in one day and said specifically my ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: So the answer is nobody instructed you?

MR BELLINGAN: In the same way that nobody instructed me to kill Janine, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you don't have to justify the answer yet, just answer the question. The answer is nobody instructed you?

MR BELLINGAN: I can't think of anyone who specifically set in motion, called me in one day and set something in motion in terms of an instruction, an order. I can't think of anyone like that. It may even have happened. I can't recall now what prompted this series of events.

MR TRENGOVE: Which of your superiors were aware of the fact that you were undertaking this important task?

MR BELLINGAN: I think it would have been at the time Colonel Oosthuizen, possibly Colonel Nel, possibly higher ranks as well, Mr Chairman. We had to make presentations from time to time and I provided statistics.

MR TRENGOVE: What did you do to identify all the responsible policemen who were responsible for these incidents?

MR BELLINGAN: Sorry, Mr Chairman, what did I do?

MR TRENGOVE: What did you do to find out which members had been responsible for these incidents?

MR BELLINGAN: I was just observant over all the years, Mr Chairman, I listened to loose talk and I just basically opened my eyes and ears.

MR TRENGOVE: So you mean you just sat down and wrote it out from your own knowledge?

MR BELLINGAN: That's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Picked up through passage talk over the years?

MR BELLINGAN: Not just passage talk but in specific consultations with people, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now to whom did you report on the outcome of this project?

MR BELLINGAN: I would have discussions with my immediate supervisor, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I don't want to know what would have happened, do you remember to whom you reported?

MR BELLINGAN: There was no specific outcome, Mr Chairman, it was a process. So it was an ongoing thing, something arose, we would speak about it. For example I was going through my notes, there was a note that I'd sent I think to Colonel Taylor, concerning an agent in the ANC structures in the Mossel Bay area and we had sent down someone to see him, it was a potential agent, we had declined to appoint the person for certain reason, and they'd gone ahead an appointed him and at a later stage he became a problem.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, Mr Bellingan, I understood your whole explanation to be that this was to be the beginning of a co-ordinated effort to minimise the risk of leaks, by providing assistance to people under stress.

MR BELLINGAN: It was also an ongoing thing, Mr Chairman. So in that particular instance I reported to Colonel Taylor because the query had come from him concerning this particular person.

MR TRENGOVE: No but that's an ad-hoc and incidental query.

MR BELLINGAN: Exactly.

MR TRENGOVE: What happened to the plan to provide coherent and co-ordinated assistance to people under stress to avoid their defection?

MR BELLINGAN: No, there was no such project, Mr Chairman, it is as the advocate says, it was an ad-hoc thing.

MR TRENGOVE: So you prepared the list just in case you got a query from somebody about, from some superior about some other member, to know that that member had been involved in some serious crime?

MR BELLINGAN: I saw it as my responsibility to be proactive, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the questions, don't try and justify. Are you saying that you prepared the list just to be prepared in case you got a query of that kind?

MR BELLINGAN: No, it is as I explained, Mr Chairman, it was to alert me on an ongoing way so that I would be aware of exactly who I was dealing with if there was a potential problem area.

MR TRENGOVE: But you were aware, you've just told us that this list was simply writing down what was already in your head.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, but if I had to be asked to close my eyes now and replicate what I've already written over here, which took me some time to put together and then with amendments and amendments and amendments, I wouldn't get it right the first time, I would forget things. I'm much better off if I sit down and prepare my own notes working on my own.

MR TRENGOVE: Just to remind yourself who the members were who had been involved in these serious crimes?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Did you carry the list with you so as to use it for that purpose?

MR BELLINGAN: I'd only just started to prepare this matter, Mr Chairman, it was an idea that I had, it wasn't something that I was going to prepare a wall chart of or something like that, it was a very sensitive and confidential thing for my use. I used to utilise my office as a home, as my home as an office, Mr Chairman, so I often took things home and yes, I did take it home, I did carry it with me.

MR TRENGOVE: So - but it's purpose was simply to remind yourself when you dealt with any of these members, that they were members under stress and therefore in risk of defection?

MR BELLINGAN: Potentially, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Potentially what?

MR BELLINGAN: Potentially, as the advocate says, potentially under stress. Various people have different ways of reacting to the stress, some of them were cracking up. I know for a fact Colonel Taylor in Natal was busy cracking up.

MR TRENGOVE: But I'm not sure whether you confirmed the first part of my question, so is my understanding now correct that the list was merely intended as a reminder to yourself in case you had to deal with these people to remind you that they were potentially under stress?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, at that stage it was purely for my own purposes. At a later stage ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: And for that purpose alone?

MR BELLINGAN: To prompt my memory, yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. What about this business that you told us about psychological assistance and trusted psychologists and assistance to these people to help them to avoid the risk of defection? I thought that was the purpose of it all. Now you tell us it was something quite different, it was just to remind yourself in case you had to deal with these people.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, even the person I referred to in the Gaberone incident, I never got him to a psychologist, it just never happened but I did try.

MR TRENGOVE: Don't confuse, just answer the question. I thought from your earlier description that at least part of the purpose of this list was to identify people to whom psychological assistance would be rendered.

MR BELLINGAN: That's ...(intervention)

MR DU PLESSIS: No, Mr Chairman, he testified possibly - to whom assistance possibly may be rendered in future in a specific situation, not to whom it will be rendered. And Mr Chairman, with respect, I don't want to object every time to my learned friend's method of cross-examination so I'm just going to place this on record. And that is that my learned friend keeps on saying to the witness he doesn't answer the questions when he answers the question. Now I will that for argument but I just want to place that on record, that on various occasions and with various questions yesterday and today, my learned friend has done so after the witness has answered the question. And I'm not going to object every time, I'm drawing your attention to that and I will direct specific argument in that regard to you at the relevant stage.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and you could re-examine as well. I don't think there's any misunderstanding about the partial purpose, if I might put it that way, of this hit-list for psychological assistance. Mr Trengove?

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you and I have been discussing the purpose for which you prepared this document. You initially told us that its purpose or at least one of its purposes was to provide psychological assistance to people under stress to minimise the risk of defection. In your later answer, your most recent answer you said, no, no, no, it's only purpose was to remind yourself when you deal with people, that they might be people under stress. How do you reconcile those two answers?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, quite simply because the alerting of myself would have referred not just to the defectors but also to people who might be in need of such a thing, if I could facilitate it, if I could get it right, instead of them just cracking up or doing something irrational. If I could get it right then I would. I had discussions like that with some of my, one of my superiors and in the end it never really materialised but when I say alert myself, I mean to mean to all the potential dangers including the fact that something could be done which was psychological assistance.

MR TRENGOVE: Is my understanding correct that you were not instructed to prepare the list and also did not report to any of your superiors on the list?

MR BELLINGAN: No, that understanding is not completely correct, Mr Chairman, it's partially correct. In specific incidents on an ad-hoc basis I did report to my superiors but I did not take a list with to them, Mr Chairman, it would have been a very foolish thing to do, for me to be seen with such a list. I didn't take it to them and say we've got a problem over here, amongst the list of incidents in which we have been involved there is potentially a problem area over here. I didn't do that, but on certain occasions like for example, the one I mentioned with Colonel Taylor concerning the person in George. I can remember preparing something over there ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: You didn't tell any of your superiors that you had such a list?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I didn't.

MR TRENGOVE: Then when - you say you recovered this list on the night of the murder, under Janine's car seat.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And destroyed it.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: I destroyed all the documents that were in the envelope, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I know that's what you say, I'm asking you why you destroyed this list.

MR BELLINGAN: Because I realised the effect that this could have, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But you realised that all along. This was meant to be a useful source of information, why destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: It was not only that that was in there, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm talking about this document. Why did you destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: It was a highly sensitive document, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It had always been.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: And you had very many highly sensitive documents if you're to be believed, why destroy this one?

MR BELLINGAN: There was no better time than then to get rid of as much stuff as I could, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but it was meant to serve a purpose, why destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: The purpose of the document had changed very drastically from what I had intended it to what it was going to be used for, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Your purpose for the document was still the same, to be available as an ongoing reminder of people under stress, why destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: Because I felt that the need to destroy it was very urgent, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why? Take it back to the office, put it where it belongs and have the benefit of its use.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it would have provided a motive for the murder.

MR TRENGOVE: Why?

MR BELLINGAN: Because I knew that I would be a prime suspect, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, a document in your file in the office doesn't provide a motive for a murder.

MR BELLINGAN: I was told that my office would be looked through as well, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And they would ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: And I had an opportunity to clear out stuff there too.

MR TRENGOVE: And they would find a document which would be the kind of document that one would expect to find in a security policeman's file.

MR BELLINGAN: Certainly not with notes from Janine on it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Oh, I see, are you saying that she annotated things on it?

MR BELLINGAN: No, she didn't annotate things on it but there was a note from Janine amongst the stuff as well.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, well don't confuse the issue, we're talking about the hit-list. Why not just take it back to your office and use it for the purpose for which it was prepared?

MR BELLINGAN: It needed to be destroyed, Mr Chairman, I couldn't carry it around with me, it would have been reckless.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but please answer the question ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ... all the way back to Durban ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Please answer the question. Simply to say it needed to be destroyed tells me nothing, I'm asking you why you destroyed it.

MR BELLINGAN: So that it could not be used in any way to become an embarrassment, Mr Chairman, for the Security Branch and for the government.

MR TRENGOVE: It was no greater an embarrassment than the day you prepared it, why destroy it?

MR BELLINGAN: It was under my control when I prepared it, Mr Chairman. At that time it was out of my control and the fact that there would be fingers pointing at me, it would have been very silly for me to carry such stuff around with me.

MR TRENGOVE: Why?

MR BELLINGAN: It would have been equally silly for me to put it under my car seat for example ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm not making any such ridiculous suggestion, why not take it back to the office and use it for the purpose for which it was prepared?

MR BELLINGAN: It was better to destroy it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Is that your best answer?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You say if it were found in your possession it would have been incriminating, pointing, identifying you as a murder suspect, who on earth could that have happened? If this document had been found in your file in the office, how would it in any way have suggested that you were the murderer of your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: Not just that, Mr Chairman, ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, but confine your answer to that. I want to know what you meant when you said that it would have incriminated you.

MR BELLINGAN: It would have provided a motive, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: How does a list in your office provide a motive to murder your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: Because it would then that I was deeply involved in these matters, it would mean that I was alerted to these problems.

MR TRENGOVE: To what problems?

MR BELLINGAN: To the unlawful activities, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And why would that prompt you to - why would that constitute a motive to murder your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: Because I was very well aware of the fact that Janine was speaking out. I wasn't sure exactly to whom all she had spoken and I knew she was speaking to attorneys, I knew she was speaking to ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: About what?

MR BELLINGAN: ... family.

MR TRENGOVE: About what?

MR BELLINGAN: Well I wasn't exactly sure all about what but at the time that I first, my attention was first drawn to that concerned the Numsa matter, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, your answer simply doesn't mean anything to me. How would the list in your possession have incriminated you in relation to the murder of your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: People knew that Janine had a lot of knowledge, Mr Chairman. Had I had such a list, had Janine had access to it, it would have been an indication that it was necessary to eliminate Janine for the knowledge that she had and already there were indications that I had a problem with Janine ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Well only if it were shown that she had had the list might it have been a problem but that would have been a problem anyway, whether you destroyed the list or not, isn't that so?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, but it's not the way I perceived it.

MR TRENGOVE: When did the list go missing?

MR BELLINGAN: It was - I'm not sure when exactly it went missing, when Janine took it exactly but ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: When did you miss it for the first time?

MR BELLINGAN: After I heard her telephone conversation, Mr Chairman, I went to look for it and I noticed it was gone.

CHAIRPERSON: Which conversation was it?

MR BELLINGAN: On the tape recording, Mr Chairman, with the person that she was speaking with.

CHAIRPERSON: Where she promised ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: And she'd mentioned the list of hits and then I ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: ... to mail the list?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman. I wanted to go through my stuff and see what exactly is she talking about and is it potentially that document that I had.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

ADV GCABASHE: Had you indicated that that was September? Is my recollection correct?

MR BELLINGAN: That was in September, Mr Chairman.

ADV GCABASHE: September of '91.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: And then when you realised that the list was missing and she had it in her possession, did you say to her, do you have my list, can I have it back?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why not?

MR BELLINGAN: To antagonise Janine or to put her in a position where she felt threatened was a mistake. She already had asked me a couple of times whether she was under any type of threat, she'd asked me a couple of times and each time I had to reassure her no, there was no such thing.

MR TRENGOVE: I know that she was going around telling people that she was afraid you were going to kill her, why should she be afraid that you might kill her?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine had a mind of her own, Mr Chairman. When she made up her mind about something there was no stopping her.

MR TRENGOVE: Well she turned out to have been right.

MR BELLINGAN: She turned out to have been right, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why didn't you report to your superiors that this list had gone missing?

MR BELLINGAN: It was not possible to do that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why was it not possible?

MR BELLINGAN: Because there would have been absolutely no point. The only purpose that could have achieve would be to alert them to the problem of Janine, to alert them to the fact that I had such a list in the first place.

MR TRENGOVE: Well forget Janine's participation in the loss of the list. Why not report to your superiors that such a list has gone missing and its exposure may embarrass the security police, the Nationalist Party, the government and the peaceful transition to democracy as you say?

MR BELLINGAN: For the same reason, Mr Chairman, that I didn't explain that Janine despite her agreement with me after we reconciled, had continued to take other documentation for the same reason, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I don't understand that, why not simply say to them listen I have such a list and I'm afraid I've lost it, it's potentially highly embarrassing, what do you suggest we do to contain the risk of embarrassment?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I still felt that I had a very important role to play in this country. I could not just allow my career to be ended like that.

MR TRENGOVE: So you sacrificed your country's future for the sake of your career?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I see my career in the police being linked to the country's future.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, you jeopardised the country's future by not reporting the leak for the sake of your career, is that what you're saying?

MR BELLINGAN: No, on the contrary, Mr Chairman, I had already thought then that I may have to eliminate Janine. The thought had already crossed my mind that this operation with regard to reconciliation, with regard to keeping Janine happy had taken on a different dimension, Mr Chairman. It was progressing, it was developing further and there was something that needed to be done.

MR TRENGOVE: But the problem would not be solved, as we pointed out yesterday, if she'd already spilt the beans or if the list was in safekeeping with someone else.

MR BELLINGAN: Janine was going to spill the beans, and that also is a process, Mr Chairman. Let's take the list for example, just giving it would have been one step, people would have got information from it. It's not just that it's a list coming from the Legal Resources Centre, this was a list coming from a Security Branch policeman, Mr Chairman, it has a different meaning. And then there are the explanations that Janine could give on the list, information that she had from me. It's not just a list.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, and she may well have done so.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm pretty certain she was going to do so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She might already have done so.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I didn't get that impression, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She might already have done so. You had no reason to be sure that she hadn't.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, but then she still would have been available as a witness if that were the case. Whether she had done so or not and who she had done so or not, she still would have been available to testify before commissions, to give elaborations, to give explanations, Mr Chairman. It wasn't just a simple matter of; I've the list back now, that's fine. It wasn't like that at all, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So that murdering her would not solve the problem.

MR BELLINGAN: No, quite the opposite, Mr Chairman. I didn't see anything else to do about the problem. If it was anyone else in the Security establishment they would have been eliminated a long time before that.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, murdering your wife would not have solved the problem, the country's future would still be at risk.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I think I've explained, Mr Chairman, that by eliminating Janine it solved the problem.

MR TRENGOVE: It wouldn't have solved the problem if she had already spilt the beans.

MR BELLINGAN: The problem would have been slightly worse than what it was years before, Mr Chairman, but then in years to come the problem would have been a great deal worse if Janine was around to explain, to testify, to give assistance, to the intelligence of the opposition.

MR TRENGOVE: So what you're saying is that murdering her might have helped but it would not have solved the problem?

MR BELLINGAN: No, it did help and it stopped Janine from speaking out.

MR TRENGOVE: Please address the question. I'm not asking you what happened in the result, I'm asking you what would have happened if she had already spilt the beans? Murdering her would not have avoided the risk to the country.

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't see it that way, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Please go to the list at page 89 of your application. By the way when did you prepare this list?

MR BELLINGAN: On 89, Mr Chairman?

MR TRENGOVE: No, the original list, the hit-list that Janine took.

MR BELLINGAN: It was - the original list was - I didn't sit down and do it in one sitting, Mr Chairman, it was done by me over a period of time.

MR TRENGOVE: But in ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: In 1991.

MS GCABASHE: Can I ask, when did you make the last entry if you can't remember when you made the first entry? Give us an indication.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall. No, I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Take the first item on the list at page 89, the killing of Steve Biko, what did your list, whom did your list identify as a culprit who was not known publicly to have been responsible for the killing of Mr Biko?

MR BELLINGAN: Deon Nieuwoudt, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What was his role in Mr Biko's murder?

MR BELLINGAN: He was involved, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I know that's what you say, what was his role?

MR BELLINGAN: I understood, Mr Chairman, that with the killing of Biko, Deon Nieuwoudt had been an integral part. I also understood further that - and also my notes would have had another name and that is, he was a Colonel or a Brigadier Goosen who had been involved in a coverup, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: For the third time what was Deon Nieuwoudt's name, role in the murder of Mr Biko?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't know exactly what he did but he was involved, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I thought you said that he had participated in the murder of Mr Biko.

MR BELLINGAN: That is what I understood, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But you didn't know what role he played at all? Just a piece of gossip that he was in some way involved?

MR BELLINGAN: This is far more that gossip, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: From whom did it come?

MR BELLINGAN: From people in the Security Branch close to myself, close to him, possibly including him. I can't recall now.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you're being evasive, from whom did the information come?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, if he testifies that he can't recall ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: He didn't testify that.

MR DU PLESSIS: He did testify that now, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: He did not do so, he simply said from people involved.

CHAIRPERSON: Gentlemen!

MR TRENGOVE: He didn't say that he didn't remember their names.

CHAIRPERSON: Gentlemen, please, please. Mr du Plessis, leave him, let him answer the question please.

MR DU PLESSIS: As it pleases you, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: From whom did you get the information about Nieuwoudt, Nieuwoudt's role in the murder of Biko?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps I said it too softly just now, Mr Chairman, but I don't recall.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. You're not just picking up - I'll leave it at that. You don't recall from whom you got that information.

MS GCABASHE: Can I ask, you only joined the SAP in 1979.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MS GCABASHE: When did you get this information? You only joined the Security Branch in '81 and you got this information at some stage, when?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, it was not current information, I didn't get the information each time as these incidents happened. If I remember correctly, the incidents I mention here are incidents specifically that I was not involved in.

MS GCABASHE: Yes, but just help us understand when you might have received this information and where you can, the source.

MR BELLINGAN: I cannot recall, sorry, Mr Chairman.

MS GCABASHE: And when might you have discussed these particular incidents with Janine, in 1991?

MR BELLINGAN: Once again, Mr Chairman, it was not one session, it was a period of time with question and answers with Janine starting with the trip to Umgazi.

MS GCABASHE: In 1991?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that was before that, Mr Chairman.

MS GCABASHE: That's the reconciliation trip, isn't it?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that was before the birth of my son. That would have been early 1990, if I recall.

MS GCABASHE: And you think you might have recalled all the detail you can't recall today then?

MR BELLINGAN: Inasfar as those incidents had occurred already, but certainly thereafter Janine had asked me a lot of questions and I had provided her with a lot of information. There was no ways at that stage that I was in a position to just suddenly stop and say no, I now no longer trust you because that would have been the end of the matter. Janine would have gone ahead and - I understood then that she was very vengeful towards the Security Branch.

MS GCABASHE: Thank you.

ADV BOSMAN: May I just ask you this question, Mr Bellingan? You were expert at providing disinformation, why did you not provide Janine with disinformation if you wanted it to seem as though you were still trusting her?

MR BELLINGAN: It's far too complicated, Mr Chairman, and Janine was far too sharp. She was in many respects sharper than myself. I just - perhaps lie on the telephone to Janine but there's no ways that I could lie face to face to Janine. I tried it and it had not worked, Mr Chairman.

ADV BOSMAN: Thank you.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, to come back to Mr Nieuwoudt's role in the murder of Mr Biko. We now have it you don't recall the source of your information?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm still not clear what information you had about his role in the murder of Mr Biko.

MR BELLINGAN: That he was intimately involved, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Fullstop. Is that all?

MR BELLINGAN: That's all, Mr Chairman, that I can recall now.

MR TRENGOVE: In some undefined way?

MR BELLINGAN: At this point in time that's all I can recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So your list would simply have identified, said Biko and it would have said Deon, which to the informed reader would have meant Nieuwoudt but would have told the reader nothing more about his responsibility for participation in the murder of Mr Biko?

MR BELLINGAN: That's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Take another incident, the one dated 1982, the murder of Mr Griffiths Mxenge. What information did you have about the culprits responsible for his murder, that was not yet public knowledge in 1991?

MR BELLINGAN: That the - for example, that the Security Branch in Natal were aware of it and played a role.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, who in Natal had been aware of it and played a role?

MR BELLINGAN: Brigadier van der Hooven and Colonel Andy Taylor.

MR TRENGOVE: But was that no public knowledge in 1991?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's still not public knowledge, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, 1991 was after the Harms Commission and after Dirk Coetzee and Almond Nofomela had spilt the beans on the Mxenge murder.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, but they were thoroughly discredited. Had I come along and said that or Janine, it would have been an additional problem.

MR TRENGOVE: What was the source of your information about their involvement in the murder?

MR BELLINGAN: People at the Security Branch in ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Who?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall exactly. They also told me of certain other concerns that they had, for example the fact that the vehicle used had been driven into Louis le Grange Plein afterwards and some blood had been washed off right there and basically in front of everybody.

MR TRENGOVE: That's the Coetzee/Nofomela story. But answer my question, who told you about the involvement of van der Hooven in the Mxenge murder?

MR BELLINGAN: It was not Coetzee or Nofomela. I don't know what their version, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Answer the question! For the third time, Mr Bellingan, who told you?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The second-last incident on page 89 which you say

"Krugersdorp Security Branch arranged via Gene de Kock for an MK operative to be killed."

Who was the MK operative who was the victim of that murder?

MR BELLINGAN: Actually it was the brother of an MK operative, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What was his name? Maponya, Japie Maponya?

MR BELLINGAN: Japie Maponya.

MR TRENGOVE: And who at the Krugersdorp Security Branch arranged for Eugene de Kock to kill him?

MR BELLINGAN: It was one of my later superiors, Colonel le Roux and - yes.

MR TRENGOVE: That murder has been the recent subject of an amnesty application, isn't it? - received wide publicity. And so did it in the trial of Colonel de Kock.

MR BELLINGAN: I expect so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Over the page, page 90, the item in the middle of the page relates to the murder of Stanza Bopape who had been killed by the Johannesburg Security Branch. It was at all times known who had been present when he was either killed or went missing, isn't that so?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't think so, Mr Chairman, I thought it was a highly sensitive matter which wasn't known.

MR TRENGOVE: No, the police had an explanation, they said certain security policemen had taken him out for investigation and he escaped.

MR BELLINGAN: At van Niekerk etc., etc.

MR TRENGOVE: But the identity of the security policemen present at the time was never a secret, it was always public knowledge, it was part of the police explanation.

MR BELLINGAN: Not the fact that there was a huge coverup, Mr Chairman. There was a huge coverup around the whole thing.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, but we're talking about the murder. Do you know of anybody involved in the murder whose identity as a policeman on the scene was not known?

MR BELLINGAN: The man died from some type of problem during interrogation, during shocks or something as I understood it. They didn't strangle him or hit him on the head with a spanner or anything, Mr Chairman, but there was a huge coverup surrounding that as I understand it.

MR TRENGOVE: Who told you about the true facts of the murder?

MR BELLINGAN: It would have been people from the Johannesburg Security Branch with whom I was friendly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who? Name them.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall exactly, it may have been ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, I don't want you to speculate.

MR BELLINGAN: You see I was on an interrogation course with some of those people. It was ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Name them.

MR BELLINGAN: It was Major van Niekerk who at the time I think who was a Captain who presented the interrogation course to me when I, shortly after arriving at John Vorster Square. I think it - I was friendly with Charles Zeelie. It may have been him, I cannot recall, Mr Chairman. It may have been other people too. ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: ...(indistinct) probably anybody, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: Probably a series of conversations, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm asking you whether you can recall a single name of the people who told you of the true facts around the murder of Stanza Bopape.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The two, three incidents down, the murder of Anton Lubowksi. Who murdered him?

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not sure exactly who murdered him, Mr Chairman, but it is clear that there was a coverup surrounding it because as I say there, I had been tasked when I was at Johannesburg to do certain Stratcoms around him and there's no ways that I would have been tasked to do that had he been an agent of the State.

MR TRENGOVE: The purpose of your list was to identify the people responsible for the crimes you listed. This crime was the murder of Anton Lubowksi, who murdered him?

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not sure who murdered him, Mr Chairman, but people were friendly with Gene de Kock who knew, who had information as to who murdered this ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, but what did your list say, who were the culprits responsible for that crime?

MR BELLINGAN: On my list I would have been alerted to the name Gene de Kock.

MR TRENGOVE: How do you mean "alerted to the name Gene de Kock"?

MR BELLINGAN: Or I would have, I would have made a note there for myself.

MR TRENGOVE: What note?

MR BELLINGAN: Maybe just the name: "de Kock" or maybe just ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, in what - we're dealing with one item, the murder of Anton Lubowksi. Your list you said listed the names of the culprits, which culprits would you have listed in relation to the crime of murder of Anton Lubowksi?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't know the individual people. I do know that it was the CCB, Mr Chairman, and I know that the people from the CCB were friendly with de Kock and that he had more knowledge of it. I'd heard from someone at Vlakplaas about something that he had said.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja. Your list you said named culprits, are you telling us that in relation to Lubowksi no culprits were named?

MR BELLINGAN: Someone may have got the impression from my list that Vlakplaas was involved and that would have been the wrong impression, Mr Chairman. It was not Vlakplaas that was involved but Vlakplaas or de Kock who had knowledge of who was involved ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the question.

MR BELLINGAN: As well for that matter other people ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the question.

MR BELLINGAN: ... friendly with Joe Verster etc., etc.

MR DU PLESSIS: But Mr Chairman, he already said that de Kock's name was mentioned on the list, so he has answered the question.

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, no, it's more pointed, the question is directed at the perpetrators, does the list disclose the perpetrators of the murder of Anton Lubowksi? That's the question, Mr Bellingan. Will you respond to that?

MR BELLINGAN: Most likely it would have had CCB as well mentioned there, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: CCB?

MR BELLINGAN: Mm.

MR TRENGOVE: But CCB is not a person vulnerable to psychological stress who might defect. And that was the purpose of your list, to identify people and not organisations.

MR BELLINGAN: It was the knowledge then that, of the connection with Vlakplaas, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I don't understand your answer. Were any culprits identified in the list?

MR BELLINGAN: Not names, Mr Chairman.

MS GCABASHE: Just repeat that, not names of culprits on the list?

MR BELLINGAN: There were no names of culprits.

MS GCABASHE: On the list?

MR BELLINGAN: Next to my annotation over there, because ...(intervention)

MS GCABASHE: No, the question was: on the list? This is why I ask.

MR BELLINGAN: On the list was the name - if I'm not mistaken de Kock's name was mentioned.

MR TRENGOVE: As one of those responsible for the murder of Lubowksi?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But that's the question.

MR BELLINGAN: So in terms of the person responsible I could not possibly have mentioned that on the list because I don't know even as I sit here today, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. So why was Lubowksi on the list at all?

MR BELLINGAN: Simply of the connection with Vlakplaas.

MR TRENGOVE: Why?

MR BELLINGAN: Because it was a concern, for the same reasons that I've mentioned.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I don't understand your answer.

MR BELLINGAN: Vlakplaas - the operators at Vlakplaas, Mr Chairman, were particularly vulnerable to these things because they had been called upon to act in terms of elimination of people, in terms of most of these things. And they had a wide knowledge of all operations all around the country.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, they were professional assassins. If you were worried about the assassins, you had good reason to be worried about them. I'm not asking you why you were worried about the Vlakplaas people, I'm asking you why Lubowksi's name was on the list.

MR BELLINGAN: Simply for that reason, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: For what reason?

MR BELLINGAN: For the fact that I'd heard from people at Vlakplaas that the assassination was done by the State, CCB.

MR TRENGOVE: By the CCB?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: Your answer doesn't make sense, Mr Bellingan. You say you mentioned Lubowksi's name because people at Vlakplaas told you that people at CCB had been responsible for his murder, why is his name on the list?

MR BELLINGAN: It's a State operation, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It may be a State operation. Your list -the purpose of your list is to identify security policemen potentially under stress and therefore at risk of defection. Why does Lubowksi's name feature at all?

MR BELLINGAN: For the reason that I've explained.

MR TRENGOVE: I see.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't mind explaining it again, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. The documents that Janine had and that were subsequently recovered by the police - that Janine had at the time of her death and that were subsequently recovered in her locker at work, were all Numsa theft documents, correct? Your nod doesn't record, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: My?

MR TRENGOVE: Could you just give an audible reply, your nod doesn't go onto the machine.

MR BELLINGAN: I presume so, Mr Chairman, I don't know.

MR TRENGOVE: You also know that she'd had those documents for some years.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She'd already had them - she already discovered and removed documents about the Numsa thefts in 1989.

MR BELLINGAN: Janine had given me back documentation, Mr Chairman. For example the passport ...

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, so you knew that she had for a long time had documents or had already long ago had documents about the Numsa thefts, it wasn't a new discovery for her, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you discovered you say, in August 1991, that she had left these documents with Lorna Smith in safekeeping and that Lorna Smith had now returned them.

MR BELLINGAN: All I discovered was that Lorna Smith was returning documentation to Janine. That's all that I heard on the tape, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Which Janine had given to Lorna Smith in safekeeping?

MR BELLINGAN: Well I didn't discover that.

MR TRENGOVE: Didn't you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you remind me of what you said in that regard in your amnesty application? You deal with it in Schedule 20, at the foot of page 427, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I made the presumption, I didn't know that she the documents in safekeeping but it stands to reason that she would have. But to ask me did I know that she had them in safekeeping, it's a presumption.

MR TRENGOVE: Well let's read what you've said in your application under oath. Would you read that ...

MR BELLINGAN: Certainly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: ... that first sentence of the last paragraph?

MR BELLINGAN

"During August I had ascertained that Janine had received back some documentation pertaining to my work, which someone had in safekeeping for her."

MR TRENGOVE: Now that's the statement you made under oath?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, but I can elaborate now which I've done ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Then why did you ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct) tape recording presumably had it in safekeeping for her.

MR TRENGOVE: Why did you tell us a minute ago that you didn't know that Lorna Smith had held these documents in safekeeping for Janine?

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't know, I presumed it. I think it's a fair presumption, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But you state it as a fact in your amnesty application, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you confirmed that fact under cross-examination yesterday.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And yet today you say you didn't know why Lorna Smith had had the documents?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I presumed.

MR TRENGOVE: In fact Lorna Smith returned the documents because you had terminated her 10 year of the cottage on your premises, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Actually Lorna Smith had terminated it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So when she moved she brought back the documents, gave them back to Janine. Do you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's how it was, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Do you know where Janine asked her to take the documents?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She asked her to take the documents to her work, to Janine's work. Did you not know that?

MR BELLINGAN: I subsequently found out, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Where Janine locked them away in her locker. Do you know that today?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And she told Jonelle Donders, a friend of hers, that if anything should happen to her she should tell the right people about the documents in the locker, do you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I don't know that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And it was in fact Jonelle Donders who told the investigating officer that the documents were in the locker, which led to Captain Steyn's discovery of those documents. Do you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I didn't know that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What does - in fact and Jonelle Donders I must tell you, was not the only person to whom she told of the documents, whom she told of the documents, she told a lot of people about them. Do you know that? You mentioned Mr Bastiaans yesterday, he was another one who was told of these documents.

MR BELLINGAN: Documents, Mr Chairman, I don't know if it's specifically those documents.

MR TRENGOVE: And she told these people that these documents disclosed the Numsa fraud.

MR BELLINGAN: It doesn't surprise me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You see, what she believed these documents revealed is firstly that you stole the money from Numsa, put some of it into a police account and took some of it for your own benefit. Do you know that that was her belief?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine had the impression that we should be utilising that money, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, it wasn't merely a suggestion, she believed that you were milking the Numsa money for your personal benefit.

MR BELLINGAN: I told Janine better, I explained it to her, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm simply telling you that that was what she believed was happening, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And she repeatedly accused you of it.

MR BELLINGAN: At one stage Janine did accuse me by saying that: with all this money lying around, why don't we utilise some of it for our things around the house. She said that repeatedly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Her belief was that there was far more money being spent on your household and lifestyle than could be explained by your salary.

MR BELLINGAN: Quite the opposite, Mr Chairman, Janine used to complain about the lack of money.

MR TRENGOVE: You lived in a lavish house, luxurious house, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that's not correct.

MR TRENGOVE: You made extensive extensions and renovations to the house, improvements to the house?

MR BELLINGAN: I was very proud of what I was doing, Mr Chairman, and it was an excellent investment. And it is correct, I did it.

MR TRENGOVE: And you lived at - you lived a luxurious lifestyle?

MR BELLINGAN: Not at all, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You wore fancy clothes, shoes we know that cost R400,00 a pair.

MR BELLINGAN: I doubt whether those shoes cost R400,00 a pair when I bought them, Mr Chairman. In fact at the one forum, I think it was the trial, the original slip was produced for the shoes. I think they were closer to R200,00.

MR TRENGOVE: But when she threatened divorce you told her she'd get nothing because you'd plead poverty.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I was quite willing to divorce Janine at one stage. I was quite happy to do it.

MR TRENGOVE: Janine also said that the documents revealed that you had planned to transfer money to Judy, your sister, Judy White.

MR BELLINGAN: Janine was under that impression, yes.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, and she told people so.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not surprised.

MR TRENGOVE: So you see, the documents she had she believed proved not that the police were stealing Numsa money, but that Mike Bellingan was stealing that money for his personal benefit.

MR BELLINGAN: At one stage there had been an attempt to blackmail me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: By making that accusation?

MR BELLINGAN: By making that accusation via Mr Charles Mendelow.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, that was her belief. And when she threatened you with exposure the threat was not to make the security police operation public, the threat was to report you to the security police superiors for your theft from the security police.

MR BELLINGAN: Not at all, Mr Chairman, that threat to me was absolutely misguided by Janine, and I explained it to her. And it was evident after my discussion with General Erasmus that it was completely ludicrous. In fact he even said to me that: "Let her do what she wants. If she wants to report it, let her report it, nothing will come of the investigation once it has been reported - if it's reported to the police that is." But in terms of my perception of the threat to myself, that I was somehow personally at risk, that is absolutely ludicrous. I never would go to General Erasmus and just discuss these things openly with him unless it was evident that he was someone to be trusted and somebody who was involved in this thing. But Janine knew that, I told that to her afterwards.

MR TRENGOVE: The threat that she made was a threat of reporting your crime to your superiors, that was her threat.

MR BELLINGAN: General Erasmus also didn't see it like that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, just confirm that that was her threat, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: That was the initial threat, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And that was what she believed the documents revealed, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct. On the face of it, Mr Chairman, that was the correct assumption that she made on the face of the documents.

MR TRENGOVE: You know that she always knew that you bugged her telephone, or the home telephone?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, she found out, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She found out very early, a day or two after you installed the bug.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I'm not exactly sure when she found out but she did find out, yes. She complained to me about it.

MR TRENGOVE: And over the years she's always said to warn people to be discreet on the phone because it was bugged, you were taping her conversations.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, we resolved that matter and I took the tape recorder out of the ceiling. Then when we moved in to the - we moved from the side that Lorna Smith was going to rent into the other side because Janine was pregnant and there were steps in the other side and it was more convenient for her not to use the steps, to just have a flat passage. So we moved in then and then I had the opportunity to reinstall the bug without Janine knowing. So she was in fact under the impression that there was no bug on the telephone.

MR TRENGOVE: No, she at all times warned her friends to be careful because you taped her conversations.

MR BELLINGAN: She may have said that.

MR TRENGOVE: You see, Sir, I have difficulty with your evidence about the hit-list for this reason, whereas she took great care to hide the Numsa documents off the premises, you say that she sat with this hit-list bombshell but kept it under her car seat.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not sure if I should, if I'm required to speculate here or ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Well I'm suggesting to you it doesn't make sense at all. Can you suggest any sense in her doing so?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine may have had a motive, Mr Chairman, she may somehow have felt that she could utilise one of the things for leverage, other of the stuff was too sensitive. Most likely there was more stuff amongst that documentation which was removed by my colleagues or by somebody, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But could you ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ... of the documentation, because Janine knew very well who exactly was involved in this thing. When I went through the evidence and that, it was quite clear to me, in the inquest and so on, that the investigating officer had been led up the garden path.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: That it couldn't have been from Janine's documents because she knew very well who was involved because I told her after we reconciled, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, just answer the question. On the one hand we know that she took great care to hide away the Numsa documents off the premises, on the other hand you would have it that she sits with this hit-list bombshell but doesn't exercise the same care and simply quite carelessly leaves it under her car seat. Can you explain the anomaly?

MR BELLINGAN: It was not carelessly left under the car seat, Mr Chairman, it was in fact tied under the seat so that it was not lying around under the car seat, firstly, and secondly, the correct version of the Numsa matter was in fact in that envelope.

MR TRENGOVE: What correct version of the Numsa matter?

MR BELLINGAN: The correct version that this was an operation, a WH10 operation.

MR TRENGOVE: Was in the envelope?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But can you explain why she takes so much care to preserve the relatively trivial documents on the one hand compared to the hit-list bombshell, but carries around the bombshell under her car seat at the risk of your finding it there?

MR BELLINGAN: Well Mr Chairman, I understood that documentation would be at the premises. Janine didn't have the habit of going to her office during the weekends, so I understood that the documentation would be there. She may have wanted to hand it over to somebody presumably that's from the tape, that's what I understood.

MR TRENGOVE: She would mail it, not take it home, mail it.

MR BELLINGAN: Any other documentation which there may be I could count upon the police to take of, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why do think did she hide these documents away from home?

MR BELLINGAN: In her locker?

MR TRENGOVE: Ja.

MR BELLINGAN: Janine must have had a reason why she wanted to do that.

MR TRENGOVE: To protect them against whom?

MR BELLINGAN: She may just have forgotten them there, Mr Chairman, she may - I'm not sure what ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, don't speculate, I'm telling you as a fact that she hid them away and took great care to hide them away off the premises. Now I'm asking you, assuming that to have been the case, against whom was she protecting them?

MR DU PLESSIS: But Mr Chairman, my learned friend in one sentence says the witness must not speculate and then he asks a question of which the answer is clearly going to be pure speculation.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, I'm inviting him to speculate. I'm inviting him to give a sensible reason, sensible explanation ...(intervention)

MR DU PLESSIS: But then he mustn't tell the witness not to speculate, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I didn't tell him ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Well just - it's not really a point that you should be fighting over. Can you respond, Mr Bellingan please?

MR BELLINGAN: I suppose Janine thought that she could have some type of leverage with that, Mr Chairman, in terms then of should she ever want to proceed with this on/off divorce type of situation, that she could have some leverage to suggest that I was involved with something concerning funds, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The question ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: And that I might somehow give in to some type of settlement, as Mr Mendelow put it then.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you're not answering the question, the question is against whom was she protecting the documents that she hid away in the office?

MR BELLINGAN: It must obviously also have been against me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, exactly, but if she left them under her car seat they were very vulnerable to your discovery and removal of those documents.

MR BELLINGAN: If she left them under the car seat?

MR TRENGOVE: Ja.

MR BELLINGAN: It was extremely difficult for me, Mr Chairman, to search around anything to do with Janine, she was watching me like a hawk. There was no ways I could go and search through Janine's car.

MR TRENGOVE: She told everybody, or not everybody, she told lots of people about the Numsa documents, never told anybody about the hit-list. Are you in a position to explain why that might be so?

MR BELLINGAN: I had in no uncertain terms explained the Official Secrets Act and the playing with fire aspect to Janine. We had had many conversations about it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm talking about her confidants, the people she trusted enough to tell them that she had these documents which disclosed your crimes. She never mentioned a word to anybody about the so-called hit-list.

MR BELLINGAN: Well that's not accurate, Mr Chairman, I heard her mentioning the so-called hit-list.

MR TRENGOVE: To whom, on the telephone?

MR BELLINGAN: Ja.

MR TRENGOVE: To whom?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't know to whom it was. I presume it was ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: The only people today ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ... a member of the ANC.

MR TRENGOVE: The only people today who say that she spoke of a hit-list are you and Judy, nobody else knows about it, correct? Correct, Mr Bellingan?

MR BELLINGAN: I've made these disclosures now, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I know you have. You don't know of anybody who knew that Janine had the hit-list before her death?

MR BELLINGAN: I never disclosed it to anybody then, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So the only witnesses to that fact are you and your sister?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, had somebody to whom she was speaking known who Janine was, that would have been a different matter.

MR TRENGOVE: And what's more you say that she - as far as we know she didn't mention this hit-list to anybody, except that she spoke about it on the phone which she knew to be tapped.

MR BELLINGAN: No she thought it wasn't tapped at that stage, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm telling that she knew that it was.

MR BELLINGAN: That's not correct, Mr Chairman, I know that she knew it wasn't tapped.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that this story of the hit-list is a piece of fabrication, it's an attempt to give a political colour to the murder of your wife.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it's no fabrication whatsoever.

MR TRENGOVE: You emphasised yesterday that if you hadn't killed your wife her imminent disclosure posed a risk of national proportions, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You even said that the peaceful transition to democracy was at risk. Could you please refer in this regard to your document, Exhibit C to see how emphatic you are in that regard. Page 6, paragraph 4 ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Excuse me a second, please. Sorry, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you refer to page 6, paragraph 4 and just read that paragraph into the record.

MR BELLINGAN

"I had no doubts that the ANC were more interested in what Janine had to say ...

were more than, yes:

"more than interested in what Janine had to say and that they would be actively searching for people like Janine and would be ready and willing to exploit my situation. The information would then be available to both hawks and doves in the ANC and the national liberation movement in general. The hawks could use it to stir up mass insurrection and prevent a politicly negotiated settlement. The doves could use it as leverage to extract a politicly negotiated settlement which would be unfavourable to the National Party."

MR TRENGOVE

"The hawks could use it to stir up mass insurrection"

You don't think that's a trifle overstated?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE

"and prevent a politicly motivated settlement"

you say.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You don't think that's an overstatement?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: This list of incidents of police atrocities you say would have not only prevented the political settlement but would have led to mass insurrection, how?

MR BELLINGAN: Not just the list, Mr Chairman, sensitive matters such as the Numsa things, such as operations we were involved in, such as that list. Anything that was embarrassing to the National Party then could have ended the negotiations completely, Mr Chairman. There would have been no trust between the National Party and Mr Nelson Mandela. The slightest thing at the time was sparking off problems between the two.

MR TRENGOVE: No, we're talking about ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: In fact at a later stage Codesa 1 fell apart completely I think, because of relatively, by comparison, relatively minor things.

MR TRENGOVE: Don't speak in general terms, we're talking about the risk of Janine exposing your hit-list. Are you suggesting that could have been used to stir up mass insurrection?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It's absurd, Mr Bellingan, explain how.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, these matters were being exploited at the time by political opportunists, including the media. They would take the slightest matter like that and it would not be laid to rest until such time as there was a thorough assassination politically of the National Party and the Security Branch.

MR TRENGOVE: Everybody knew that the security police had been involved in a variety of atrocities.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, ...

MR TRENGOVE: How could the news of it have caused mass insurrection?

MR BELLINGAN: The liberal community always suspected, the South African white population knew it, they were comfortable with it. People wanted to expose it. Credible people standing up and giving information about is was another matter altogether, those people usually didn't live very long, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 8, paragraph 7. You just need to read - well, perhaps read the whole of paragraph 7. Sorry, just the part at the foot of page 8. Could you read it into the record please.

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct).

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, at the foot of page 8, paragraph 7.

MR BELLINGAN

"Codesa in December 1991 would not have been possible if Janine had continued with her plans, neither would the Record of Understanding have been signed if the ANC could not publicly trust the National Party."

MR TRENGOVE: Is that not an overstatement?

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't think so then, Mr Chairman, and I don't think so now.

MR TRENGOVE: Next page, the second paragraph on that page.

MR BELLINGAN

"Political violence was high in the ..."

...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Sorry, the second paragraph on that page.

MR BELLINGAN

"It is further my opinion that had Janine made the disclosures the setting of an election date, the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to President de Klerk, the timeous finalisation of the Interim Constitution, installing of the Transitional Executive Council and the suspension of the armed struggle by the PAC would not have occurred."

MR TRENGOVE: Is that not an overstatement?

MR BELLINGAN: It's an overstatement, Mr Chairman. In some respects a slight overstatement.

MR TRENGOVE: In what respect is it a slight overstatement?

MR BELLINGAN: Well perhaps I should have said "most likely would not have occurred". I say emphatically here "would not have occurred". And then perhaps these things would have occurred at a later stage, Mr Chairman, but what I mean is the need to accelerate these things, the need to get on with transition, Mr Chairman, it had to be done as quickly as possible. And with problems, with the unguided exposure of information it is a problem. Via a process like the TRC, Mr Chairman, it's a completely different matter, it's a controlled release of information, that's different. But to have it just exploded on the public at that time before these things could be taking place, would have prevented these things. They may have occurred sooner or later but that's not the point, Mr Chairman. The level of tension in the country, the level of mistrust between people, the level of political violence was very high at the time.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I understand you to have said that this represented not only your perception today but the view you held at the time of the murder, that these calamitous consequences would follow if you did not murder Janine.

MR BELLINGAN: What I said, Mr Chairman, is that when I drew this document up most of it represented my perception at the time of the murder and some of it represented my perception concerning that at the time I drew the document up. I said it very clearly yesterday.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, the paragraph you've just read out, did they or did they not reflect your perception at the time of the murder?

MR BELLINGAN: Those types of things that needed to be done, at the time of the murder I wouldn't have been able to give you this list because how would I possibly know President de Klerk was going to get the Nobel Prize?

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. But the magnitude of the calamity that would follow upon the disclosure was clear to you at the time?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And yet you did not report the risk to anybody?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You did not discuss your plan to murder Janine to avoid the risk with anybody?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Not your commanding officer, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Not the head of the Security Branch?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Not the Commissioner of Police?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct.

MR TRENGOVE: And not the President?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct.

MR TRENGOVE: Because you didn't trust them?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, not because I didn't trust them, because I didn't want to burden anybody else with that firstly, secondly because of the need for secrecy surrounding such a matter. The fact that there was far too much talk and far too much mistrust at the time and far too many leaks, intentional and unintentional, and the fact that the opportunity at the time did not really present itself for the kind of discussions that Mr Trengove is talking about, Advocate Trengove is talking about.

So in terms of the element of mistrust, it's in the back of my mind, Mr Chairman, that there can be consequences and most probably there will be, but that forms part of the background to the three things that I've mentioned now as well.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you say firstly you didn't want to burden those people with this problem. This problem placed the whole country and its future at risk, why did you not want the Commissioner of Police to be burdened with that problem?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, it's not that problem, they were burdened with that problem already in the natural course of their, of the times.

MR TRENGOVE: No, here was a risk of ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: I'm talking about the burdening with the decision to take a human life.

MR TRENGOVE: Here was a risk to the country of which they were blissfully ignorant, why did you not tell them about it?

MR BELLINGAN: They were aware of those problems in general.

MR TRENGOVE: They were not aware of this imminent risk, why did you not tell them?

MR BELLINGAN: They may even have been aware, Mr Chairman, via ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: As far as you knew they were not aware of this imminent risk. You say you didn't tell them and one of the reasons is you didn't want to burden them with it, didn't want to trouble them with something like this. The future of the country is at stake if you are to be believed, why not tell the Commissioner of Police?

MR BELLINGAN: For the reasons I've given before, Mr Chairman. If I need to repeat them I will repeat them.

MR TRENGOVE: The second reason you raised was the need for confidentiality, there were too many leaks going around. You didn't think you could trust a Commissioner of Police to keep confidential matters secret?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, not everybody in the police could be trusted at that stage ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm talking about the Commissioner of Police.

MR BELLINGAN: Commissioner of Police?

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: He also had to think about himself, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So you didn't trust him to keep things secret?

MR BELLINGAN: It didn't occur to me to go and talk to the Commissioner of Police at that point in time. In the context of what I have said already.

MR TRENGOVE: General Erasmus you also didn't trust him to keep things secret, the father figure.

MR BELLINGAN: It is General Erasmus who told me to keep things secret.

MR TRENGOVE: Answer the question, why didn't you trust him to keep things secret?

MR BELLINGAN: And secondly, Mr Chairman, it is not I who used the word "father figure". I wish the advocate wouldn't put words in my mouth.

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the question, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: What was the question?

MR TRENGOVE: Why didn't you trust him to keep things secret?

MR BELLINGAN: General Erasmus had a huge burden of problems as it was already, Mr Chairman. To a certain extent he was aware of the problem with Janine, to a certain extent. He expected me to take care of that problem, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You know you explained to us yesterday or the day before, that is one wanted to have stickers printed you needed authority to do so, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: For the expenditure, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. Could you however go off and assassinate without authority?

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't do it without authority, Mr Chairman, I did it without a direct order.

MR TRENGOVE: You needed specific authority to print stickers, don't you?

MR BELLINGAN: For the expenditure relating to the printing of the stickers, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. Did you think that you could go off and commit a murder without any specific authority to do so?

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't think so, I know, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So you knew that you went off to commit this murder without authority?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I knew that I went off with authority.

MR TRENGOVE: No, you knew that you needed specific authority which you did not have.

MR BELLINGAN: I did have it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Specific authority to murder your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: No, not to murder my wife.

MR TRENGOVE: You did not have specific authority to murder your wife.

MR BELLINGAN: I did not have a specific order to murder my wife.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm talking about order or authority. Permission or order to murder your wife you didn't have, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: A specific order to go and murder my wife I did not have, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, in fact nobody else in the police were even aware that you were going to do so, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: At that point in time they were not aware, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And I don't know what rules the police had about assassinations, but wasn't it necessary to seek specific approval before one was committed?

MR BELLINGAN: In the nature of these things, Mr Chairman, that is exactly the kind of thing that you don't put on paper.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not talking about paper, I'm talking about authority.

MR BELLINGAN: There was authority for these political killings, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, specific authority. Mr Bellingan, I'll come back later to your suggestion that there was this vague general mandate to go around assassinating people, but I'm talking about specific authority to kill a specific person. What were the rules of the Security Branch, was specific authority required for an assassination or not?

MR BELLINGAN: There was specific authority, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, that's not my question.

MR BELLINGAN: Things I've quoted over here ...(indistinct) specific authority.

MR TRENGOVE: No, that's not my question. I'm asking you about the rules, what rules governed assassinations? Was specific authority necessary for assassination or not?

MR BELLINGAN: This was a war, Mr Chairman, there were no rules.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. So you could - provided you were a member of the security police, you had an open-ended authority to assassinate people at your discretion.

MR BELLINGAN: My discretion, Mr Chairman, was not some frivolous thing like it's been made out to be.

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the question. Are you saying that every member of the security police had an open mandate to assassinate people in his discretion?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't think every member of the security police saw it that way, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm asking you what the mandate of the security police was as you understood it.

MR BELLINGAN: We were the political police. Amongst other things we did do assassinations, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That's not an answer to my question. What was the mandate of the security police, was it to go around assassinating people entirely within their discretion, without seeking approval or authority from anybody?

MR BELLINGAN: It's not the way things happened, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not asking you whether it happened that way or not, I'm asking you about your understanding of what you were mandated to do.

MR BELLINGAN: My understanding, Mr Chairman, was that if it was necessary then it had to be done. It happened in the past. I understood exactly what my position was, I understood exactly what the position of my colleagues was, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, ...(intervention)

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may he be afforded the opportunity to finalise his answer because with respect, my learned friend keeps on interjecting while the witness is trying to say something more and then further questions follow. Could he perhaps be allowed to answer the question fully?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, do you want to add anything that, your answer?

MR BELLINGAN: Thank you, Mr Chairman. It is not just - I mean my perspective was not just simply a question of an order from a commander in the Security Branch, we used the methods of the enemy. I quoted the authority in my amnesty application too, which coloured my perspective of how I would take such a decision, Mr Chairman, from the KGB, from the African National Congress, from the African National Congress after peace agreements were signed. It is not some isolated event, Mr Chairman, such a decision, it is something that must be seen and I ask the Commission to see it in the context of the time.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not asking you for the moment to justify your answer, I'm simply asking you to answer the question and that is how you understood your mandate, not your justification for it. Did you understand your mandate to be to assassinate people in your discretion without discussing it with anybody else in the security police?

MR BELLINGAN: I understood, Mr Chairman, that if the opportunity arose, if there was a need for it then I would and I was committed, Mr Chairman, to act accordingly.

MR TRENGOVE: So your answer to the question is yes?

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct due to interjections)

MR TRENGOVE: ...(indistinct due to interjections)

MR DU PLESSIS: With respect, Mr Chairman, and I don't want to interject too often but with respect, the answer is not just a simple yes or no. He has explained the answer and my learned friend is trying to push him into an admission of yes to his question, where the answer is not as simple as that. The answer is simply not just yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Trengove is obviously trying to get the witness to elaborate. You can respond to the question, is the answer yes or no?

MR BELLINGAN: In the context of what I've said, if somehow it will help Mr Trengove, then let me say yes.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, I want you to give answers which are true and not answers which are given in sympathy for my plight. I understand your evidence to be, but I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about it, that you were entitled under the mandate as you understood it, to decide for yourself without discussion with anybody whether it was necessary to assassinate someone and then to execute that assassination. Am I correct in my understanding?

MR BELLINGAN: The advocate is correct in that I perceived my mandate to be like that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You were not in the department of assassinations, it was not part of your unit's business, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, these things were carried out on a nationwide basis. The fact that they happened to have been done in a more concentrated basis at Vlakplaas doesn't mean that the sole burden was just, lay just with Vlakplaas.

MR TRENGOVE: You were a personnel officer with a desk job.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that is not so.

MR TRENGOVE: Were you not a personnel officer at the time?

MR BELLINGAN: I never had an administrative job, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Were you not a personnel officer at the time?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I was a personnel - I was an officer in charge of the Personnel Development Unit, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And the unlawful activities for which you're seeking amnesty in this application were activities committed in a different capacity when you were stationed in Johannesburg, correct? - except for the murder of course. But all of the other activities related to an earlier time when you were stationed in Johannesburg.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that isn't correct.

MR TRENGOVE: What unlawful activities did you commit in your '91 capacity for which you're now seeking amnesty?

MR BELLINGAN: In 1991?

MR TRENGOVE: At any time while acting in the capacity as head of the Personnel Development Unit.

MR BELLINGAN: The Unit, Mr Chairman, was Personnel, Intelligence and Stratcom, on a nationwide basis. To isolate it from the activities that were occurring around the country then cannot be done because I had knowledge of them. I've applied for amnesty for being an accessory.

MR TRENGOVE: Oh, you mean in the sense that you might in that capacity have incurred responsibility for other people's crimes?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, the crimes you committed yourself for which you're seeking amnesty are crimes of thuggery committed in the '80's, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What's wrong with my description of those crimes?

MR BELLINGAN: Well this was not some random thuggery as Mr Trengove puts it.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm not suggesting random thuggery, I'm just suggesting that compared to murder, those were petty matters, hanging cats outside people's doors, smashing car windows, throwing bricks at people. Granted one arson, but compared to assassination that was petty thuggery.

MR BELLINGAN: I think that the advocate has a completely wrong perception, Mr Chairman, there were other matters too. For example the compilation of lists, the surveillance done regarding bomb explosions, Khotso House, Cosatu House ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, you might have done a little bit of field work for the people responsible for the serious crimes, but that was the extent of your participation.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Field work and thuggery.

MR BELLINGAN: These types of investigations I was doing most likely led to people being killed.

MR TRENGOVE: That may be.

MR BELLINGAN: If I may take an example, take Webster for example, when I ran the Church Desk he was one of my suspects. At one stage I was asks to provide names of people. I don't recall now, I have given his name to somebody then, Mr Chairman. It's been bothering me, I don't know what role I played in the ultimate decision to kill the man. I don't know, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Are you claiming that you might have been responsible for his murder?

MR BELLINGAN: I may have been indirectly responsible for it. There was a lot of this kind of work that we were doing on an ongoing basis, Mr Chairman. There were people, for example Brian Ncqulunga who was a problem, he became a nervous wreck ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Your ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, Mr Trengove, I intend to take a short adjournment at this stage.

MR TRENGOVE: As it pleases you.

CHAIRPERSON: We'll adjourn for 15 minutes.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

ON RESUMPTION

MR DU PLESSIS: ...(start of tape) and that's obviously the only discussion I had with him, a concern he has about the fact that cross-examination will not finish tomorrow, that the matter is going to be postponed. He specifically mentioned to me certain problems he has with that. I have explained to him the position and the normal procedural situation and I have told him that I do not intend to place certain things on record or to deal with certain things.

He has asked me if you could afford him the opportunity to raise the problems that he has with you and I have said if he feels against my advice, that he wants to raise these issues, then he should ask you if he could do that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, are those related to the question of cross-examination not being finished?

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright. Yes, well perhaps it's a bit early but I had hoped that that was not going to be the case, but I suppose let's proceed and then let's see how far we get with the question of cross-examination. And if you have problems tomorrow, then I'll give you an opportunity to put it on record and we'll see what we can do.

MR DU PLESSIS ADDRESSES COMMITTEE: Mr Chairman, perhaps I can just raise the point or make the point that he has made to me, and I want to say firstly that there is no reflection on Mr Wagener at all when I say this, and that is why I was reluctant to say it any event. Is that my client informs me that he does not trust Mr Wagener's clients at all and he feels that if there is an opportunity of a month or weeks to go through the record, to study the record and to be able then to deal with his evidence in the light of the history of this matter, that he will be severely prejudiced.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well I hear what you are saying. You know ideally of course we would have preferred to get this application done in one sitting and as a Committee we often try to do that but we understand that we must be realistic. There are other considerations to be taken into account, the fact that there are many people who are involved and who are affected by the process and some of these consequences of course are inevitable. You know it just flows from the nature of the process. I don't want to get into that discussion at this stage. If your client has anything in particular that he wanted to put on record, I think let's do that at the end of the day, tomorrow when we have to deal with the future conduct of the matter. But I think for the moment let's see how far we get with the cross-examination.

MR WAGENER: Mr Chairman, may I come in here. I'm not exactly sure what is meant by the remark that my clients are not trusted and I'm not exactly sure what to make of this, maybe if I can get an indication. What am I to do now? I can merely convey this to my clients and say to them they are not to be trusted.

MR DU PLESSIS: No, Mr Chairman, I wanted to elucidate on that, we wanted to make it clear and that is why I didn't want to place this on record myself. My personal view is not the view that was expressed now. I was given instructions by my client that that is the way he feels. I want to make it clear that it is not my personal view. I do not insinuate that Mr Wagener will be involved in anything untoward. I know most of Mr Wagener's clients and this is definitely not my personal view. These were my instructions from my client and that is his view. And that is as far as it goes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Wagener, I understand your being perplexed at this stage. It seems to be a personal view that the applicant holds. I don't know what else could be done about that but as I've said I don't want us to debate this thing at this stage. I'm not quite sure where it will take us to. It might be that there is something relevant for our purposes in this but certainly not at this stage. I would like to see how far we can get with the cross-examination. That is my immediate concern.

I must just indicate that at this stage I don't believe that there is anything that has happened at the proceedings here that prejudices the applicant in any way, certainly not insofar as Mr Wagener and the way in which he has been conducting the matter on behalf of his clients is concerned. In fact he has by the nature of things and in view of the fact that he's representing interested parties, he hasn't been playing up to now a very active role in the proceedings. He might very well do it eventually but certainly there is no basis for any action on the part of the Panel I might say, at this stage.

So I'm simply going to leave the matter at that, Mr Wagener, there's not much that we can do at this stage about it, and see if we can't get on with the proceedings. That's the bigger concern I think in the circumstances.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just mention that I agree with you pertaining to your perceptions of Mr Wagener.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr du Plessis. Mr Bellingan, I must remind you that you are still under oath.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Trengove?

MR BELLINGAN ADDRESSES COMMITTEE: Mr Chairman, perhaps if I could just be given one or two words on the matter as well. As I haven't really had a chance to properly canvass with my advocate because of the problem that I may not speak with him. At no stage did I ever insinuate that I had a problem with Mr Wagener. That is not the case at all. But I have very good

grounds which may be outside the ambit of information that comes to your attention, Mr Chairman, for what I'm suggesting. It's a procedural issue which I have been raising or trying to raise from this morning and it's been bothering me the whole time, even before the start of this hearing. It still bothers me tremendously and that is all. It's a procedural issue as to getting the cross-examination finished in one sitting.

It's a concern based on a long history of facts to my knowledge and not within the knowledge of this Committee, Mr Chairman. So in no way have I suggested that there is anything untoward about Mr Wagener's handling of this matter.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well we've noted all of that, Mr Bellingan. As I've tried to indicate, some of the procedural consequences of a hearing of this nature are often beyond anybody's control. We ideally would have loved to, in fact I have indicated that earlier to all the legal representatives, I had thought and my colleagues here had thought it's a kind of matter that we could possibly have done in a week but it might turn out not to be a correct assessment of the matter. And then consequences follow from that, we must postpone, we must see if people are available, when they are available, whether there's a venue and so on and so on, which are things I think you understand. You would have some idea of how Court cases work and it's a similar situation here.

So about those kinds of things there's little that one can do. You are legally represented and if there is anything that really prejudices your case then of course I've got little doubt that Mr du Plessis and your attorney's will deal with that quite effectively. But for the moment I would like to carry on with the proceedings.

Mr Trengove?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR TRENGOVE: (cont)

As it pleases you, Sir.

Mr Bellingan, you said in your evidence in chief that when you murdered your wife you were aware of a broad authority to the security police to eliminate activists and you went on to explain that you were told to undertake these unlawful activities, including murder, do you remember that evidence?

MR BELLINGAN: I said that I believed that I had authority for the murder and I also believed that there is authority for other covert activity in which I was involved.

MR TRENGOVE: Do you remember that you also said when your counsel asked you, not under my examination, but you explained that you were told that you could undertake these unlawful activities and one of the Members of the Panel asked you: including murder, and you confirmed: including murder. Do you remember that evidence?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who told you to undertake activities of that kind?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I thought that we canvassed that in the general introduction.

MR TRENGOVE: No, what is the name of the person who said to you that you could undertake these unlawful activities including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: I've provided that information, it's a simple matter of providing one single name, Mr Chairman ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I've not heard a single name, please give me the name of the person who made that statement, and if more than one person made it, give me all their names.

MR BELLINGAN: The documentation which I've provided as annexures which I presume by now the Committee has, is submitted by me in substantiation of what I call authority. The names of some of the authors are provided by myself. The fact that we had, we based our activities on precedent, the fact that we based our activities on customary practice, the fact that we based our activities on the dictates of the political needs of the government, Mr Chairman, is all cited by me as authority, as well as certain conversations that I had.

MR TRENGOVE: Let's start with the last of those sources, certain conversations. Did anybody in those conversations tell you to undertake unlawful activities including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, no-one ever said that to me.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I have also not in these documents on which you rely, found any statement to the effect that you could undertake unlawful activities including murder, could you please point me to a statement to that effect.

MR BELLINGAN: Certainly, Mr Chairman. On page 454, Mr Chairman, of my amnesty application which is - I'm not sure what bundle is referred to.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that the typed 454 or the paginated one, the handwritten one?

MR BELLINGAN: It's paginated 454, typed 432, it's Schedule 20 of my amnesty application, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR BELLINGAN: Let's start at the top. There's a reference to the more violent aspects. A quote from page 2

"The more violent aspects that are sometimes necessary in information gathering and intelligence activities."

I continue. On page 458, Mr Chairman, it's typed page 437 of the same schedule ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Sorry, I'm not with you, could you - is it paginated 458?

MR BELLINGAN: 458, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, which part of that page do you refer to?

MR BELLINGAN: I refer to

"Actions with a high intensity."

Towards the bottom of the page, seven lines from the bottom. Actually the sentence starts eight lines from the bottom of the page. It starts with:

"Depending"

MR TRENGOVE: What is the first word of your page 458?

MR BELLINGAN: There is

"Action with a high intensity."

That's the underlined heading.

MR TRENGOVE: It's my page 459 but it mine might be wrong, I don't know.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, mine as well, paginated 459. But we're on the right page, we're all on the same page?

MR BELLINGAN: It's typed page 437, Mr Chairman. It says

"Depending upon whether or not it is the objective to combat the opponents onslaught or to drive him out or to defeat him or destroy him."

MR TRENGOVE: Sorry, where on the page are you reading?

MR BELLINGAN: Sorry, about eight lines from - the last sentence of the paragraph, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, anything else?

MR BELLINGAN: We'll go further, Mr Chairman. On page, my document paginated 459, it's typed page 438. I think it's the next page. Ja, next page, Mr Chairman. It's a reference from Annexure C of the annexures ... and I quote

"Behind every government today, Secret Services with both offensive and defensive tasks exist, which notwithstanding moral codes and laws keep the government of the day informed."

I quote further from Annexure J on the same page: Brigadier Stadler's opening address. It's the next page, the part that I want to quote. On typed page 439, it's a quote from page seven of that particular annexure, it says:

"The South African Police and particularly the Security Branch has since the formal inception of the so-called revolutionary armed struggle in 1961, without a doubt played the most important role in the identification, isolation and destruction."

"uitwissing" is the word I refer the Chair to.

MR TRENGOVE: "Van"? Carry on, complete the sentence.

MR BELLINGAN: You want the whole sentence, okay.

"Of elements of the enemy's military and security services as well as political and psychological structures."

I carry on, Mr Chairman. Those are the quotations that I've extracted from the annexures. In my general background I quote from some of the ANC documents, Mr Chairman, where they talk about elimination of informers, collaborators etc. ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you didn't derive any authority from ANC statements.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I did. Mr Chairman, as I've said we also copied the methods of the opposition and that was also an instruction. It is quoted here that we need to also learn and study the methods of the opposition and model our operations accordingly. ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: You mean ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: I also mention KGB assassinations in, it is also mentioned in one of the annexures which is attached.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: There are also references in my general background to active measures which refers to "teistering", which is destructive acts. "Teistering", it's destructive acts as one of the Stratcom actions.

MR TRENGOVE: Are you finished?

MR BELLINGAN: That is the documentary proof, Mr Chairman. Also in the discussions on courses people also mentioned things like that. I refer to the conversation for example of Captain John Putter that was tape recorded and reported in the newspaper, where he specifically says that General van der, sorry Adrian Vlok had said that these methods were acceptable.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not asking you about a culture of tolerance of assassination, I'm asking you about your evidence that you understood that you had a broad authority to eliminate activists, and you explained that you were told to undertake unlawful activities including murder. Are these statements from these documents the statements on which you relied for that evidence?

MR BELLINGAN: In part, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well tell me ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It was part of my training.

MR TRENGOVE: Tell me whether you relied on any other statements that were made to you on which you based that evidence. I frankly got the impression, frankly from your evidence-in-chief that you were telling us of a specific and expressed statement made to you that you could undertake unlawful activities including murder. You, Mike Bellingan could undertake unlawful activities including murder. Was there ever anything of the kind?

MR BELLINGAN: There was a letter that I am aware of from myself and a chap on my staff when I was at Stratcom, a Lieutenant Jacobs and myself both got letters from General Basie Smith to the effect that, well we wrote the letter and asked for approval in fact, which he signed concerning what is referred to as "harde Stratcom". And then of course what is understood by "harde Stratcom" includes elimination of people.

MR TRENGOVE: Did it say that - did he give you blanket authority to kill people?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, there never was anything like that.

MR TRENGOVE: So what was the effect of the letter, what did the - where is the letter by the way?

MR BELLINGAN: I no longer have it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who would have a copy of it?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't know, Mr Chairman, I certainly don't.

MR TRENGOVE: Are you saying that the effect of the letter was to authorise you to undertake any unlawful activities including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, only those which furthered the objectives of the Security Branch and the government.

MR TRENGOVE: So was the effect of the letter that provided it furthered the objectives of the Security Branch and the government, you could undertake any unlawful activities including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: Covert Stratcom which was other than simply a propaganda action, in other words active measures, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, don't ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Which included the destructive acts.

MR TRENGOVE: Don't deflect the question. The question is, the search for your evidence, the search for the basis for your evidence that you were told that you could undertake any unlawful activities including murder. You tell me that one of the sources of that evidence, one of the basis of that evidence is this letter from or letter signed by General? Joubert, was it?

MR BELLINGAN: General Smit.

MR TRENGOVE: General Smit, Basie Smit. Now just to avoid doubt, I want to know why you tell me about this letter. Is the letter a statement that you could undertake any unlawful activities including murder, provided that you thought that it advanced the purposes of the security police?

MR BELLINGAN: Not just the letter in itself, Mr Chairman, but against the background that I have already sketched it could be understood to give me further confirmation of the fact that these types of activities were not random or isolated acts by rouge elements amongst my colleagues and that they were in fact always authorised in the past and that where necessary we had authorization in the future.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I ask you about the letter and you go back to the general background. I'll come back to the general background, let's confine ourselves to the letter. Did the letter properly read and understood mean that General Basie Smit authorised you to commit any unlawful activities including murder?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, he said not just the letter and then he elaborated on what other aspects influenced him. So with respect, Mr Chairman, my learned friend again wants a yes or a no answer which I am going to start objecting against every time.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr du Plessis, I agree with you that is what your client said but insofar as the letter is concerned, I think Mr Trengove is trying to get a clear answer on the effect of the letter.

If you can, Mr Bellingan, just explain to us what the effect of that letter was, what did it authorise you to do?

MR BELLINGAN: The letter just confirmed my belief that these acts were authorised, that is all. It never specifically said to me that I could for example murder my wife, it never said that, Mr Chairman. It never actually said I could kill anyone specific or it never authorised me to do any specific action. It was once again something of a general nature.

MR TRENGOVE: Did you understand the letter to mean that General Basie Smit authorised you to commit any crime including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: No, no, quite obviously not, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Then why do you raise the letter at all when I asked you for the source of your evidence that you were told that you could commit any crime including murder?

MR BELLINGAN: The question was whether I felt it authorised me to commit any crime, and it certainly did not authorise me to commit any crime. Only something that was "harde Stratcom" which could have been immoral or unlawful, Mr Chairman. The emphasis was not specifically on the fact that I could hereby go out and commit any unlawful activity.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, your evidence, not mine, your evidence was that you were told that you could commit any unlawful activity including murder. Was that what the letter told you?

MR BELLINGAN: That's not what the letter told me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I don't want to debate with you the meaning of the passages that you referred to but I will submit to the Commission that none of them support the statement that you had made, that they told you that you could commit any crime including murder. Is there any other occasion that you could point to on which that statement was made to you?

MR BELLINGAN: At no stage, Mr Chairman, have I said that or have I believed that I could randomly commit any crime, Mr Chairman. There had to be a rational connection between the action and what was intended.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, I'm not suggesting that you were authorised to act irrationally, what I am suggesting is that your evidence made it quite clear that you were told that in pursuit of the objectives of the security police you could commit any crime including murder. I'm trying to find out who told you so.

MR BELLINGAN: Nobody told me so in specific, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You murdered in September 1991, which was well after the President's landmark speech of the 2nd of February 1990, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was also well after the investigation and report of the Harms Commission into political assassinations committed by members of the Security Forces, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That commission had been appointed by the State President in order to determine whether activities of that kind were taking place and if so, to expose them, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's more or less correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So it was abundantly clear by September 1991, that police assassinations did not carry the approval of the government of the day. It might still have been committed by rouges within the security police but it certainly did not carry the approval of the government of the day or the approval of the Nationalist Party that you so loyally serve.

MR BELLINGAN: Quite the contrary, Mr Chairman, it was an indication specifically that these things needed to be covered up and that was the real objective of the Harms Commission.

MR TRENGOVE: To cover up. You mean the President and the judge were both bent on a coverup?

MR BELLINGAN: It seemed that way to me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. So this was a cynical and dishonest conspiracy between the President and the judge?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I never said that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well it would be cynical and dishonest, wouldn't it, if the purpose of the commission is to cover up?

MR BELLINGAN: It may have been that way, Mr Chairman, but I don't think that I could say that the President was cynical and what the other words were, but I know what the objective was of the Harms Commission. We saw it as the coverup of allegations that were being made.

MR TRENGOVE: Whose objective, the person who appointed them, who else?

MR BELLINGAN: Presumably so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That's the President. So are you suggesting the - on your understanding it was the President's intention that the Harms Commission should cover up.

MR BELLINGAN: I understood it so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And that intention could only be achieved if the judge was coopted in the plan.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So you believed him to be a party to the conspiracy?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And it was only because you held that belief that you thought that it was still permissable for you to commit political assassination?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps even more so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Even more so what?

MR BELLINGAN: Vital to cover up.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I don't understand your answer.

MR BELLINGAN: Well if assassination was needed in order to cover something up, then after the Harms Commission it would have been evident to anybody who had any inside knowledge that that needed to be done, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: We're not talking about coverup, we're talking about - certainly people who had committed political assassinations under the previous order continued to cover up their crimes and still do so today. I'm not talking about coverup, I'm talking about new fresh assassinations, post 1990. What possible basis did you have to believe that the government of the day still not only tolerated but required of you to commit assassinations in their name?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, as a result of the Harms Commission there were two immediate attempts at assassination. The one was Brian Ncqulunga and the other was the attempted assassination of Dirk Coetzee.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, we know grudges, people trying to cover up, keep things quiet, avoid exposure but you couldn't for one moment have believed that those assassinations prompted by the fallout by the crooks of the past carried the blessing of the government of the day?

MR BELLINGAN: I've got absolutely no doubt that they did cover(sic) the blessing of the government of the day, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. So that the President and his party despite their pious public statements, still supported assassinations of this kind to keep the past a secret, is that what you're saying?

MR BELLINGAN: That's my belief, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And that is why you murdered, based on that belief?

MR BELLINGAN: Based on, amongst others, that belief, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Was it not true that after the speech of the 2nd of February 1990, heralded the period of transition, isn't that so?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, that was the major kick-off, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: If one had to pick a date today on which the period of transition was formally announced as it were, it would be the 2nd of February 1990, the period of transition running up to May 1991, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Isn't it true that during that period things changed dramatically, that the hunters became the hunted?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was no longer acceptable to commit the atrocities of the past, like political assassinations?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it was all the more necessary.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 88 of your second amnesty application.

CHAIRPERSON: We assume paginated page 88?

MR TRENGOVE: Paginated page 88, typed page 66.

CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you please, Mr Bellingan, - do you have it?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you please read the third paragraph on that page for the record?

MR BELLINGAN

"With the transition these acts were no longer commendable and blameless, suddenly the hunters became the hunted. The NP's ruthless approach in and in the run-up to negotiations left us feeling betrayed and vulnerable. Stress and paranoia became common."

MR TRENGOVE: The NP withdrew their backing. Suddenly they were intolerant of conduct of this kind, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Isn't that what that paragraph says?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. Perhaps I should explain it. With the transition, these acts were no longer openly commendable and blameless. That is what is meant, Mr Chairman. The hunters becoming the hunted, where the fact that now with the unbanning we were more or less open game from the people that were in exiled. Their organisations that were exiled were now able to come home and to be able to indulge in any investigations openly if they wanted to, Mr Chairman. "The NP's ruthless approach": what I mean there is I refer for example to the fact that operatives that were involved and whose names would have been mentioned on my so-called hit-list were not consulted, were not, there was no discussion from the government's side prior to the announcement of the unbanning. We knew about the fact that the unbanning was coming. In fact we watched it in our offices, Colonel Taylor will probably remember as well, at Unit D.

It was no surprise that on that day something like that was going to be announced, but in the run-up to it there was no proper consultation with people like ourselves.

MR TRENGOVE: Are you suggesting that the President should have consulted your unit before making his speech on the 2nd of February?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I am, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I see.

MR BELLINGAN: On that specific matter he would have got a lot of information from our unit, probably on a weekly basis or a daily basis.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. Let me go back to that paragraph because I want to suggest to you that it's simply not capable of the interpretation you now try to give to it. "With the transition these acts were no longer commendable and blameless."

The acts we're talking about are these unlawful activities committed by the security police, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE

"And you say, with the transition they were no longer commendable and blameless."

MR BELLINGAN: How would the National Party possibly have justified commending anybody after that?

MR TRENGOVE: No, as a matter of fact they became intolerant of conduct of this kind. They no longer commended it and they no longer regarded it as blameless. That is what you're telling us in that paragraph.

MR BELLINGAN: There was a huge intolerance, as evidenced by the Harms Commission, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: There was a lot of pressure.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, because your Nationalist Party was no longer tolerant of the unlawful conduct that you described.

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct) opening up of the unlawful conduct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Leave aside the whole question of exposure of atrocities of the past. It made it quite clear that it was entirely intolerant of political assassination after 1990.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Suddenly the hunters became the hunted. The hunters had been the security police, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In the context of that paragraph, that sentence clearly means that whereas society, the establishment had previously supported you, now the establishment turned on you, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: The broader South African community, Mr Chairman, was then to be counted on a political basis.

MR TRENGOVE: No, the rest of South Africa had always hated your guts, not yours personally but the security police. You always had the backing of the Nationalist Party Government, now that government turned on you and that is when the hunters became the hunted, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Including the National Party, in the context of what I'm saying over there, Mr Chairman. They were also pursued, they were also hunted.

MR TRENGOVE: You say ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: That had to a lot of covering up.

MR TRENGOVE: You say in the next sentence that the NP's conduct that you describe, left you and your colleagues feeling betrayed and vulnerable. Again the same thing, the NP which had previously supported you, tolerated your conduct, supported your conduct, now turned on you and made you feel betrayed and vulnerable, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Certain elements within the National Party, Mr Chairman, were not prepared to allow any of these covert activities to interfere with their intended course of action. They were extremely intolerant of anything like that.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I want to suggest to you firstly that the Nationalist Party establishment that you say you served, made it quite clear after 1990 that they would have no track with political assassination.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that is not the case.

MR TRENGOVE: And secondly that that is precisely what this paragraph says.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it's not what the paragraph says.

MR TRENGOVE: After you had committed the murder which you thought was not only commendable but necessary and saved the country, you still did not tell anybody of the fact that you had done it or why you had done it, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman, because people knew anyway.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, they knew. Which meant that at least as far as your colleagues were concerned, that you were really at liberty to discuss it with them because they knew anyway, you wouldn't give away any secrets.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it's not the way that we worked. You don't do something like that, it's highly unprofessional.

MR TRENGOVE: Highly unprofessional to tell your superiors that you saved the country?

MR BELLINGAN: How would I possibly discuss such a compromising thing, Mr Chairman?

MR TRENGOVE: No, not a compromising thing, you were compromised, you had murdered your wife. And you say - we don't accept it, but you say they knew you'd done it but they didn't know why. You were persecuted as a murder suspect, you deserved a medal for saving the country. Why didn't you explain that to Brigadier Erasmus?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, in answering the question let me just say that for the actions, at any point in time, I was prepared to take the consequences and I did without - I went through various forums without incriminating anybody, without opening up about covert activities. I've only done that recently, Mr Chairman. And then - sorry, what was the question?

MR TRENGOVE: Why didn't you explain to Brigadier Erasmus? You say that Brigadier Erasmus for instance, already knew that it was you who had murdered your wife, why didn't you explain to him why you had done it?

MR BELLINGAN: I took it for granted that he knew exactly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Knew what, the hit-list, the threat to expose it?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that Janine was a risk.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, you murdered Janine because she was about to disclose the hit-list which you said placed the country in peril. Why didn't you give that information to Brigadier Erasmus?

MR BELLINGAN: Well, the advocate is putting words in my mouth. Mr Chairman, I never ever said I murdered her solely because of the hit-list, I've explained in great detail why I murdered Janine. The hit-list was one of the things that prompted me finally at the end ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: The information that ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: But there is something else that I've explained as well to the Commission, and that is this thing of direct and indirect communication. Some of the things people said to me were direct communication, others were indirect communication, the second order communication that I referred to. General Erasmus was a person that didn't always mince his words and I got the impression from him that he tacitly approved what I had done.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, he may well have. All the more reason to explain to him that apart from the reasons of which he might have been aware about, which he might have speculated, there was this sterling reason which made it not only defensible but necessary for you to murder, why not explain to him?

MR BELLINGAN: It wasn't necessary, Mr Chairman, and it also would have been a silly thing to do.

MR TRENGOVE: What, to murder or to speak about it?

MR BELLINGAN: To speak about it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You told us that he knew, why not explain to him that it wasn't just a ...(indistinct) murder, it was an act of heroism?

MR BELLINGAN: That is too far fetched, Mr Chairman. How would I possibly go and tell somebody that I wanted a medal for what I'd done?

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, on your version you murdered because you had to, because the country's future was at stake, why not tell your superior that that was your laudable motive?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, with respect, my learned friend has stated this now various times, that the country's future was at stake etc. The witness testified that his perception was, and I want to stress this, Mr Chairman, his perception was that disclosure of the information might have led to disruption of the democratisation of this country and to various consequences which could have led thereafter. The way my learned friend is phrasing the question does not 100% accord with the witness' evidence.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I agree with you, Mr du Plessis. Your client did say that is was a sort of a subjective belief.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. I'm simply asking these questions, Mr Bellingan, to establish your state of mind. Your state of mind was; I have to murder because my country's future is at risk. Why not give that explanation to your superiors?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, these experienced operators in the Security Branch were there because they could work as a team. What was needed then was for people to cover up. Each person would have assumed the role that he needed to in the circumstances, without me going to him and discussing it openly. That just wouldn't have fitted into the profile of the type of things that we did.

MR TRENGOVE: But you communicated with one another when it was relevant and necessary to do so, why not explain to Brigadier Erasmus why it had been necessary for you to murder?

MR BELLINGAN: Because he knew, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: He knew that Janine was about to expose the Security Branch, are you saying that?

MR BELLINGAN: That is what actuated me at the specific time, the matter concerning the documentation, Mr Chairman. But the general run-up to this thing was known to General Erasmus because I'd had discussions with him at his house about the fact that I was called in by a lawyer who already knew about this Numsa matter, which a hugely embarrassing matter, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I'm going to argue at the end of the hearing that you've simply failed to answer that question, to give any coherent explanation for your failure to mention your motive to any of your superiors. Do want any further opportunity to elaborate or have you given your best explanation?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that I've explained it to this Committee, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: On the 5th of June 1991 you assaulted Janine, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Did you ever assault her?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, other than on the night for which I'm applying for amnesty, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She saw Dr Jameson on the 6th of June 1991, do you know about that?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine told me at one stage that she had been to see the doctor about a problem with her wrist or her finger or her hand.

MR TRENGOVE: A problem? What kind of problem did she say - she complained?

MR BELLINGAN: She felt that I had done wrong against her.

MR TRENGOVE: Done wrong against her, isn't a short word for that "assault"?

MR BELLINGAN: Not at all, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Was that not what she complained of at least?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: How do you mean ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ... there was absolutely no basis for Janine complaining that I ever assaulted her, including on that specific occasion.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, I'm now asking for the moment - I know your denials, you deny that you ever assaulted her. I'm asking you at the moment what it is, what was her complaint at the time? Was the complaint that you had injured her finger as a, by an assault on her? Was that her complaint and her accusation?

MR BELLINGAN: She made it up, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. She made this false complaint of assault and she went to see the doctor about it, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: She told me about that.

MR TRENGOVE: You assaulted her because you did not like the food she had prepared.

MR BELLINGAN: That is ridiculous, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That's what she told Ellen Woodnut(?).

MR BELLINGAN: I can't help what Janine may or may not have said, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at our bundle, bundle 5, page 108. Do you see that that is a form J88?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And as its heading indicates, it's a report on examination in a case of alleged assault or other crime.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And it's completed by Dr Jameson and the patient is Janine Bellingan, and the date of the examination is the 6th of June 1991, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Do you see that? And indeed there was an injury to her finger.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just make our position clear pertaining to this document? I haven't had any chance to verify the correctness of the document or the contents thereof, and as far as I am concerned at this stage this document is in dispute pertaining to the authenticity and the contents thereof.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, so your rights are reserved in regard to the document?

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I took that for granted, I'm putting my case to the witness. I don't know why that justifies any interruption of my cross-examination.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I'm placing that on record so my position pertaining to this document is clear. I have given you an indication in respect of my position pertaining to the documents in this bundle.

CHAIRPERSON: No, that's fair enough, Mr du Plessis, I accept that. Mr Trengove, over to you?

MR TRENGOVE: And Dr Jameson said that indeed on that occasion Janine complained that you had assaulted her and had injured her in the way described by this report.

MR BELLINGAN: I have no doubt that Janine may have given an explanation regarding me grabbing her wrist and that she felt that somehow she should complain to Dr Jameson about that. She was not assaulted by myself. I knew about her lodging of a J88 with Dr Jameson. It was just - for whatever her motive may have been, it was a silly thing for her to do, Mr Chairman. There was no basis for it, there was no need for her to go. She never went - after the specific incident in question, aside from being very cross with me she never went to see the doctor after that specific incident. I don't know when she did. At a later stage she had said that she had been to see the doctor and completed a J88 form about the matter, about her wrist or her finger or something. There were never any injuries that I caused to Janine, other than the ones which I'm applying for amnesty for, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You say that she was very angry with you, angry for what?

MR BELLINGAN: I was trying to complete some forms, Mr Chairman, in fact it was the tax forms and Janine wouldn't give me her IRP5, so I took her bag in which she had the IRP5, she grabbed it from me, she took out the IRP5, she wouldn't hand it to me. So after this had being going on actually me trying to get this IRP5 to attach it to the tax forms, I took hold of her hand and I took the IRP5 form out of it, Mr Chairman, after weeks of asking for the form. I was in a hurry. Janine had been more than kind of teasing me with this form, Mr Chairman. I never intended to cause her any injury. I simply held her hand and, in such a way that I could remove the IFP5 form from it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: This was not the first occasion on which she'd consulted a medical practitioner, complaining that you'd assaulted her, do you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: I know only of the specific occasion that I'm referring to, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And what occasion was that? What was its approximate date?

MR BELLINGAN: I've got no recollection of the date, Mr Chairman, just the incident as I've described it to this Commission.

MR TRENGOVE: We're talking about an incident in June, June '91. We're referring to it because it was three months-odd before her death but there'd been a previous similar complaint as well, don't you know about that?

MR BELLINGAN: I know only of the one that I'm referring to, Mr Chairman. Whether it's this one or it's another one - she told me she had been to Dr Jameson where she had filled in a form like this.

MR TRENGOVE: There was testimony at the various forums before about it as well, Mr Chairman, where she'd also complained to her lawyer who came and testified before the High Court, that he said granted it was something trivial. In fact he was embarrassed to mention it.

MR TRENGOVE: Not long after that she decided to file for divorce against you, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Not long after what, Mr Chairman?

MR TRENGOVE: Not long after the June incident which she described as an assault she decided to get divorced from you.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Janine wasn't going to divorce me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She told lots of people about it, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm aware of the discussion at this point in time, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What triggered the decision was the Marula Sun incident, do you remember it?

MR BELLINGAN: I remember the testimony about that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, not the testimony, the fact of the Marula Sun incident when you and a colleague were out all night and phoned in to say that you were investigating a paedophile in Ellisras, and it turned out that you'd spent the night at the Marula Sun.

MR BELLINGAN: It's not even close to the truth, Mr Chairman, but I know very well what happened over there and I know. I'm aware of Janine's notes in that regard as well, the fact that she noted that someone had called her and that she believed that it was at the Marula Sun, and it probably was at the Marula Sun, Mr Chairman. I was not there at the time that the phone call was made.

MR TRENGOVE: She said that incident happened on the 2nd of August '91. Do you remember that she locked you out the next morning?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Janine never locked me out the next morning, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When did you return that night, return home?

MR BELLINGAN: In the early hours of the morning, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you were locked out?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I wasn't locked out, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Because she'd discovered that the call the previous night to say that you were, you would be engaged all night in this investigation had been made from the Marula Sun and not from Ellisras.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, the sun was about to come up. It was not uncommon for me to be getting home in the early hours of the morning. And then if Janine was asleep which she usually was then, always was in fact, I wouldn't wake her up, let her sleep, let her get her rest. What I did on that - on some occasions if I came back from a long trip I would just put the car seat back and sleep. On that particular occasion I just walked around and cleaned the pool and did a few odds and ends until I saw movement in the house.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you refer to bundle B5, page 109. That is a letter that Janine wrote to her attorney dated the 5th of August 1991, do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It's addressed to

"Dear Lionel"

Do you know who Lionel was?

MR BELLINGAN: Lionel Unterhalter, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And she describes the incident in the letter. You probably know her handwriting better than I do, could you just for the record read not the whole letter, but if you start in the middle of page one with the paragraph that starts with the word "however" -sorry, the next paragraph

"On Friday night, 2 August 1991"

MR BELLINGAN

"On Friday night, 2 August 1991, the following happened: Michael did not come home for supper. At 8.40pm the phone rang and it was one of his ex-colleagues acting that he couldn't hear me. I received a second call telling me that they were in Ellisras in connection with the van Rooyen case. Remember the paedophile."

My next line is not there, and then it goes on:

"Wynand (some UNISA psychologist) that Michael was questioning ..."

Something, I cannot see what it is.

"He told me ..."

A word missing.

"Michael had asked him to phone and tell me that they would be back very late. He kept on acting as though he couldn't hear me and dialling zero. With that the call cut off and rang through to reception. A voice said: 'Hello, switchboard'. I asked what place was that and was told it was Marula Sun."

Should I go on?

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN

"I asked who had made a call to Johannesburg and was transferred to reception where I spoke to a receptionist called Lizzie, who described the two gentlemen who had got her to make the call. She told me that they had definitely been drinking and that they had been putting the necktie over the receiver and telling me that they were in Ellisras. They went into the gambling area after making the call."

MR TRENGOVE: Thank you. Could you then turn to the very last paragraph of the letter. Could you read it?

MR BELLINGAN

"Hopefully I will soon be able to leave this in your capable hands, when I ask you to commence proceedings."

MR TRENGOVE: That confirms that it was her intention at the time, to commence divorce proceedings, doesn't it?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine was very upset with me, Mr Chairman, about this episode. She was in a mood about it and she didn't accept what I told her about it, she wanted her version. She was upset for a couple of days and then it passed. I presume in those couple of days she must have written this letter to Mr Unterhalter. Certainly I never knew about it and certainly he never pursued the matter and certainly neither did Janine. And there is a very simple explanation as to what happened that night, if it ever becomes relevant.

MR TRENGOVE: A little later that month or early the following month, in other words late August or early September, she told her family that she'd decided to get divorced from you.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm sure that is what her family wanted to hear. She may even have told them. It's not something that I had knowledge of, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: On the 8th of September that year she saw Dr Goodman, Marlise Goodman. That was the partner of Dr Jameson, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Both of them acted as your family GPs.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She saw Dr Goodman with one of the children who had an ailment but on leaving Dr Goodman, said to her: "I'm scared to go home, I'm afraid he's going to kill us."

MR BELLINGAN: I doubt she would have said something like that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, she did.

MR BELLINGAN: Amongst all the silly things she said, I don't think she would have said "us".

MR TRENGOVE: That is what she did. That is what she told Dr Goodman.

MR BELLINGAN: No, that's just too ridiculous, Mr Chairman. Even coming from Janine, it's too ridiculous.

MR TRENGOVE: If she had said: "I'm afraid he's going to kill me", is that probable?

MR BELLINGAN: In the light of everything I've heard, Mr Chairman, it's possible.

MR TRENGOVE: Why would she have said that she's afraid that you were going to kill her?

MR BELLINGAN: I had spoken to Janine in no uncertain terms about playing with fire, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, that was long, long ago. That was '89.

MR BELLINGAN: And Janine knew very well what she was up to, Mr Chairman, obviously it would be first and foremost in her mind.

MR TRENGOVE: How do you know that?

MR BELLINGAN: I'm certain of it.

MR TRENGOVE: No, you don't know when those telephone calls recorded on your tape took place.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm talking about Janine's state of mind, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, and so am I, state of mind on the 8th of September. Do you have no idea, even on your own version, whether on that date she'd already embarked on this course of exposure?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps Janine was making up her mind whether to stay with me, in which case I would have to get out of the Security Branch, or whether to go with a divorce.

MR TRENGOVE: She told Lorna Smith immediately before her death that she was going to go ahead with the divorce.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm certain that's what Lorna Smith wanted to hear too, Mr Chairman. Lorna Smith hated me.

MR TRENGOVE: So that's just a lie?

MR BELLINGAN: It was a lie.

MR TRENGOVE: Lorna Smith's lie? You say Janine would never have told her something ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Janine had no intention of going through a divorce at that point in time, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: She was lying to all of these people and speaking the truth only to you?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine changed her mind every second day, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that you lied when you said that your relationship with her at the time of her death was quote: "very good".

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I did not lie. And I've got a very good reason for knowing that my relationship with Janine was very good. It was I who was there. There was also testimony at the inquest and the trial that Janine and I appeared to be fine at the time. ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: She was about ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: The domestic servant said that she saw us hugging and kissing.

MR TRENGOVE: She was about to divorce you ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: She was about to divorce me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: ... and you must have known about it.

MR BELLINGAN: No, there was no such thing, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In the divorce there'd be a dispute about money.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just make something clear here? Mr Trengove and I both know what was testified at the inquest, and I am not saying that Mr Trengove had a duty to put that but I want put it on record now, and it will become clear later in these proceedings, that there was also evidence of witnesses during that inquest specifically saying that Janine had decided not to go ahead with any divorce. And that was not put to the witness. So the cross-examination in respect of this really in my view is unfair, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Chairman, the interruption ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I assume you will - sorry, Mr Trengove. I assume you will also bear this in mind when you re-examine?

MR DU PLESSIS: I will bear it in mind, Mr Chairman. As it pleases you.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

MR TRENGOVE: In the dispute about money, she made it clear she would expose your Numsa thefts by reporting them to your superiors.

MR BELLINGAN: That was a long time before, Mr Chairman, and we sorted it out shortly thereafter when I explained to Janine everything about the Numsa matter.

MR TRENGOVE: But she still had those documents, she still secreted them away and you knew it by that time, you discovered so in August.

MR BELLINGAN: I knew that she still had documentation, Mr Chairman, and that she hadn't been entirely honest with me about the fact that she had agreed not to do that kind of thing again, but she had already given me back my Numsa passport, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I don't why it is that you murdered your wife but I want to suggest to you that this history of marital unhappiness, an abusive relationship brought to a head by her decision to leave you, was what precipitated the murder. It had nothing whatsoever to do with any political motive.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. No, that is not true, Mr Chairman, it is as I've explained to the Committee.

MR TRENGOVE: You gave evidence in justification of your suspicion of the risk of exposure, you gave evidence of how Janine admitted to you that she had exposed Joy and Olivia Forsythe in 1986, do you remember that evidence?

MR BELLINGAN: The ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not asking you to repeat it, I'm just asking you whether you remember that evidence.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, it was in 1986 that I became aware of that - that was the conversation I had Janine was in 1986, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The effect of your evidence was that she exposed them just before your marriage and told you about it just after the marriage, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Shortly after the marriage Janine told me about that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So that this betrayal of the security police happened while, you say, she was working for them?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you say she exposed Joy to teach those who had exposed Sylvia a lesson. That is the explanation that you say she gave you.

MR BELLINGAN: That's what she said, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But it's an irrational explanation, isn't it? How does it teach them a lesson to expose somebody else?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, it was so that Janine, if she went on the warpath against somebody she would do it well and truly and ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, but I'm asking you to explain to me how does she get back at the people who exposed Sylvia by exposing Joy?

MR BELLINGAN: Janine wasn't always rational, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You agree with me that it was an irrational explanation?

MR BELLINGAN: It was an irrational thing to do if she did it.

MR TRENGOVE: And what's more it doesn't explain the - it doesn't explain why she should have exposed Olivia Forsythe as well.

MR BELLINGAN: I've got no idea why she exposed Olivia Forsythe, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In fact, Mr Bellingan, you have no idea at all whether in fact Janine had exposed Joy or Olivia Forsythe.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I'm relying on two things over there, what Janine told me and the fact that there was a problem with those two agents at a later stage.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, I know there was.

MR BELLINGAN: Or at a prior stage that is.

MR TRENGOVE: Have you seen the affidavit of Gavin Evans who explains how their exposure came about? Have a look in our bundle of documents, B5, page 62.

MR DU PLESSIS: Once again, Mr Chairman, I have to point out this document's authenticity and the contents are not admitted. And the affidavit as far as I can remember is not signed, and the person lives in London.

CHAIRPERSON: That's noted.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you don't pretend to have any knowledge in fact of how these two agents were exposed, do you? As you say, you relied merely what Janine told you and the fact that there later was a problem.

MR BELLINGAN: The problem was prior to Janine telling me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Whatever the order ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: That is what I'm relying upon.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja. In this affidavit - I don't want to waste time by going through the details of this affidavit, but Gavin Evans explains how these two agents were exposed. You have no knowledge of whether he is right or wrong because you don't know how in fact they were exposed, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Only what I know from the fact that there was a report in the newspaper, I think Evans mentions it, and the fact that it was discussed around the office, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja. So you're not in a position ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: I knew the - let me just leave it at that.

MR TRENGOVE: You're not in a position to dispute his version?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't want to comment further about this, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You also apply in your second amnesty application, Schedule 21, page 463, for amnesty for all the lies you told over the years when you did so under oath about Janine's murder. That's typed page 441, paginated 463, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: If you'll look at that page, you say in paragraph 9(a)(1) that you apply for amnesty inter alia for defeating the course of justice and for perjury, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then if you would turn the page where you give nature and particulars, you say

"Suppressed information about the murder of my wife and other covert operations during official investigations and Court appearances in response to questions put to me."

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That means that you failed to come forward with the truth and when you were asked questions you lied, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now you refer there to the Court appearances or official investigations and Court appearances at which you committed this perjury and defeating the course of justice. Which Court appearances did you have in mind? Can I name the Court appearances and will you tell ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It was in the inquest ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: The inquest, did you have it in mind?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The inquest took place in April 1994, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Your bail application on your return from New Zealand in November 1994?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Your trial and conviction in the first part of 1995?

MR BELLINGAN: I think it was after the cutoff date, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then your petition? You lodged in fact two petitions for leave to appeal, didn't you? Or a petition and a supplement to it, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Get back to them in a moment. Could we deal firstly with the inquest. You said that you lied at the inquest. If I understood your evidence you lied in effect because Brigadier Erasmus ordered you to do so, is my understanding correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I lied because it was necessary not to speak about the covert operations of the Security Branch, Mr Chairman. The fact that I'd had a discussion with General Erasmus just alerted me to the need, that is all. I would have done it anyway.

MR TRENGOVE: I understood your evidence to be that he told you to lie.

MR BELLINGAN: He said that I needn't say anything meaning ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: You need ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Coming from him, meaning shut up.

MR TRENGOVE: You need not say anything what?

MR BELLINGAN: Obviously about covert operations, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You need not say anything about covert operations. I can understand that your superior might have said something of the kind, but why not admit that you murdered your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: At the inquest?

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: Out of the question, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why? It's the truth isn't it, why not admit it?

MR BELLINGAN: It would have been defeating the whole object, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Whose object?

MR BELLINGAN: The object of the killing of Janine would have been completely defeated then, Mr Chairman. We were not at all down the line with ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Why?

MR BELLINGAN: ... with what needed to be done in terms of transition, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, why? If you admitted to having killed your wife, you would have pleaded guilty and you would have been sent to prison for a long time?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I would ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: All the secrets would have been kept secret.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I would have had to give an explanation then.

MR TRENGOVE: Why? Nobody can force you to give any explanation.

MR BELLINGAN: Because that was an inquest, Mr Chairman, the magistrate could ask what he wants, he call what witnesses he wants ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No.

MR BELLINGAN: And secondly there still would have been the whole procedure in deciding whether charges were to be brought or the Attorney-General would still play an active role in it.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, let me not - let's not get into too procedural a debate, but you could have admitted responsibility for your wife's murder then there would simply have been a criminal trial and no inquest, a plea of guilty and that would have been the end of the matter.

MR BELLINGAN: Well if it was a simple matter that I could get indemnity for it in that manner where nothing need to be said then I would have done it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, not indemnity, you would have gone to jail for a long time, but at least the security police and the country's interests would have been safe.

MR BELLINGAN: Well it just doesn't work like that, Mr Chairman. It didn't work like that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, of course it didn't because you lied to save your own skin. That's why you lied.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It had nothing whatsoever to do with the country's interest.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that's not the case at all.

MR TRENGOVE: If you had from the outset simply admitted the truth, that you'd murdered your wife, the country's secrets would have been safe.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, the media were already speculating in a massive fashion about the matter. Had there been such an admission then all of the stories about my association with missing activists, from shirts that Janine had at her office with blood on them, stories like that that were in the media, it would have been a confirmed fact for the media, Mr Chairman. These things to the media would then have been taken as a fact. They just have to get a little hint of something coming from the Security Branch and they take it as a fact.

MR TRENGOVE: What did - did Brigadier Erasmus say no more than it's not necessary to speak about covert operations? Was that the beginning and the end of the ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: ... instruction or advice to you?

MR BELLINGAN: It was words to that effect, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you interpreted that to mean that you should deny that you killed your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: That I shouldn't?

MR TRENGOVE: That you should deny that you killed your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: Absolutely, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When - where were you when he told you so?

MR BELLINGAN: I was in his house, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When?

MR BELLINGAN: When?

MR TRENGOVE: Ja.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall the exact date, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When in relation to the inquest?

MR BELLINGAN: Prior to the inquest. I don't recall when, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who were present when he told you not to mention anything about the covert operations?

MR BELLINGAN: Just myself and him, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: His advice to you, I understand you to say, meant that to the extent that it might be necessary you should lie about the covert operations.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: At that stage he didn't know that you'd murdered your wife, you had never told him.

MR BELLINGAN: No, he knew, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You think he knew but you had never told him.

MR BELLINGAN: I understood that he knew, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: He also did not know why you'd killed your wife.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I suspect that he did.

MR TRENGOVE: How would he have known if you hadn't told him?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, you don't get so much experience in the Security Branch if you can't follow what is going on. A nod is as good as a blink to a blind horse. And those people would never have made it over there, Mr Chairman. It's that second order communication that I was speaking about, the indirect communication.

MR TRENGOVE: All the important things are said without uttering a word, is that what you're saying?

MR BELLINGAN: No, there were words uttered, Mr Chairman, but they were not direct communications.

MR TRENGOVE: And it was unnecessary for him to give you this advice because you had already firmly set yourself on a course of denial from the first interview that you had with the investigating officer.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In which you denied not only covert operations, but denied that you were the murderer.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, it's one and the same thing.

MR TRENGOVE: It's not one and the same thing. If you had simply told him yes, I'm afraid I am the guilty person, I murdered my wife, and it had stopped there, that would have been the end of the matter. It is because you denied that you were the murderer that there was a public inquiry in the Numsa affair.

MR BELLINGAN: That's quite absurd, Mr Chairman. I tried that evening also to establish from Willie Steyn what, I'd known that he'd been to the family, and what they were saying, was there any scandal that we could anticipate. I tried to get such information from him in the state that I was in. I was unable to do so, suffice to say the fact that he indicated that there, we could expect some type of problem.

MR TRENGOVE: You knew very well that the Numsa theft would be raised as a motive for you to murder Janine.

MR BELLINGAN: They may raised, Mr Chairman, if anyone had any evidence. Janine certainly didn't and the matter was suitably squashed, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: By the time the trial came you had no doubt at all that again there would be a repeated and this time an even more thorough investigation into the Numsa thefts to prove your motive and therefore your guilt.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, when I returned from New Zealand I didn't expect that matters would turn out this way, I thought that matters would be covered up - including the Numsa matter, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But when you went into the trial you knew very well that the trial would involve an in-depth public investigation into the Numsa thefts?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, the only matter in which there was proof, was the Numsa matter and ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not asking - sorry.

MR BELLINGAN: I was not going to be charged for that.

MR TRENGOVE: You knew - just answer my question, you knew very well that the trial would involve an in-depth and public investigation of the Numsa thefts?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And yet you went ahead, pleaded not guilty and in that way precipitated this public inquiry.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, there was a massive outcry about it already at the inquest.

MR TRENGOVE: If you had told the truth about the murder, those public inquiries into the Numsa thefts would never have taken place.

MR BELLINGAN: There would have been confirmation about those things then, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Not at all.

MR BELLINGAN: There would have been confirmation if I'd told the truth.

MR TRENGOVE: If you told the truth and pleaded guilty there would have been no public inquiry at all into those matters.

MR BELLINGAN: But there would have been a massive scandal, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was to save the skin of Bellingan that you lied, firstly.

MR BELLINGAN: I lied knowing very well that I was at risk lying, Mr Chairman. It was a huge dilemma for me. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just admit that, but I persevered with the instruction that I had, and that is to shut-up.

MR TRENGOVE: It would have been the easiest thing in the world to admit what?

MR BELLINGAN: The Numsa thing. I wasn't being charged for it, it was ...(indistinct)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, you misunderstand me. You lied in order to conceal your responsibility for the murder, that is why you lied. It was to save your own skin.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And it was - you lied about the murder, not only to save your own skin, but it nothing whatever to do about keeping security police covert operations secret. On the contrary, you lied well-knowing that your lie would lead to the exposure and the public inquiry into those activities.

MR BELLINGAN: I lied, Mr Chairman, in order that there would not be any scandals about that. There was speculation, Mr Chairman. I must admit that I did not expect to be found guilty. There was no real evidence, Mr Chairman, before the Court. However, the presiding officer knew quite clearly that I was lying about the Numsa matter. It influenced him to a large extent. I was warned about that by my advocate. I still didn't admit it, even despite the risk that I was at. I knew at all stages of my involvement with the Security Branch covert activities, of the risks that I was involved in and I was prepared to take the consequences, Mr Chairman. Anyone committed to these types of things, there are consequences. At times one even has to offer one's life if it's necessary and I was prepared to do that.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you acted out of pure self-interest. There was nothing virtuous or heroic in these lies, they were designed entirely to save your own skin.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, if I wanted to do that I would have gone and joined the ANC. In particular when I left the country and went to New Zealand I would have joined the ANC, made all the exposures I wanted to make and I definitely wouldn't be sitting in prison now, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at the applicant's bundle 3.1, page 60.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Trengove, are you going to deal with a new point?

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, indeed.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you. Well in that event we will take the luncheon adjournment and we will reconvene at 2 o'clock.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bellingan, I remind you that you are still under oath.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Trengove?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR TRENGOVE: (Continued) Please go to the applicant's bundle 3.1, page 60. Page 60 and the pages that follow are the questions and answers we referred to earlier, which were annexed to your warning statement made to Captain Steyn, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And I don't want to burden the inquiry with the details of those questions and answers, but they were a pack of lies, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You lied, not only about the murder but you also lied about the Numsa thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You denied all knowledge of the Numsa thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And more particularly if you look questions 28, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 53 to 57, they related to the Numsa thefts and you consistently falsely denied all knowledge of anything relating to those thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: I would have denied it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Not would have, you did.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes. I can't see my answers here now but I presume I denied it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now you made this statement on the 5th of January 1993, do you remember that or can I show you the ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: No, I'll accept the advocate's word, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: By then the interception and theft of mail of which the Numsa thefts formed part, had been

exposed.

MR BELLINGAN: Not really, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What do you mean "not really"? A report had appeared in the Mail & Guardian detailing that operation.

MR BELLINGAN: There were allegations, Mr Chairman, but it had not been confirmed by the mainstream media.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at your exhibit, bundle 4. The page 1 in that bundle you'll see is the affidavit of Major van der Merwe, which you endorsed, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And if you turn to page 5, paragraph 12 you'll see that he tells us that in June 1992 this operation had been exposed by the Mail & Guardian.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That was more than six months prior to your warning statement to Captain Steyn.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you'll see that he refers to the ...(end of tape) ... annexed that report to your exhibit but if you would refer to our bundle, bundle 5, page 112 you'll find a copy of that report. Can you confirm that that is the report that was meant to be annexed to the van der Merwe affidavit?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It's a Mail & Guardian report of the 19th of June 1992, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you'll see in the first paragraph, well look at the heading, the heading says

"Stealing cheques and intercepting mail. The South African Security Police are past masters of dirty tricks says the man who should know. He played some of those cheques himself. Here he tells the story of the widespread interception of mail and the theft of trade union cheques."

And then the report itself says the following:

"John Horak ..."

That's the man from whom you got your cheques, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Not directly, Mr Chairman, but yes, they came from his office to our office, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE

"John Horak says he had firsthand knowledge of a police campaign to steal cheques sent to trade unions from their branch offices. The aim was to sow division amongst union ranks."

That is a description amongst others, of the Numsa threats, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE

"Horak says the security police's Intelligence Division in the de Villiers Building in Pretoria initiated a project in which cheques to and from trade unions were intercepted, mostly at the main Jeppe Post Office in Johannesburg. These cheques were then paid into false accounts and the money used in operations against the unions."

Correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you'll see he goes on

"When the union head office would enquire from branches why they did not pay subscriptions for instance, the branch office would reply that they did and even produce receipts or used cheques coming back from the banks. This operation says Horak, was performed by a Brigadier whose name was supplied, of the security police in Port Elizabeth. It cost the trade unions a lot of money and cast suspicion on many officials who would not be trusted again. By now the unions have learnt their lesson says Horak, and they only use couriers or bank drafts. Horak spent the last period of his career in the security police as head of the library."

And then in the second column he continues with the Horak exposure. He says:

"Sometimes dishonest policemen stole money or other items from the mail. Horak says the police once stole a large amount of money that came from abroad for Dr Beyers Naude. He also says the finest selection of pornography in South Africa is to be found at John Vorster Square, all stolen from the mail."

What does he mean by the statement that dishonest policemen stole money from the mail?

MR BELLINGAN: That is at the time that the mail is opened, Mr Chairman, then I know that it did happen very rarely that certain things were taken. For example I bought some stamps once from somebody who I know had worked there. I didn't ask him where he got the stuff but at the price he was selling them to me at, he must have taken it from the mail. That was not - that was certainly a huge exception, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You were a dishonest policeman, weren't you?

MR BELLINGAN: That is not what Colonel Horak is referring to.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, just answer the question, though.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, not in the sense of being dishonest to my duties.

MR TRENGOVE: You were dishonest and you were a policeman.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: He continues

"Says Horak, thousands of persons post vanishes weekly and it all ends up in the same building in Pretoria. There is a five storey building with one large floor full of books and documents and every book and document was stolen. It is above the ..."

And he gives a name of a pharmacy.

"... in Pretorius Street. My deputies at that time who could verify all this were Leon van der Merwe, who is now a Tukkies official and Charl van der Merwe, now in charge of security police training in Pietersburg."

Now the operation had been exposed by a senior officer intimately involved in it.

MR BELLINGAN: I might add, Mr Chairman, that he was suspected of being a double-agent.

MR TRENGOVE: That might be, but what could you add who had less credibility than he had in the public mind, to this exposure?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps in the public mind but certainly not in the minds of my colleagues, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, certainly. And yet you lied to Steyn about this project.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, I did.

MR TRENGOVE: Steyn who was a fellow policeman.

MR BELLINGAN: No, there's quite a huge difference between the investigating officer and myself, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well he was a member of the South African Police.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who could be trusted not to sacrifice the best interests of the country.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I understood that we could not trust the investigating officer, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why not?

MR BELLINGAN: Because he insisted on probing these matters, he insisted on being guided by the family in pursuing matters which were exposing the Security Branch.

MR TRENGOVE: You mean you couldn't trust him because he was an honest cop?

MR BELLINGAN: In a certain sense yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But you claim that this project had the authority and the blessing of the highest authority within the police.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It had the blessing and the authority of Captain Steyn's superior officers.

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't have a problem with Captain Steyn's superior officers, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So why should you have any reason when speaking to Captain Steyn, to tell him of a project of which his superiors were already aware?

MR BELLINGAN: Firstly, it would then be documented, Mr Chairman, and secondly, we could not trust Willie Steyn.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, he already had the documents from the, Janine's locker at work. All he was asking you was about your involvement in that scheme. The scheme had been exposed by the Weekly Mail and it carried the blessing of the highest authority including your boss and Steyn's boss, why not admit to him that you were involved in it?

MR BELLINGAN: The investigating officer didn't know about the annexures here, Mr Chairman. The documents that he had, those that hadn't gone missing, I presume it would in any case go missing or the fingerprint people would fluff it somehow or something would be duffed with it. The idea was to deny everything, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I know that was your idea, I'm trying to reconcile your denial in your interview with Steyn with your explanation for it. I'm suggesting to you that you again just lied to save the skin of Michael Bellingan. There was no political motive served at all.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I disagree with the advocate completely, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: At the inquest you gave evidence in April 1994.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The inquest court embarked on a detailed inquiry into the Numsa thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In public.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It made its finding against you on the 6th of May 1994.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It held that there were prima facie evidence that you had been guilty of the murder of your wife.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Again on that occasion, why lie about the murder? Leave aside the Numsa thefts for the moment. Why lie about the murder?

MR BELLINGAN: It would have defeated the entire object if in a public inquiry at that time I had have told the truth, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The truth, namely that you had murdered your wife?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That would have brought an end to the inquiry and a prosecution would have followed.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it would have confirmed the media's speculation about the fact that there was a huge coverup about Security Branch operations. They did not know that as a fact.

MR TRENGOVE: And what your lie about the murder achieved was to trigger a public inquiry into the Numsa thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: The - I'm not sure exactly that there was this huge public inquiry, Mr Chairman, but I was confronted at the inquest with very capable and competent advocates who are here today, who were Numsa's advocates but who acted for the family and they presented fairly conclusive proof, Mr Chairman, about my handwriting etc., etc.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, yes, so it not only lent a great deal of publicity to this project but exposed its operation?

MR BELLINGAN: All the more reason to deny it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I thought the very purpose of your lies was to conceal these things and keep them secret. I'm suggesting to you that that could not have been your motive because your conduct had the opposite effect.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I think I managed to quieten things down for a long time after the inquest.

MR TRENGOVE: One of the themes you ran in your evidence-in-chief was how all your colleagues were covering for you, and you said in that regard that there would not have been an inquest if it had not been for the police media pressure - sorry, political media pressure. Where do you - on what do you base that?

MR BELLINGAN: I know that there was a lot of pressure on the South African Police in terms of the fact that there were suggestions of a coverup, from the family and from people that they had spoken to. They went to the highest authority, Mr Chairman. The media had picked up quite a lot of information along the way and the matter was media driven by the time there was an inquest.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but by law there has to be either a prosecution or an inquest.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The fact that there was an inquest was not the product of media pressure, it was a requirement of law.

MR BELLINGAN: Actually, Mr Chairman, the opinion of one of the top people in the Security Branch was that there shouldn't be an inquest because of the fact that hearsay was admissible etc., etc. His opinion was that it would be far better for me to be charged, get it over with and we could get on with things again. Because of the media pressure I could get on with my career etc. That was what he told me. As it turns out it didn't happen that way.

MR TRENGOVE: At the inquest you again lied through your teeth.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And after the finding had been brought out against you, you denigrated it publicly, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Most likely, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at bundle B5, page 24. Mr Bellingan, - no that's the wrong document and it may be that my pagination is wrong. I have in mind a newspaper clipping headed

"Inquest finding a puerile vendetta"

36 I'm told. Do you have that report?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Please read the first three paragraphs.

MR BELLINGAN

"A puerile vendetta is what has shocked Michael Bellingan called yesterday's inquest finding, which held him responsible for the death of his wife, Janine. It's a very childish and one-sided vendetta by her family. They went from the kitchen maid to the State President to get satisfaction. It's been building up to a witch hunt all along. The investigating officer never tried to exclude me as a suspect. He narrow-mindedly followed that line. The outcome today is the result of the combined efforts of a narrow focus investigation and a family vendetta."

MR TRENGOVE: Your insult again was a blatant lie.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Your insult of the investigating officer was a blatant lie.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have you apologised to him for it?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I have not.

MR TRENGOVE: Why not?

MR BELLINGAN: I was upset as were my colleagues, with Major Steyn, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Because he was an honest cop?

MR BELLINGAN: Well things have changed now, Mr Chairman. I have a different view of the matter now, but I have not seen Willie Steyn for a long time.

MR TRENGOVE: Are you just waiting for an opportunity to apologise to him?

MR BELLINGAN: Well frankly, it never occurred to me, Mr Chairman but perhaps an apology is due, most likely it is I think.

MR TRENGOVE: This time why did you lie?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, the idea was to take the heat off the Security Branch, not to increase the heat on the Security Branch. It happens that the family did not like me at all and it happens that they, during the inquest there was information that they had been to various parties including opposition Ministers, I think Zack de Beer, etc., etc. They's been to Generals in the Police Force. They'd been to see General van der Merwe etc., etc., etc., so it wasn't a complete lie. But it is true that I utilised it to mislead the public.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, you accused them of a puerile

vendetta.

MR BELLINGAN: Well I apologise for that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you accused them of ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: To them that is.

MR TRENGOVE: You accused them of a puerile vendetta despite the fact that you knew that you were the murderer and deserved to be prosecuted.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And your apology came only eight years later in your application for amnesty.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What persuaded you after eight years to say that you were sorry?

MR BELLINGAN: The opportunity.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. Did you not in the last eight years have the opportunity to do so?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In the same report in the third column you speak about your late wife, and you said of her, for instance at the end of that first paragraph in the third column

"She was neurotic and exaggerated things."

And you continue:

"Referring to the outcome of the inquest as the very last thing he had expected, Bellingan dressed in a pinstripe suit said: 'To say that something relating to my work is a motive, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.'"

It's no longer your version is it?

MR BELLINGAN: Not at all, Mr Chairman, we've told the truth now.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that that is the only true statement that you made at the time.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. It would have been the wrong thing to do to give anyone any perception that there was anything connected with my work, regarding anything to do with Janine, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: On the 16th of March 1994, just before you gave your evidence in the inquest, you applied for a visa to emigrate to New Zealand.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And in fact you left three weeks after the finding had been made against you.

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at bundle 5, page 26. Do you have it? That's your application for permanent residence in New Zealand, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And if you look at page 34 you will see that you signed it on the 16th of March 1994, both you and your new wife.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But in this application again you lied, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Could I ask that the advocate could be more specific please.

MR TRENGOVE: Well don't you remember whether you lied in this application or not?

MR BELLINGAN: I would just like to be referred to something specific because it's ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm going to but I'm just asking you without looking at it, whether you don't remember that you lied in this application.

MR BELLINGAN: I remember, Mr Chairman, that I think there was an annexure attached to it setting out that I had left the South African Police at a time period prior to my leaving the South African Police. The idea was to take the heat off any connection with myself and covert operations of the Security Branch. The last people I would want to alert to that fact would be the New Zealand Immigration authorities, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So you lied?

MR BELLINGAN: There's one small white lie, Mr Chairman, and that is relating to the date I left the South African Police.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 31, do you see that in that page at the top of the page, paragraph 57, you're required to give details of your employment history since leaving school, college or university, do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then you say - you disclose your membership of the South African Police but you firstly do not disclose your connection to the Security Branch.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you say that you had been, from 1984 to 1990, had been in the South African Police head office as a Personnel Officer.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Which was false?

MR BELLINGAN: Mostly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then you say that after 1990, in February 1990 you severed your connection with the South African Police and thereafter no longer had any connection with them.

MR BELLINGAN: That's false, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And in the next paragraph you describe your present occupation as Personnel Manager and Consultant. Also false?

MR BELLINGAN: That's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And if you go to page 33 ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: May I just add that I did indeed work for these two companies, Mr Chairman, but it is not as portrayed on the application over here. It was part-time work for them.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 33, about a third from the top you will see there are those little blocks all marked "no". The last question you were asked

"Do you have any reason to believe that you or any member of your family are currently under investigation by any law enforcement agency in any country?"

And you said:

"No."

MR BELLINGAN: I said no because, Mr Chairman, I received a police certificate to that effect.

MR TRENGOVE: You're asked here not to tell the New Zealand Immigration authorities what your police certificate says but what the truth is, and the truth was that you were the prime suspect in a murder case which was about to go into an inquest.

MR BELLINGAN: All that they required was a police clearance, Mr Chairman, and I got that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, they asked you a question and they expected an honest answer, and you gave them a false one.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I expected to get indemnity for that, I did not expect to be charged.

MR TRENGOVE: Read the question, Mr Bellingan

"Do you have any reason to believe that you or any member of your family are currently under investigation by any law enforcement agency in any country?"

That question is absolutely clear. And to be a prime suspect in a murder case I would imagine qualifies as being subject to an investigation by a law enforcement agency in a country.

MR BELLINGAN: There was an inquest, Mr Chairman. At any point in time the Attorney-General could have ordered my ...(indistinct) during the inquest.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: I got a police clearance and I was quite certain that there would not be any prosecution.

MR TRENGOVE: That's not the point, Mr Bellingan, the question is not have you or are you ...(indistinct) prosecuted, the question is are you under investigation?

MR BELLINGAN: By Major Willie Steyn etc.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: I never thought that would come to anything, Mr Chairman, but I understand what the advocate is getting at and in a sense yes.

MR TRENGOVE: Not in a sense, you were the quint essential case that they have in mind here, a murder suspect.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I just want to make sure about what my learned friend is putting. I understand him to be putting to the witness that after the inquest there was still an investigation going on in respect of this matter. Now I just want to be clear about that, I don't know what the position is. I just want to know if that is what my learned friend is putting.

MR TRENGOVE: No, it is not, Mr Chairman. On the date that this report was signed was in March 1994 and that was when the inquest was pending but the witness had not yet given evidence, the applicant had not yet given evidence and the finding had not yet been made.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Please proceed.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I suggest to you that that answer was clearly false.

MR BELLINGAN: Firstly, Mr Chairman, I ask you to consider my perception of the matter and then secondly, how ridiculous it would have seemed if I had submitted such a form with some explanation attached to this answer. Nothing would come of any of those things, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: If you had told the New Zealand Immigration authorities yes, indeed I'm under investigation for the murder of my wife, don't you think they would have been interested in assessing your application for emigration?

MR BELLINGAN: No, they never would do that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I see. So you lied to them because you didn't think - despite their question, you didn't think that the information would interest them?

MR BELLINGAN: There would have been absolutely no point in submitting this application, had I made any reference to the Security Branch, Mr Chairman. At the time when I handed this form in over there, there was already a scandal in the media about a certain right-wing person who had come into New Zealand from South Africa, from the Church of the Creator etc., etc.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, it would have been fatal to your application. That is why you committed fraud, to defraud the New Zealand authorities because you knew if they'd been told the truth they would have denied your application.

MR BELLINGAN: On the other hand, Mr Chairman, if I wanted to be open about the Security Branch, if that was my intention, then I would have applied for political amnesty. It was my intention to get myself out of the spotlight in South Africa, out of the potential problem that, the dilemma I was in as to wether I was going to be on the side of the liberation movements or whether I was going to stick with my colleagues, Mr Chairman. What I did was I went to New Zealand.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you misunderstand me. I'm not accusing you of honesty, I'm accusing you of dishonesty. I'm accusing you of the lies that you told in this document.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, the advocate is correct.

MR TRENGOVE: What I want to suggest to you is that these lies were told for the personal benefit of Michael Bellingan and for no other reason.

MR BELLINGAN: Partially, Mr Chairman, concerning this document.

MR TRENGOVE: If you had spoken the truth, neither the South African Police nor the South African public would have learnt anything that they didn't know anyway.

MR BELLINGAN: Sorry, the truth about?

MR TRENGOVE: No secrets would have been revealed if you had spoken the truth in this document.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, how could I possibly have elaborated upon the business of the Truth Commission in a document to a foreign country, that's absurd.

MR TRENGOVE: What I'm suggesting to you is that your explanation for telling these same lies on other occasions has been that you had a political motive to conceal secrets of the security police. On this occasion you told the same lies but you had no conceivable political motive at all.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that's not correct. I was under a lot of pressure, that's true but it's specifically because of the covert operations that I had to do this. I didn't particularly want to go and live in some foreign country, Mr Chairman. I had to do it.

MR TRENGOVE: You departed for New Zealand at the end of May 1994.

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's correct.

MR TRENGOVE: 29th of May 1994.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But from - and you settled there and you started a business.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But from very early on the New Zealand media picked up the story and started exerting pressure on government to investigate your emigration application.

MR BELLINGAN: Because, Mr Chairman, the weekly Mail and Guardian had sent packages of all the newspaper clippings concerning myself and the Security Branch, to all the media in New Zealand. That is why they picked up on it.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, would you just confine your answers to my questions. The media pressure eventually prompted the New Zealand authorities to look at your application and they started an investigation.

MR BELLINGAN: I understand so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And the inevitable outcome of that investigation would have been that they would have revoked your permanent residence permit and would have deported you?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, not at all. In fact they were very helpful.

MR TRENGOVE: Very helpful in the sense that they - what did they, did they appreciate the lies that you'd told or congratulated you on it? In what way did they help in that investigation?

MR BELLINGAN: No, they - I went to see them and they were quite helpful. They had a couple of questions for me and when I wanted to go back to South Africa, when my wife went back, when my children went back, we all got permanent visas to return, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at pages ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Returning Residents Visas, sorry. They're called Returning Residents Visas. In all of our passports we got returning residents visas. Till this day, Mr Chairman, if somebody would give my passport back to me, there'd be a stamp in it: Returning Residents Visa to New Zealand.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at pages 37 to 40 of bundle B5, it includes New Zealand and South African news clippings on the public outcry and the government investigation into the permanent residence that was granted to you in New Zealand. 37 to 40. I'm not interested particularly in the details of it, I just ask you to identify them as specimens.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman. One - two from New Zealand papers, one from a South African paper.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, the South African report is the one ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Oh sorry, it goes further, it's two by South African, two by New Zealand.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja.

MR BELLINGAN: I see Patrick Lawrence's report here too.

MR TRENGOVE: You came back to South Africa, were arrested and applied for bail.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The bail application was heard on the 9th of November 1994, and you were granted bail.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You gave evidence in that application.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The magistrate held in his judgment on the bail application, or said in the course of that judgment, that he was quite satisfied that you were a very accomplished liar

"One of the best that I've had the privilege to see."

Do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: I do, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Because you had lied in your evidence in that application.

MR BELLINGAN: Most likely I did, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why, what political motive did you serve on that occasion?

MR BELLINGAN: The media had a very strong interest in it, Mr Chairman. Not only that, Mr Nick Roodt from Bell Dewar & Hall was there.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, I know they were there.

MR BELLINGAN: Amongst other reasons, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm asking you what political motive did your lies serve?

MR BELLINGAN: It still would have defeated the objective of the whole exercise if I had opened up about it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, but I'm suggesting - that is quite true, but the objective of the of the whole exercise was to save the skin of Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I don't think that the advocate understands yet, Mr Chairman, that was not the objective of the exercise.

MR TRENGOVE: The trial, the prosecution and the trial took place, I'm not sure when it began but it ended in March 1995, when you were convicted and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You gave evidence in the course of the trial?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I did, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You again lied through your teeth.

MR BELLINGAN: I did, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Both in relation to the murder and the Numsa thefts.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What political motive did you serve on that occasion?

MR BELLINGAN: The advocate is not seriously suggesting that I should have opened up about this, when there was even more media attention and focus on it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You petitioned for leave to appeal on the 19th of April 1995, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And part of that petition in the normal, ...(indistinct) point of the normal procedure, you attested to an affidavit swearing to the truth of your petition.

MR BELLINGAN: I think so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Even though it again just repeated all

your lies?

MR BELLINGAN: It may be the case. I don't remember all the detail, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You apparently had some fallout with your lawyers because after the formal petition prepared by your lawyers had been submitted, you prepared a very voluminous supplement to your petition, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: There was no fallout, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well that's what you said in the petition. I don't know whether it's true or not, but you explain that the supplement was being made personally because of difficulties with your lawyers.

MR BELLINGAN: There was a supplement to the petition, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And again, that supplement was submitted on the 17th of July 1995 and again sworn to by yourself?

MR BELLINGAN: It sounds true, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Again repeating all the lies and protesting your innocence.

MR BELLINGAN: Could I request Adv Trengove to be specific about what lies he's talking about.

MR TRENGOVE: Well you protested your innocence of murder.

MR BELLINGAN: In that respect, yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And you elaborated on it in very, very many pages, it's a thick voluminous application. Do you remember it?

MR BELLINGAN: It's legal argument, Mr Chairman. I do remember.

MR TRENGOVE: Now that takes us to July 1995, do you still say that you were lying for political reasons?

MR BELLINGAN: It's everybody's right to submit a petition for leave to appeal, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I know, but you also lied in doing so. I'm asking you why you lied.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, everybody's entitled to a fair trial, whether they're guilty of the crime or not guilty of the crime.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, let me not debate with you whether you were entitled to lie or not. I'm simply asking you why you lied.

MR BELLINGAN: The advocate is not seriously suggesting that I should petition the Chief Justice and say I apologise for having committed the crime at the same time?

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm seriously suggesting to you that honest people usually tell the truth. And I'm asking you why in your trial, in your first petition and in your second petition you persisted in your dishonest

defence?

MR BELLINGAN: The two things are not connected, Mr Chairman. The petition is quite distinct from the trial, Mr Chairman. The trial is the public matter, the petition is, as I say it's based on legal and technical arguments etc., etc., etc.

MR TRENGOVE: If you wish let's take the trial, March 1995, why lie to the judge?

MR BELLINGAN: It would have defeated the whole object of the operation, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you can't seriously be suggesting that you were still protecting, still lying for the sake of your country in March 1995, when you perjured yourself in the High Court?

MR BELLINGAN: I never expected to be found guilty, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I know, I know, you acted like a common criminal trying to escape justice. But you claim to have acted all along with a higher motive, namely a political motive and I'm challenging that suggestion. I'm suggesting to you that on this occasion at least, there was no higher motive involved, you were just trying to save your skin?

MR BELLINGAN: No, that is not true, Mr Chairman. I wouldn't have returned from New Zealand if that was the case. I was quite certain that I wouldn't be found guilty. And it's very easy to sit here today, but if the advocate put himself in my shoes, I wonder what he would have done, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That's not the question, Mr Bellingan, please address the question, why did you lie at your trial?

MR BELLINGAN: Because it was necessary to lie, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Necessary for what?

MR BELLINGAN: So that we did not, I did not have to elaborate on the operations of the Security Branch.

MR TRENGOVE: Why not? This is March 1995, a new government is in place, all the revelations have been made, this legislation under which these proceedings are being conducted was about to be enacted.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, what revelations had been made? If my learned friend can be specific. In March 1995, the Truth Commission hadn't even started yet, no evidence apart from, as I can recall, Nofomela, Dirk Coetzee was public, not even Mamasela's evidence was public. So with respect, Mr Chairman, perhaps the question should be just be placed in perspective.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Trengove, you've noted that?

MR TRENGOVE: Why did you lie, Mr Bellingan?

MR BELLINGAN: It was necessary to lie, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Necessary for what purpose?

MR BELLINGAN: So that I would not be in a position where I would have to take sides and make revelations, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Make revelations about what?

MR BELLINGAN: About the operations of the Security Branch, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The Numsa frauds?

MR BELLINGAN: In particular the Numsa fraud was first on the agenda, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That had been elaborately disclosed at the time of your inquest, why not tell the truth about it?

MR BELLINGAN: It had been - there were allegations about it, there was strong evidence about it but there could be no public discussion about it because the matter would then at the very worst be sub judice in one sense or another, charges of fraud against myself or civil proceedings from Numsa, or murder charges or something like that but nothing would come of those matters because if I was ever charged, for which I'd doubted it because I'd signed an indemnity form, it would have been covered up.

MR TRENGOVE: Can I remind you - you know when you were asked these things in your evidence-in-chief, you didn't have this difficulty at all, you explained that you lied because you thought that your deal with your colleagues still held good, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, ...(indistinct)

MR TRENGOVE: So why not give us that answer?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps I've been more clear now about it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And the deal was that your skin would be saved provided you didn't make any disclosure, you'd get indemnity?

MR BELLINGAN: Well the indemnity didn't require the disclosure of any acts, Mr Chairman, the idea was to just keep quiet about it, I would be found guilty, that would be the end of the matter.

MR TRENGOVE: You would have it that you lied then only because that was the quid pro quo for indemnity, there's no elevated purpose involved. This was - the skin of Michael Bellingan was the only prize at stake.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, the indemnity form that was given to me was after my first day's testimony at the inquest and it still held good up to that point in time, except that there were rumours that the ANC was not going to recognise it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You were convicted only because of the sterling police work of Captain Steyn.

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's true to say, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who investigated this case with detective work of the highest quality, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: He persisted, Mr Chairman. In spite of all the odds, he persisted.

MR TRENGOVE: And with a great deal of sophistication?

MR BELLINGAN: I'll stick with my answer that he persisted, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I'm suggesting to you that not only did he persevere but he also conducted that investigation with a great deal of sophistication. You just have to look at all the forensic evidence.

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps that's true, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. After you second petition was turned down, you had had come to the end of the legal route and any prospect of escaping punishment, correct? - shall I say the judicial route. Let's not call it the legal route, but you'd run to the top Court ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: And you'd been turned down and that was final as far as that route was concerned?

MR BELLINGAN: Well, one more thing after that. I think it would Section 375 or 275 - 375.

MR TRENGOVE: Now you then applied for amnesty and you filled out that first application form, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I filled out the skeleton application form, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And you prepared the document which was subsequently typed up and today form, constitute pages 8 to 13 of the bundle, of the application bundle?

MR BELLINGAN: It's - there is seven pages in my handwriting, Mr Chairman, correct.

MR TRENGOVE: No, have a look at the bundle. After the completed form we get back to that annexure which you and I have debated at length on the first day of my examination of you, and we established that you hadn't seen this particular document in this form before but that because someone else had typed it up, but that you were the source of the information and the author of the document. Do you remember that evidence?

MR BELLINGAN: That I was the, most likely the source of the information, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And the author of the document, let's not ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: And in that sense, the author of the document, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 12, paginated page 12. Do you have it? You tell the story of the murder or your wife, from a sentence which starts just above the middle of the page with the words

"In September 1991"

Do you see that sentence? It's a page - the first word on the page is:

"members"

Do you have the right page?

MR BELLINGAN: Mine is not paginated, sorry - "members", I've got it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now on that page if you go down to just above the middle, there's a sentence that starts, after the distorted reference to Unterhalter, there's a sentence that starts

"In September 1991"

Correct, do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN

"In September 1991"

MR TRENGOVE: That is the version of the murder that you gave at that time, and I'd like you to read it up to the second last line on that page. Could you do so please?

MR BELLINGAN: Again, Mr Chairman, I can't understand what this document is doing in my amnesty application. It's not intended to be in my amnesty application, it never was part of my amnesty application.

MR TRENGOVE: Would you read it please?

MR BELLINGAN

"In September 1991, I was contacted at my office by a middle-aged man, bearded, spoke English with Afrikaans accent, not give me a name. We met across the road from office and he informed me that Janine had been compiling reports about covert operations. He also played me a conversation obviously taped from the telephone, wherein Janine stated that she had documents and reports she would be willing to expose. He reiterated the obvious fact that this was a problem in view of the sensitivity of the transitionary phase in politics, that is would affect now(sic) only mine but others' careers as well. He used the same words as General Erasmus i.e. manage the problem. General Erasmus had used these words regarding any investigation into the Numsa matter. During this meeting this chap suggested that we stage a burglary whilst I was out of town. When I told him that all hell would break loose with Janine if she thought I removed any documents she had written etc. The idea was not only to get the documents but also to scare Janine without implicating me. The staged burglary would minimise Janine's suspicions that I might be involved. He told me that it would be arranged for my next trip, which he already knew was to Natal. He said that he would continue to establish where the documents would be. I was reminded to shut up because they had to step in to manage my problem. The same chap fetched me in Pietermaritzburg on the 20th of September 1991. He said we would find the documents, we would find documentation under Janine's car seat and in her briefcase. Once we were in Gallo Manor, a black man who was waiting in the vicinity and I went onto my property. We went in through the front door and I rendered Janine unconscious with a spanner the other chap had. This was a problem because the first time I struck it was too soft and she started to make a noise so I had to hit her again quickly a second time. Whilst the black chap went through Janine's cupboard, I searched her briefcase. I then went to the garage after pulling the burglar bars loose on a window in the dining-room which already open. Although there was nothing in her briefcase, there were documents of a top-secret nature emanating from my office under her car seat. When I went back to the window with broken burglar bars, the black man was passing some bags of clothing and documents through it. He said we should go. The reason I went to the garage and left the other person in the house was because it necessitated walking outside and my male German shepherd was growling at the black chap. The first-mentioned person then took me back to Pietermaritzburg. During the course of the morning of the 21st of September, I was informed that Janine had died. The realisation that I was involved in the death of my wife sank in and I was shocked. Later I heard that she had been strangled with the hairdryer cord ..."

MR TRENGOVE: Thank you, you can stop there. A pack of lies, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Most of this is incorrect, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Most of it is a lie, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: A lie told to conjure up a political motive where none existed before?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, this is not an amnesty application, political motive doesn't have anything to do with it.

MR TRENGOVE: Why did you conjure up this lie about the suggesting that this was a security police operation?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I was sitting in prison, there were people coming to see me. In order to get people to start looking into the matter, in order to get information, I had to give information at the same time but I was under absolutely no obligation to tell the truth. I've explained this before. I objected to this document being included. It never formed any part of my amnesty application. My signature doesn't appear on this document, and I had not seen this document prior to it being presented to me a week ago.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I understand you to say you told a lie for two reasons, firstly because you were not obliged to speak the truth and secondly because you had to give some to get some, is that a fair summary of your explanation for your lie?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, and also to see who was I dealing with.

MR TRENGOVE: The first part of your explanation is a non-explanation, one doesn't lie just because there's no obligation to speak the truth, does one? I suppose it takes at a reason for you to lie.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not entirely sure what the advocate means but I was under no obligation to speak the truth, Mr Chairman. As far as myself and even my last, or the attorney that had come to see me at the time was concerned, I was under the impression that I would be subpoenaed before an investigative hearing, Mr Chairman. Then that would have been a different matter altogether, but in order to get to that stage I needed to know where I stood, who the people were that I was dealing with and what I could say, what I couldn't say, how far I could go, what the safety, the position of the safety of my family was, etc., etc., etc. It's not an easy matter, Mr Chairman, it's not a straightforward matter.

MR TRENGOVE: And you thought that the way to get information out of them is to tell them a pack of lies?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, if I had told a pack of lies, nobody would have shown any interest whatsoever, they would have left me alone in Diepkloof Maximum Prison.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but that's what you did. That's one thing that you and I agree on. You did tell them a pack of lies. I'm still trying to find out why you did so.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I did not tell them a pack of lies, but I did not tell them the complete truth either.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that this is your first attempt at creating a political motive, for purposes of this application.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that is ridiculous and I deny it and it's not the case at all.

MR TRENGOVE: And you ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct) the motive concerns an amnesty application, this is not an amnesty application.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that this clearly was drafted for purposes of the amnesty application, and it was a dishonest attempt to create a political motive for the murder.

MR BELLINGAN: Sure, Mr Chairman, that's why it does not refer to me committing a murder but my skeleton application says murder.

MR TRENGOVE: That was the problem. That was the problem, that's why this wasn't good enough. If this version were to be believed, you were guilty of no more than an assault. Your accomplice committed the murder, which you hadn't foreseen.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: And I'm very likely to make a mistake like that with an amnesty application, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well you're the sort of guy, you're the sort of guy who leaves your shoes on the murder scene, Mr Bellingan, it wouldn't be beyond you to make a mistake of law as well.

MR BELLINGAN: It's not beyond me to make a mistake of law, Mr Chairman, but I would never be such an idiot to make a mistake like this.

MR TRENGOVE: And I want to tell you that we would submit to the Commission that your current application is just another attempt at the same thing, to create a political objective where none existed before.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. Of course it is an attempt to demonstrate the political objective, but it's most certainly not that one never existed before. It existed all along, Mr Chairman. There's another thing too, Mr Chairman. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me just to deny this document, instead I need to be open about it, I need to talk about this annexure.

MR TRENGOVE: Don't you have any inhibition about telling lies? You say it would have been the easiest thing in the world to deny it ...(indistinct) a lie.

MR BELLINGAN: But I didn't, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I beg your pardon?

MR BELLINGAN: I did not do that.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, I know.

MR BELLINGAN: Before this Commission.

MR TRENGOVE: And lies sometimes get caught out.

MR BELLINGAN: Well of course, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. When your counsel first put your version, the version you gave him, on record at the commencement of these proceedings, the effect of that explanation was that you had no idea at all where this document came from. In fact when that explanation was probed in cross-examination, it turned out that you had a very good idea because you were the source and the author of it. The only thing you didn't know was who ultimately typed it up.

MR BELLINGAN: It remains true, Mr Chairman, that the document I don't know.

MR TRENGOVE: And then, Mr Bellingan, you came to give evidence in this inquest, in this inquiry about the murder, and in describing the facts of the murder you read almost verbatim from a note that you had prepared, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't think I read ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Do you have the note with you?

MR BELLINGAN: It is somewhere, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you get it please?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I may mention once again I wasn't presented with a copy. Obviously my client is in possession of the original one and he's in jail, so it's not easy to share the same copy.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I understand that.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, do you have the note?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, I do.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you confirm that it is a note comprising of five pages?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In your handwriting?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: May we hand it in as an exhibit, Mr Chairman? Exhibit?

CHAIRPERSON: I think it would be Exhibit D.

MR TRENGOVE: D?

CHAIRPERSON: Ja.

MR TRENGOVE: We're in the process of making more copies and I'll certainly hand it out. I'm not going to examine the witness about this in any detail because we can all read it.

But Mr Bellingan, could you just keep the original in front of you, do you still have it there?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You'll see that it tells the story that you told in your evidence-in-chief and on the first and second pages you have the times annotated in the left-hand margin, to remind yourself when things took place.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I made this note as a note for myself as an estimation, knowing that I would be testifying about something that is very sensitive to myself. This is simply some type of rough estimate from my memory, Mr Chairman, and these times here don't reflect with any accuracy whatsoever. I'm saying if that's the case then possibly that might be the time because obviously someone's going to ask me about that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you please number the pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5? Do you remember how this note was disclosed to the hearing, at the adjournment I asked for it. Your counsel asked for an opportunity to consider your position and on the resumption we were then given the note. I think it was over teatime if I'm not mistaken. Do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And during that break you scratched on this note rather feverishly.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, this is ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Did you not ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: This is an aid to my memory. My notes, if I go through them I always sit with a pen in my hand, I write, I make notes, I underline.

MR TRENGOVE: Let's leave out the feverishly. You sat there during that adjournment scratching on the note, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I may have scratched on the note, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And today there are parts of the note which have been, not only deleted, but scratched out in a way which makes it all but illegible. Do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Most people find my handwriting illegible, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Just answer the question.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I see it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I would like to ask you to assist us only in reconstructing the bits that you deleted because the rest of it we can all read.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I place something on record here because I think it is important to do so. During that break, Mr Bellingan asked me if he could change anything on the document, I said no. I went out of the room, when I came back I saw him changing things on the document. I scolded him and I said he shouldn't do so and I told him not to do so. I think that it's important to place that before the Committee, and I think I have a duty as a legal officer to do that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, so you made the changes despite your counsel's advice to the contrary?

MR BELLINGAN: No, it's not correct, Mr Chairman, I didn't change anything in the sense of writing anything down on it.

MR TRENGOVE: You took things out, Mr Bellingan.

MR BELLINGAN: I simply - in two places over here I, something that had been scratched out, I simply wanted to scratch it out some more because - that's all there is to it, Mr Chairman. It was already scratched out on my notes.

MR TRENGOVE: But why scratch it out some more?

MR BELLINGAN: I made a mistake the first time when I was writing it, Mr Chairman. I don't know anyone in this audience who can sit and write five pages of some incident that took place so many years ago without making any mistakes.

MR TRENGOVE: That's not the question, Mr Bellingan. If it had already been scratched out, why scratch it out again?

MR BELLINGAN: Because then it's not relevant. If I wanted to scratch it out in the first place, Mr Chairman, why would I ever want to give to the entire audience, Mr Chairman, if ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ...(indistinct) accurate.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 1, the second line. You said

"During the day I went across to the OK and purchased a hooded raincoat, plastic."

And then you deleted and a spanner.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then over on page 2 in the second paragraph on that page

"At Jan Smuts I left using my official vehicle, a blue Mazda 626. I told the teller my ticket was lost, so I paid a penalty and was allowed to go."

And then you scratched out something that I'm unable to decipher, can you tell us how it read before the deletion?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, it was not something which was in any way accurate, I rewrote it.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, that's not what I'm asking you, I'm asking you simply to tell us what the document said before you made the deletion.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't remember, Mr Chairman. In fact, what I did was to explain further over here when I say

"In fact I simply ..."

It runs on from the previous sentence, Mr Chairman. There's no interruption in my train of thought at all over there. I'm simply ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: ... going on by expressing it in a more clear fashion.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you don't need to defend your deletion at this stage, I'm simply asking you to tell us to decipher the sentence, the deleted sentence, before its deletion.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, I can't remember what I wrote.

MR TRENGOVE: And then lower down on that page ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, sorry, Mr Trengove.

When did you delete this?

MR BELLINGAN: It was deleted already in my prison cell, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But when?

MR BELLINGAN: When I made the note, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, when?

MR BELLINGAN: It was possible sometime before the hearing started, Mr Chairman. I sat in my cell and I made some notes about, as an aid to myself. I don't recall exactly when, Mr Chairman. Which day exactly, I don't recall.

CHAIRPERSON: So you've forgotten what you had written here?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I don't remember what I wrote there, Mr Chairman, but reading from the previous sentence and the next one there's no interruption in my train of thought. It must just be something I expressed the wrong way or something I had in mind which was irrelevant or which was an error perhaps and that it why I deleted it in the first place.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you delete during the adjournment?

MR BELLINGAN: I see initially ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Against the advice of Mr du Plessis.

MR BELLINGAN: No, okay, those were things that were already deleted, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, yes, yes, what did you delete?

MR BELLINGAN: This is one of the things.

CHAIRPERSON: This, on page 2?

MR BELLINGAN: Well actually no, I think he may have come in then. At one point in time he came in and started to complain to me about that and I didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing, so I did it one more time and then he was insistent on me and then I left it. It was - it could have been that one and then I continued with the next one perhaps.

CHAIRPERSON: Which is the next one? What page?

MR BELLINGAN: Further down the page, Mr Chairman. Ja.

CHAIRPERSON: So you deleted that one as well?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, further down the page, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It was already deleted, I simply continued to scratch over. That's it, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And what else?

MR BELLINGAN: That is it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why is it so important to delete what had already been deleted, that you do you so in the face of your counsel's advice not to tamper with the document?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, these are aids to my memory, these are my notes. Surely it's not such a crime to want to have notes to assist one.

MR TRENGOVE: No, all I'm suggesting - all I'm going to suggest is that your conduct is typical of that of a dishonest witness.

MR BELLINGAN: Not at all, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who testifies to a fabricated version. That is what dishonest witnesses do.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Because it's fabricated they have to put it down to keep it together, remind themselves of the lie.

MR BELLINGAN: I would like to hear Mr Trengove testifying about something as sensitive as this without making a mistake, Mr Chairman, without leaving something out, without having to go back and see if he's said everything.

MR TRENGOVE: No, but that's what ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: After my notes were taken away, I did not say everything that is on here, Mr Chairman, I left things out.

MR TRENGOVE: That is why one has counsel to assist you. If you leave things out, he elicits it by examination-in-chief or re-examination. That's what lawyers are there for. One doesn't need notes to do that. It's only when you put up a false version that you need a note like this.

MR BELLINGAN: No, that may be the case with the advocate, it's not the case with me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: On page 2, the deletion in the top third of the page is not the only one, lower down on the page in the second last paragraph has also been deleted, could you please tell us what it said before its deletion? Just read it. It seems reasonably clear.

MR BELLINGAN: Instead of

"past the house one more time"

I said:

"I drove past the house again"

It's written in underneath, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, the deletion constitutes a deletion of two lines of text.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, what I can make out ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Could you please read those two lines?

MR BELLINGAN: No, what I can make out is this part where I say

"went past the house one more time"

And what I've rewritten is, instead of all those words of the two lines, I've written:

"I drove past the house again"

What I actually testified, the exact words I've testified to, I can't recall exactly now but that is, it's just saying the same thing in different words, Mr Chairman. If I was reading at that point in time then I would have read:

"I drove past the house again"

If the notes were taken away before then, then if I was reading, which I don't think I was, ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, you could put that aside. We will submit to the Commission that you have consistently acted in the way that dishonest witnesses do, dishonest witnesses who tell an entirely fabricated version.

MR BELLINGAN: I'm sure there would be a lot of ex-National Party politicians happy to hear Adv Trengove's words, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Let's turn to the Numsa thefts. Could you please - you've already told us that the project as a whole to steal these cheques had official blessing within the police from the highest level.

MR BELLINGAN: I said it was authorised, Mr Chairman. From which level exactly I don't think I specified.

MR TRENGOVE: Well you endorsed the affidavit of Colonel van der Merwe, have a look at his page 4, that's bundle 4. The affidavit starts at page 1, but refer to page 4, paragraph 11. Do you have it? In that paragraph, just to summarise it, he says

"The top structure of the Security Council"

... was invited to Colonel Horak to his offices where they witnessed the operation of the scheme, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I see that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then at page 5, paragraph 12. After the Mail & Guardian exposure, General Engelbrecht enquired into the truth of the exposure and he was told that it was true. And there were other generals present at that occasion as well.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't think this refers to him telling the media it was true, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, but within the police the generals were aware of the scheme and approved of it.

MR BELLINGAN: I presume so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then at page 6, paragraph 15, van der Merwe expresses the view that this project

"was not one which was created and managed by individuals but that it was an initiative from top structure and that the operatives on ground level only gave execution to this project. It is necessarily so that abuse for personal gain would have been an obvious risk, something which could only be prevented by a healthy managerial system."

Do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Do you share those views?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: By the time of your trial in March 1995, there was absolutely no reason any longer to keep this scheme secret.

MR BELLINGAN: No, there was, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The scheme involved firstly the opening of the account in the name of Nicholas Umsa, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, the scheme first involved intercepting the post, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, but the encashment, your part of the scheme, the encashment of those cheques involved your opening the account of Nicholas Umsa.

MR BELLINGAN: That was an active step that I took, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So that cheques made out in favour of Numsa could be encashed?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You opened that account, it was a savings account at Nedbank opened on the 1st of the 2nd of March 1989?

MR BELLINGAN: Is it not the 1st or 2nd of March?

MR TRENGOVE: I say the 1st or the 2nd, I'm not sure, it doesn't matter for my purposes.

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was closed at the end of July 1989.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You say because Janine had discovered this account.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When did she discover it?

MR BELLINGAN: I cannot recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well, within days of its opening or shortly before its closure? - or somewhere between the two?

MR BELLINGAN: I no longer recall, Mr Chairman, exactly.

MR TRENGOVE: You - the address given of this Nicholas Umsa was Carel Street 23, Verwoerdburg, whose address was that?

MR BELLINGAN: It may have been one of our operators on the IIS Project, Mr Chairman. I can't recall exactly.

MR TRENGOVE: The post office address that was given was, the postal address was: Box 1994, Halfway House, whose address was that?

MR BELLINGAN: It's the postbox of the Security Branch, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Under whose authority did you open this account?

MR BELLINGAN: The Security Branch, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, which person authorised you to do so?

MR BELLINGAN: I did it in specific after a request was made for my assistance, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: By General Erasmus?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, that's correct. The detail was up to me, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And the purpose that he required your assistance was to assist in the theft of these cheques?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, in the irregular transactions.

MR TRENGOVE: So you and General Erasmus were both, participated in these thefts?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And what did he say to you, what should you do with the money once it's been collected into the account?

MR BELLINGAN: At the time he didn't say anything about that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Just left it to you?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You got a forged, was it a forged passport or a forged ID book?

MR BELLINGAN: It was a passport, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: A Swaziland passport?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct.

MR TRENGOVE: In the name of Nicholas Umsa?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You opened the account?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Sir.

MR TRENGOVE: And using the forged ID, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you've signed the specimen signature card?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In the name of Umsa?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You didn't sign Bellingan?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Sir.

MR TRENGOVE: And an ATM card was issued to you?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Which you kept in your possession?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Withdrawals were made from the account via ATM, using the card?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You made those withdrawals.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Transfers were made from the account to the Geldenhuys account to which we will shortly turn, who applied for those transfers?

MR BELLINGAN: If I remember correctly ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, I'm not asking who asked you to make the transfers, who filled out the bank form for the transfer?

MR BELLINGAN: I think in most cases it was myself, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you signed with your authorised Umsa signature?

MR BELLINGAN: It was most likely myself, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Then there was also the Philip Geldenhuys account, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was a savings account at Nedbank, Sandton, opened on the 16th of March 1989.

MR BELLINGAN: It sounds correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And I'm not sure when it was closed. The last entry on the bank statement we have is the 15th of November 1989, do you know whether the account was closed then or whether it continued beyond November?

MR BELLINGAN: No idea, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was opened in the name of Philip Geldenhuys and his address was given as 32 Muller Street, Buccleuch.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Whose address is that?

MR BELLINGAN: That's an old address of mine, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You lived at that address at one stage?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: When?

MR BELLINGAN: Prior to moving to Gallo Manor, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well when did you move from there, from Muller Street?

MR BELLINGAN: It was during 1986, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Did you use a forged ID to open this account?

MR BELLINGAN: I never opened the account, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Sorry, who opened the account?

MR BELLINGAN: It was a Warrant Officer Walkley.

MR TRENGOVE: At whose request did he do so?

MR BELLINGAN: At my request, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: For what purpose?

MR BELLINGAN: To assist with laundering the funds from these cheque operations, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What do you mean "laundering" in this context? I can understand your earlier evidence that the purpose was to escape the R300 a day limit on the ATM card. That would double your withdrawal facility if you spread the money over two accounts. Was that the purpose of the account?

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, that account had on the face of it, nothing really controversial. There were no cheques that would be paid into that account, so Dave Walkley could walk into the counter and he could make large withdrawals. It was - from any account money could be paid in there, so if accounts were opened say for example in Charles or Satu, or Namedi, Umsa or any other permutations or any other cheques that could possibly be intercepted, they could be paid into accounts such as that, Mr Chairman. It was not a highly controversial account per se.

MR TRENGOVE: Accept that he wasn't Geldenhuys.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, that's true, it's a fraudulent bank account, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Dave Walkley said that you signed the - let me not say he did, he didn't speak to me. I understand his evidence to be that you signed the specimen signature card.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, that would be completely wrong.

MR TRENGOVE: I may be mistaken in that regard. He also says that he initially had the ATM card but while he had it he only made withdrawals when you asked for money and he always gave the money to you.

MR BELLINGAN: On one occasion when I requested the

R10 000, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm talking about ATM withdrawals.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Dave Walkley had the ATM card, Mr Chairman. He was on Stratcom at the time, it was not necessary for him to give the money to me.

MR TRENGOVE: Just confine your answer to the question. The question is, initially you and ...(indistinct) at least agreed that initially he did have the card, but he says that the only withdrawals he made were made at your request and he always gave you the money.

MR BELLINGAN: No, he's mistaken, Mr Chairman, his memory has let him down. He did not give me the money except on the one occasion that I've referred to.

MR TRENGOVE: And he says in fact after a short while, about a month, you asked for the card and he gave it to you and thereafter you used the card and you made the withdrawals, the ATM withdrawals.

MR BELLINGAN: He certainly never said that to me, Mr Chairman, that could be completely incorrect.

MR TRENGOVE: No, I'm not asking you whether it is correct that that is what he said, I'm asking you whether it's true that that's the way it worked.

MR BELLINGAN: No, it's not true, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Was this - do you know whether this account was closed at some stage, and if so when?

MR BELLINGAN: I've got no idea, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Do you know who shared in the money withdrawn from the Geldenhuys account?

MR BELLINGAN: It troubles me if Dave Walkley were to say he gave the money to me, but I've always presumed that that money was used for operational purposes.

MR TRENGOVE: Except for the R10 000 bribe that you paid to Bouwer?

MR BELLINGAN: It was not a bribe by any means, Mr Chairman, not at all.

MR TRENGOVE: No, it was a corrupt payment.

MR BELLINGAN: It was a payment for services rendered, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, if it were for services rendered it would have been payable to Nedbank. You paid him because he had dishonestly abused his position with Nedbank to assist you in your fraudulent scheme?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I paid him because of the assistance to the Security Branch.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

MR BELLINGAN: The fact that he abused his position is beside the point, in the sense of the payment I gave to him.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, you ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: I did not give him money to abuse his position, I gave him money to achieve the objectives for which we set out to achieve, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, ja, the dishonest objectives. You couldn't walk up to the local manager and ask for the same service.

MR BELLINGAN: Unless I knew him very well, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It was a dishonest service that he rendered, and that's what you paid for. And that's why you couldn't get it from the manager, you could only get it from this corrupt buddy of yours, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, there were other people that I could have utilised as well. I had other accounts ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, I'm sure that you had more than one corrupt buddy, Mr Bellingan, but you went to him because he was corrupt and he was prepared to render a dishonest service.

MR BELLINGAN: I went to him, Mr Chairman, because he was the person that I was involved with with Stratcom, when he was the head of Stratcom in Pretoria and he later on went to work at Nedbank.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, and he ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: He was an obvious person to go to.

MR TRENGOVE: And he was prepared to assist you in defrauding his own employer by opening an account against the rules, well knowing that the account-holder was not a person called Nicholas Umsa.

MR BELLINGAN: I can't concede that because I can't at the moment see how Nedbank could have been prejudiced because at no stage were they entitled to pay any money to Numsa, it was ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I'm not talking about prejudice, I'm just talking about cheating. You and he were cheating his employer and you paid him for that service. That's called bribery. It was a corrupt payment for a corrupt service.

MR BELLINGAN: No, no, Mr Chairman, it's not bribery.

MR TRENGOVE: Well we can debate the law on some other occasion. Could you please refer to bundle 5, B5, bundle 5, page 69. Could you identify - page 69 was the Nicholas Umsa application which you signed, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Page 70 is the specimen signature for the Nicholas Umsa account which you signed.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Then page 71 through to 85 or 84, are deposit slips for the deposit of stolen cheques into the Nicholas Umsa account. All of them signed by you as Nicholas Umsa.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't know this - this one on page 84, Mr Chairman, that signature is ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I must tell you it looks exactly the same as the one - to the lay eye it seems the same as the previous one.

MR BELLINGAN: No, it's definitely ...(indistinct)

MR TRENGOVE: With some development over the months.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. On occasion Basie also helped me. I can think of one occasion, this could be it even.

MR TRENGOVE: Basie Bouwer?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Did he in other words participate not only in setting up the fraudulent scheme but also in its operation?

MR BELLINGAN: Simply in the sense of, I think on one occasion he was in a hurry and we were sitting in a, drinking coffee somewhere and I was busy filling these things in and he took them and I think a couple of them he filled in and signed himself. ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: From page 86 ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Can I just say ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Bellingan, did you deposit most of this in the machine, in the auto teller?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: All of it?

MR BELLINGAN: All of it, Mr Chairman, all through a machine in envelopes. And what is conspicuous by its absence, Mr Chairman, is the lack of any handwriting other than mine. Besides two mistakes that were made, the one I see is this one on page 84, where I think it was Basie who signed and then there's another one somewhere were Dave Walkley had signed Geldenhuys or something like that.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, I think the "blue shoe problem", perfect crime except for this little hitch along the way, is that what you're saying?

MR BELLINGAN: No, it's not at all like that. What I'm saying is that what is conspicuous from the investigation, Mr Chairman, is the lack of any other handwriting other than mine, whereas it would have been freely available to Nedbank, it would have been freely available to Basie Bouwer, it would have been freely available to the investigators had they seeked to get it, Mr Chairman. It's been selectively obtained.

MR TRENGOVE: Have a look at page 86. That is a document authorising the transfer from the Nicholas Umsa account to the Geldenhuys account in an amount of

R4½-thousand on the 16th of March 1989, signed by yourself.

MR BELLINGAN: Page 86?

MR TRENGOVE: It might be 85, I'm sorry. It's a document ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, correct.

MR TRENGOVE: 86 is just an internal bank document giving effect to that instruction, but then 87 is then again a similar instruction of yourself to the bank to transfer another R20 000 to the Geldenhuys account on the 28th of March '89.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And 88, a similar application ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: ... on the 1st of June for the transfer or R2 750 to the Geldenhuys account, also signed by yourself.

MR BELLINGAN: That is the one that I referred to where the error was made, Mr Chairman, by the investigators because I see Dave Walkley's signature over there on that one.

MR TRENGOVE: On page 89 ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It was filled in

"Pay to: P Geldenhuys"

MR TRENGOVE: On pages 89 and 90 are copies of the Nicholas Umsa bank statements for the whole of its life.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And as you and I know, it might not be apparent to the newcomer to this document, the money withdrawn from the account were merely the transfers to the Geldenhuys account, as well as these three, the three transfers to the Geldenhuys account. All the other money was withdrawn via an ATM.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And if you look at the withdrawals, they occurred almost on a daily basis.

MR BELLINGAN: I can't remember that on a daily basis, Mr Chairman, but ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Well the dates are here, you'll see that it's very, very frequent.

MR BELLINGAN: Very frequent, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Obviously an account-holder straining against the ATM cash withdrawal limit?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: On page 91 ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Can I just add that I was asked at one stage to add it up and it's, I think it's roughly, I made a note on some file ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: We're getting to ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It's about R31½-thousand, if I'm not mistaken.

MR TRENGOVE: We're getting to the analyses of these accounts. 91 there is your letter or the draft prepared for the closure of the account, dated 27th of July '89, page 91.

MR BELLINGAN: No, there seems to be a mistake because this is my wife's handwriting, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Page 92, what is that?

MR BELLINGAN: 92. That is it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So it seems as if your wife made a handwritten duplicate of your letter, is that it?

MR BELLINGAN: It's looks similar to her handwriting, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Is 92 the document that you prepared for closure of the account?

MR BELLINGAN: I never made a draft. I don't recall making a draft.

MR TRENGOVE: With a lettreset that you had purchased?

MR BELLINGAN: I think that's true, Mr Chairman. I can't recall exactly how I did it now, but it may be true.

MR TRENGOVE: Page 93, you'll see there is a list of all the credits to the account. Those are all the deposits reflected by the deposit slips we referred to earlier.

MR BELLINGAN: It looks like it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You don't - we can compare them with the bank statements.

MR BELLINGAN: I take the advocate's word for it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Do you not recognise these documents as documents which came from the police docket - you'll see at the top there.

MR BELLINGAN: I didn't recognise it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Over the page, 94, is a list of the transfers from the account. Item 1 is confusingly described, what it should have said was that, that one item was just a reversal of a previous deposit. So ignore item 1, but items 2, 3 and 4 represent the four transfers to the Geldenhuys account, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I think so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Then on page 95 there is the Geldenhuys -95 through to 98, there's the Geldenhuys bank statement or least as much of it as we have available. You'll see it runs from 16 March '89 through to the 15th of November '89. It seems - and over the page, 99 is a list of deposits to the Geldenhuys account. Now there is one of them that I'd like to draw your attention to. You'll see in that list, apart from the small amounts that run to only a few hundred rands, there are the three transfers from the Nicholas Umsa account, do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Then there's a deposit of R3 884 but then there follows a deposit of R30 000 directly into that account, and it's a deposit of a cheque drawn by the Genesis Foundation, in favour of Grassroots Educare Trust, do you know about that?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. Dave wasn't supposed to put - this account was not the purpose of putting controversial matter like that through it.

MR TRENGOVE: The second-last item or just below that first little schedule there's a second schedule called

"Transfers from Account"

Those were the transfers from the account or withdrawals from it. The second one is the R9 750 which you said that presented the money paid to Basie Bouwer, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: After the lunch money had been deducted. But then there is the R4½-thousand, do you know about that withdrawal or transfer from the account?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I don't recall anything about it, Mr Chairman. The one that I do recall is the R9 750, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you go back to page 93, am I correct in my understanding - we know that these are the credits to the Nicholas Umsa account, you'll see that the deposits into that account amounted to some

R63 000, do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then you've already told us that the only money in that account that you did not withdraw by ATM card were the three transfers to the Geldenhuys account.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And they appear, they are listed at page 94.

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: If they were added up, they come to something of the order of R27 000, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So to determine how much money you withdrew from that account by ATM card, one has to deduct the R27 000 from the R63 000?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, obviously, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It comes to something of the order of

R36 000.

MR BELLINGAN: Well then this first amount must have been, couldn't have been a reversal, it must have been a transfer because when I added up these amounts, I got to R31½-thousand. I think another R5 000 was transferred into ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: The amounts that you had withdrawn by ATM card.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I understand that that is not so, but let's leave it at that. Let's take it at something more than R30 000 that you had withdrawn from that account during its lifetime, from March to July. What did you do with the money?

MR BELLINGAN: I used it for operational purposes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: What operational purposes?

MR BELLINGAN: Expenses.

MR TRENGOVE: What expenses?

MR BELLINGAN: For example, printing for industrial information services, opening the cc's, Mr Chairman, the cc, that is, plus - as I've explained before, plus we gave money to Major Botha, General Erasmus.

MR TRENGOVE: Information Industrial Services, was that a closed corporation or a company?

MR BELLINGAN: Closed corporation, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Who were its accounting officers?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall now at this point in time.

MR TRENGOVE: Did it have auditors?

MR BELLINGAN: No, not during the duration of my involvement with it, Mr Chairman, only at a much later stage.

MR TRENGOVE: How did you introduce money and assets into the company without some accounting for it within the closed corporation?

MR BELLINGAN: Very simply, Mr Chairman, there's no auditing necessary for a closed corporation, probably the same way as anyone else does it.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja, but it has some system of bookkeeping and it has an accounting officer and has to keep accounts.

MR BELLINGAN: The - that sort of matter, Mr Chairman, was left to the person appointed that was fulltime over there. I never sat fulltime at the offices in Midrand. I couldn't show my face there, Mr Chairman, because ANC people were coming over there. It would really silly for me to go to the offices in Midrand. I never dealt with the bookkeeping and this type of thing, but it was an openly run company, a transactive business. Openly it had a bank account.

MR TRENGOVE: You said that you gave some of the money to two officers, Brigadier Erasmus and who else?

MR BELLINGAN: Major Botha.

MR TRENGOVE: Major Derek Botha?

MR BELLINGAN: Mm.

MR TRENGOVE: How much did you give Erasmus?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Hundreds of rands or thousands of rands?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall now, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Did he know that this was part of the stolen money that you were giving him?

MR BELLINGAN: Presumably so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Why did you give it to him, did he ask for it?

MR BELLINGAN: It had been requested.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, please don't answer in ... just answer my question. Did he ask you for it? Don't put it in the passive sense.

MR BELLINGAN: I don't remember who, either Walkley, Botha or him directly, Mr Chairman. I don't recall. I remember giving money to them both.

MR TRENGOVE: How much money did you give Derek Botha?

MR BELLINGAN: I also don't remember, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Hundreds or thousands?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: At whose request?

MR BELLINGAN: At his request.

MR TRENGOVE: Did he know that this was stolen money?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You said that some of the other people involved were, you mentioned Walkley, Colonel MacPherson, what was his involvement in the scheme?

MR BELLINGAN: Colonel MacPherson was the head of Stratcom at that time and if I remember correctly, the cheques would come from John Horak's office to Colonel Vic MacPherson's office. The only thing that he did once, I walked in and I said is there any post for me and he gave me a pile of cheques from which I sorted out the Numsa ones. The other ones I probably - I don't recall doing anything with them. They probably just got stale and I threw them away. I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: But he - did this cashing, encashment of the Numsa cheque through your account take place with his knowledge and blessing?

MR BELLINGAN: I'm not sure at all, Mr Chairman, I presume so.

MR TRENGOVE: Could you have a look in bundle B5 at page 100. This is an integration, a combination of the withdrawals, the ATM and other withdrawals, from the two accounts together, do you understand that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes.

MR TRENGOVE: To determine how much money was milked from these two accounts on a daily basis. Transfers from the one to the other were not included in the total because that would amount to double counting, but you will see if you look at page 100 to 105, the total amount stolen and encashed through these accounts during the period from March to November was R94½-thousand.

MR BELLINGAN: I see that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you'll see also from the withdrawals, both individualised and daily totals, that there was a vigorous and a daily withdrawal to the limit on both accounts on all but a daily basis.

MR BELLINGAN: I notice that the amounts withdrawn differ, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: In what way?

MR BELLINGAN: In the sense that amounts I withdrew, the maximum was R300 because that's how I understood the limit, I saw the maximum Walkley withdrew was R500.

MR TRENGOVE: Well he says that you made those withdrawals, or if he did then it was at your request and for your benefit.

MR BELLINGAN: No, I doubt that very much, that he would say that over here, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: You say you spent all of this money without any direction from your superiors as to how it was to be spent?

MR BELLINGAN: It's a very small amount of money, Mr Chairman, we handled huge sums of money.

MR TRENGOVE: Its a ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: It was nothing for me to have R100 000 in my briefcase and have to go and use it for some purpose.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: My budget was approximately R6-million a year when I was at, fulltime at Stratcom ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, that is big talk. You described an organisation in which the expenditure to print stickers required the credit-control approval, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: Exactly, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And an organisation in which any expenditure over R100 000 ...

DISTURBANCE ON RECORDING

MR BELLINGAN: ... thousand.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And an organisation in which you concurred with the view of Colonel van der Merwe, that this system of encashment of the cheque would necessarily have introduced the risk of theft for personal gain, something which could be prevented only by proper management programmes.

MR BELLINGAN: My management was very good, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: There was no management on this account whatsoever, there was a random and a discretionary withdrawal of cash without any accounting at all.

MR BELLINGAN: But the money was used for bona fide purposes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That's not - that's honesty, not management. There was no control over you whatsoever.

MR BELLINGAN: It was not necessary, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Because you say you're an honest cop.

MR BELLINGAN: The advocate says I'm a dishonest cop, I say that my honesty is in a sense that my activities were directed towards the objectives of the Security Branch, Mr Chairman, and it is for those reasons that I utilised this money.

MR TRENGOVE: And at the same time your wife suspected that you were enriching yourself.

MR BELLINGAN: I explained to Janine. After the episode with the attorney we went through it, I explained the whole thing to her. She knew very well Dave Walkley, Basie Bouwer, Derek Botha, General Erasmus - she knew all of that very well.

MR TRENGOVE: Because she at least believed that your lifestyle simply couldn't be account for by the salary that you earned.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, Janine complained a lot to me about the lack of money.

MR TRENGOVE: You had every opportunity to steal this money for personal gain and nobody would have been any the wiser, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: R31 500?

MR TRENGOVE: And in fact - well, if Walkley is to be believed, R94½-thousand rand.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I had the opportunity to steal huge sums of money from the Secret Fund, from other cheques. I never did it, Mr Chairman, steal in the sense of misuse the purposes. I used the Secret Fund money for bona fide purposes. I could have defrauded the Secret Fund, it was the easiest thing in the world to do. I never did. I could have defrauded a lot more than just Numsa, Mr Chairman, and used the money for other purposes. I was asked for assistance from Stratcom, I showed them something that could be done. That is, these daily withdrawals, Mr Chairman, is not a question of each day drawing R300 and then doing something with it because the need arose. Sometimes if I was asked for money then I would wait say 10 days, if someone said to me okay, Mike we need some money, round about R3 000, then obviously I'd withdraw for 10 days and give them R3 000 in 20's and 50's or whatever. It was little piles of money, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Page 106 is the transfer slip that you completed for the transfer of money to your sister's account?

MR BELLINGAN: No, I completed it - as I've explained to the Chairman, to the Committee already, Mr Chairman, I completed it just to satisfy Janine, that is all.

MR TRENGOVE: When did you do so?

MR BELLINGAN: This has a date on the top of it; 14th of March 1989, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you say this, the form itself?

MR BELLINGAN: The form itself.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. Was that the date on which you completed it?

MR BELLINGAN: I don't recall, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Well, we must except that it was, Mr Bellingan, you wouldn't have backdated the form in this effort to bluff Janine, would you?

MR BELLINGAN: This is an untransacted transaction.

MR TRENGOVE: That is so.

MR BELLINGAN: It never was intended to transfer any money. This date at the top I don't know, I don't recall when I filled it in.

MR TRENGOVE: You might not recall but it wouldn't have made sense - if you are to be believed, it wouldn't have made sense to backdate the document, you would have dated it on the day that you sat there showing her how you were completing the form, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, most likely.

MR TRENGOVE: That means that this account was already known to her within a fortnight of its opening.

MR BELLINGAN: It may have been the case, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that that is not so. Clearly ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Well I ...(indistinct) also then, Mr Chairman, if this date is a date that I inserted at the time, then it clearly is so.

MR TRENGOVE: No, what I'm suggesting is that your explanation for this document is false. Janine couldn't within 14 days have discovered the account, have acquired the suspicion that you were abusing the account for personal purposes and nagged you sufficiently to persuade you to mislead her into this charade of transferring money to Judy's account.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, more than likely this is a form which was in my briefcase, and which I may have intended to transfer money to Geldenhuys. It's more thank likely so that this was not completed in one sitting, from the face of it. I agree with the advocate. Most likely I filled in some of the detail. For example, the bottom part over here, this part about "in favour of", there's a number, and this part of credit or branch or this part about J White in the block here. That is the part that I filled out in front of Janine, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: All of the writing on this form is yours?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, I think so, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. And all of it to bluff Janine?

MR BELLINGAN: As I say, Mr Chairman, one can also see from the slanting at the top, it's most likely filled out on different sittings.

MR TRENGOVE: Most likely filled ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: My numbers slant different ways.

MR TRENGOVE: Most likely filled out on different sittings. You told us earlier, quite graphically, how she kept on about repaying this loan and you said okay, I'll do so by transferring from Umsa, and you sat there in front of her and filled out the form and then put it in your briefcase. That's a description you gave us yesterday. Now you want to suggest that this form was filled out in different sittings. One doesn't require a sitting to fill out a form, you sit down and you fill it out. It's a very brief little job.

MR BELLINGAN: If this is the case, Mr Chairman, then I must have taken a form from my briefcase in the first place, which may have been partially completed.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, I submit that your attempt at explaining this document is not what it pretends to be, not what it purports to be, is wholly unpersuasive and that the document should be taken at face value, namely a document prepared for purposes of transferring money to Judy's account.

MR BELLINGAN: At the time that the last writing was inserted on this document that was the general idea, Mr Chairman, but there was never an intention on my behalf to transfer money into Judy White's account from this shlenter(sic) money that we had, Mr Chairman. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to do it with Mr Bouwer in Nedbank.

MR TRENGOVE: You said that you closed the account because she had discovered its existence. That is the evidence you gave earlier.

MR BELLINGAN: It was because Janine had been reckless about the information. Had she just discovered it and accepted my explanation and left it there, it would have been fine, Mr Chairman, but she'd clearly discussed it with other people. In this particular case, Charles Mendelow.

MR TRENGOVE: Well if I understand you correctly, the decision to close the account because of the discovery was one that you took in your discussion with General Erasmus. I thought you said he and you decided that you would close the account as part of the solution to the problem.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, that's correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And was that the same conversation in which he told you to manage the problem, as it were, keep her happy?

MR BELLINGAN: Most likely it was the same conversation.

MR TRENGOVE: No, was it or was it not?

MR BELLINGAN: I think it was, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: So during that conversation you discussed the problem with him and his advice was, and you agreed, close the account firstly, secondly keep her happy, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman. It's not like that, he didn't say step one do this and step two do that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, but that was the outcome of the discussion and a synopsis of his advice, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: General Erasmus had agreed with me that I would do what I could do, sort this particular account out. I presumed it was about this account, Mr Chairman, that Charles Mendelow was talking when he spoke about a credit card scam. On the other hand we talked about the problem of Janine and myself suggesting that I would be happy to get a divorce in view of what Charles Mendelow had told me.

MR TRENGOVE: And it was also pursuant to the same discussion with General Erasmus that you said you went away and you did two things, you contacted the marriage councillor and secondly installed the tape?

MR BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I want to suggest to you that that explanation is also not true. Could I refer you to further diary entries that I would like us to add to the - I ask your leave, Mr Chairman, if we could add that to bundle B5. There are diary pages which I believe have already been numbered from 115 through to 120, so they would simply follow on the last document in bundle B5.

Mr Bellingan, do you have those documents in front of you and have they been paginated from 115 on?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: The dates on these copies aren't clear, but they come from a book and you're welcome, your counsel is welcome to have a look at the book. I'll just assist you with the dates. Page 115 is the diary page for the 21st of August 1989. You can actually see it on the copy, on this occasion it did come through. Now I'd like to refer you to the second-last entry on the page, the one that starts in the line dated 4.30, do you have that line?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: It starts with the words

"I knew"

Could you please read that entry?

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps the advocate's copy is clearer, if you could oblige.

MR TRENGOVE

"I knew he was installing a bug and I told him that he is welcome. He denied it and told me that the place has to be bugged for ..."

...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON

"has been bugged"

MR TRENGOVE

"... has been bugged for a long time"

She was aware of your bug at the time of its installation, the only debate there was whether it had been long installed or not.

MR BELLINGAN: Sorry what was the date on this occasion?

MR TRENGOVE: 21st of August '89.

MR BELLINGAN: '89. This would - if this is true, Mr Chairman, then it refers to the time prior to Janine's pregnancy.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, that is so. Have a look at the next page, 116, that date is 22nd of August '89. Could you please read the first half of that entry

"Michael left for Cape Town"

And then?

MR BELLINGAN: Once again, perhaps the advocate's copy is clearer.

MR TRENGOVE

"A.m. - Prior to leaving: one hour up in roof installing tape recording device ..."

This entry says you were on the roof for an hour before you left for Cape Town, installing the tape recording.

"... Eugenia informed. I fetched Kate from ..."

What's that, Hersel? Oh, is it Hazel Hack? I can't decipher the name.

"... went home and got the stepladder and went into the roof where I found the Phillips data recorder attached to the telephone."

Mr Bellingan, it seems that on this occasion she knew about the tape recorder at the time of its installation?

MR BELLINGAN: What date was this again, sorry?

MR TRENGOVE: 22nd of August '89. Is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, I take the advocate's word for it.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, I'm simply telling you that that is my interpretation of that diary entry.

MR BELLINGAN: I see the name of a sensitive person as well on the same page.

MR TRENGOVE: What name is that?

MR BELLINGAN: If it would be possible not to read it into the evidence I would prefer that.

MR TRENGOVE: No, well then don't read it, just tell me where on the page are you referring to.

MR BELLINGAN: The two lines under

"Mother-in-law"

MR TRENGOVE: Oh, ja.

MR BELLINGAN

"find"

MR TRENGOVE: That name doesn't mean anything to me. Over the page, 117. That is the diary page for the 7th of September '89. The entry at the top of the page, I omit the first line. It then says

"Come home at 3, put tracksuit on, went into ceiling and removed tape and ..."

... something.

"... then threatened Eugenia about telling anybody."

So she again - on the previous occasion she discovered the tape, she now removed the tape from the ceiling. And then she goes on:

"Then came home"

And it says:

"8 p.m. Fight and demand to identify man's voice on tape recording. Accusation regarding getting into roof and ..."

Something like chipping or wiping.

... wiping the tape."

Again she clearly has close and intimate knowledge of the tape and she's in fact listening to some of the tapes at the time.

MR BELLINGAN: Again, what was the date over there, Mr Chairman?

MR TRENGOVE: 7th of September '89.

MR BELLINGAN: There could be some substance to this, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: The next one at page 118 is dated, the page for the 9th of September '89. I'm only interested in the entry which is numbered 2.

"Playing of phone tape on way home. Identification threat re going to be with him."

And then there's an entry at 4 a.m. and it continues after that:

"Told him wished to see Erasmus re Numsa."

Do you see that?

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: That refers to her threat to go to Erasmus about Numsa, which means that before she even went to Erasmus about Numsa, the tape had been long installed and discovered. Your explanation for the tape must be untrue.

MR BELLINGAN: As I've explained, Mr Chairman, there were two occasions when I put the tape recorder into the house. In fact if I remember correctly, it is true that I played the tape to Janine once, where a lot of the, the maid, if I remember it correctly, Eugenia's voice was on it, in fact the most of the tape, to convince her that I was interested in Eugenia, listening to Eugenia the maid. But at a later stage I put the tape recorder in specifically because I was concerned about Janine, and I got a far better device from Rebecca Street, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Bellingan, that was not your evidence-in-chief. Your evidence was that the tape was first installed after and pursuant to your discussion with Erasmus about the Numsa problem. It was later discovered and taken out and re-installed when you moved house. That was your evidence.

MR BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, it's 10 years ago, the exact nitty gritty of the logistics and that I don't recall, but to that effect yes, there were two occasions when I put, when I bugged the telephone, Mr Chairman. That is quite correct.

MR TRENGOVE: And you see that at this stage she's still threatening to see Erasmus about Numsa.

MR BELLINGAN: I see that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: If you turn to page 119, that is the 19th of September '89, the second entry reads

"Asked me whether I was intended slipping out from work today. I told him that if I did slip out, it would be to see Oosthuizen or Erasmus."

Still a reference to the same threat, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: It seems to be that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And then the next page, 120, the date there is the 26th of September '89. At page 120, the last entry on the page

"I also warned him that I'm going to report him to Brigadier Erasmus."

Same threat.

MR BELLINGAN: I see that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE

"I'm going to report him to Brigadier Erasmus."

What she threatened to report was that you were stealing for personal gain. That was the threat, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman. I don't see that anywhere over here.

MR TRENGOVE: No, no, no, ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Perhaps the advocate could help.

MR TRENGOVE: What could she have thought would Erasmus be interested in, other than that you were stealing for personal gain? If it was otherwise a security police operation, reporting it to Erasmus would be pointless.

MR BELLINGAN: You see, Mr Chairman, what was a source of irritation to me was the fact that Janine had wanted to utilise cash that I had with me for our household things, Mr Chairman, and it was not my money to use, plain and simple. So going on at me about money was missing the boat completely.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja. At this stage ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: She was welcome to see Brigadier Erasmus about that.

MR TRENGOVE: Now I want to make two points. At this stage ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: In fact I think she did. In fact I think she phoned him.

MR TRENGOVE: Since ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: In fact I know she phoned him.

MR TRENGOVE: Since the entries on the 9th of September, we know that she'd been threatening to see Erasmus about Numsa, and those threats were made 9 September, 19 September and 26 September, is that correct?

MR BELLINGAN: It seems to be on the face of it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you would have it that she eventually made good on that threat, and in fact went to see him about Numsa, do you remember that?

MR BELLINGAN: As I have it, Janine in fact phoned.

MR TRENGOVE: Ja. And it was that report to Erasmus which led to your meeting with him and the keep her happy advice.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, as I have it, what led to me - indirectly, but what led to me specifically going to General Erasmus then was being told to do so by Colonel Oosthuizen. Then Colonel Oosthuizen never said anything about a Numsa etc., etc., but then I went to ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: Yes, he called for you because Janine had complained to him about Numsa.

MR BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes. I want to suggest to you that your earlier evidence, that it was that conversation that triggered two things, the installation of the tape recording and the closing of the Numsa account cannot be true. Firstly, as far as the tape recording is concerned, we know from these diary entries that the tape recording had long been installed and discovered while she was still threatening to see Erasmus, correct?

MR BELLINGAN: I understand the point, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And you were wrong in that regard, your evidence was wrong.

MR BELLINGAN: No, it's not wrong, I think I've explained it, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: And secondly, we know that she was still threatening to see Erasmus about Numsa in September, but he account had been closed in July.

MR BELLINGAN: Then Mr Chairman, it must have been the visit with Mr Charles Mendelow.

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that it is ...(intervention)

MR BELLINGAN: Or the series of discussions with Janine that prompted me to close it prior to even seeing ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: I want to suggest to you that this was an account on which you had a free hand to operate without any control and that you abused the opportunity and that that was what Janine discovered at an earlier stage, I don't know when. And it was her discovery of that fraud that caused you to close the account.

MR BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, in fact this thing was put by a media to General Erasmus and in the media he said that there would be no internal investigation into me, that I always carried large sums of money etc., etc. He already said that publicly. There was absolutely no chance of General Erasmus coming to any other conclusion than knowing that I would not do anything like that, and that I didn't do anything like that, Mr Chairman.

MR TRENGOVE: Mr Chairman, may I thank you for the indulgence thus far. I think I've completed my cross-examination. May I just check my notes overnight and if there's anything outstanding perhaps raise it first thing in the morning?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. We will adjourn at this stage until tomorrow morning and reconvene at 9 o'clock.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS