Amnesty Hearings

ON RESUMPTION

MR BIZOS IN ARGUMENT: (cont)

May we ask for leave to hand in the balance of the Heads of argument, the written Heads and with the Committee's leave, I would ask to be allowed to continue myself with page 44.

You will recall that my learned friend, Mr Berger, had reached page 35, but the new argument is interrelated to the last pages of the first lot, because it deals with, primarily with Raven and Raven is part of the portion that I am going to read now. So if we may follow that course, it will be appreciated Mr Chairman.

My learned friend, Mr Berger, will return to page 35, but will incorporate it in what he has to say about Raven in relation to Schoon, so that he will really be, there will be an (indistinct) of the two bits of argument Mr Chairman. May we proceed on that basis Mr Chairman? Has everyone got a copy, thank you. It is on page 44, the first page of the new, I will also return to the submissions on the law at the end of the first lot, once I have gone through this portion Mr Chairman.

In paragraph 35 Mr Chairman, we submit that amnesty should not be granted to Williamson, nor to Raven for the murder of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. You will see that this portion, paragraph 35, is also a synopsis of what we will deal with in greater detail with references to the record from 37 onwards Mr Chairman.

We specifically refer to 35.1, the close and special - what we are saying, we do not intend to repeat the argument advanced in the previous section, save to state that much of that argument is equally applicable to this part of our Heads of argument. In this regard, we specifically refer to the close and special relationship between Williamson and Coetzee. Coetzee's professed ignorance about the political killings, Raven's evidence that everything he saw, did and knew in relation to the two bombs, were identical, Raven's evidence concerning his knowledge of the intended recipients of the two bombs, Raven's evidence of the manner in which he went about the construction of the two bombs, the differences between Raven's written applications and the revised version, presented in oral evidence, what we submit, the apparent deal between Williamson and Raven, Raven's and Williamson's claim that the recipient of the bomb, would not have opened the second, unmarked envelope without becoming suspicious and Raven's claim that he chose not to look or failed to look at the name of the addressee.

In addition, there are further grounds upon which amnesty ought to be refused to Williamson and Raven. That is in relation to the Schoon's. Williamson failed to make full disclosure of Coetzee's role in authorising the sending of the bomb that killed Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. At 36.2, at least three attempts were made by the Security Police to assassinate Marius Schoon during 1981 and 1982.

During this period, Coetzee was the Head of the Security Police. At the same time, Williamson, Coetzee's Head of Intelligence, was engaged in ongoing and intensive monitoring of the Schoon network. One of the assassination attempts was countermanded at the last moment by Coetzee, a fact that Williamson could not have been ignorant of.

The improbabilities and contradictions in the evidence of Coetzee and Williamson in relation to Coetzee's role in the murder of Ruth First, are also relevant here particularly after the death of Ruth First and the attempts to kill Marius Schoon. It is inconceivable that Williamson would not have consulted Coetzee before embarking on a plan to kill Marius Schoon.

There is doubt as to whether the bomb was addressed to both Marius and Jeanette Schoon or only to Marius Schoon. If it was only addressed to Marius Schoon, then Williamson cannot claim an ex post facto political objective in relation to Jeanette Schoon.

Both Williamson and Raven claim that Jeanette Schoon was a legitimate target for assassination. Coetzee however states that it was reprehensible to send a letter bomb to the Schoon family. Williamson knew the nature and extent of the work done by Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Botswana.

He knew that they had been forced to leave Botswana and that they had moved to Lubango in Angola. He also knew that they were teaching English there. On the facts that were readily available to him, concerning ANC activities in Angola generally and Lubango particularly, neither Marius nor Jeanette Schoon, was a legitimate target for murder.

CHAIRPERSON: Are the page references to these facts contained elsewhere?

MR BIZOS: They will follow, yes, they will follow Mr Chairman. This is the headnotes so to speak.

Now going on 36.7, on the information known to Williamson, he knew that the Schoon's were living with their children in Lubango, he knew that the children could be killed or seriously injured by the bomb, his decision to dispatch a bomb to Lubango, not caring whether the children were killed or seriously injured, was so disproportionate to any political objective he might have been pursuing in relation to Marius and Jeanette Schoon, that his application for amnesty for the murder for Katryn, ought to be refused. It is the most a fortiori case, but we are stressing Mr Chairman, that it is very important that in relation to Jeanette Schoon, an adverse finding to Williamson should be made.

It is particularly important Mr Chairman, because Williamson himself speaks of the civil action that is pending on behalf of Fritz, against Williamson because of the loss of support of his mother, and it is very, I will deal with it further when I deal with the submission of your approach that we should rather grant amnesty than not, but anyway, I will deal with that in due course.

Raven claims that he knew nothing about the life and work of Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Botswana or in Angola. No basis therefore exists for Raven to argue that Jeanette Schoon was a legitimate target for assassination.

Williamson bore a grudge against Marius and Jeanette Schoon for being part of a group of people who had contributed to his exposure as a South African informer. He was not satisfied that they had been forced out of Botswana. He knew that by virtue of their relative isolation in Lubango, they were not in a position to continue with the work that they had been doing in Botswana, yet he never forgave them for his exposure.

He sought them out in Lubango and succeeded in murdering Jeanette Schoon and her six year old daughter. After he learnt that Jeanette and Katryn Schoon had been killed by a bomb, he expressed satisfaction.

It can only be concluded yet again, that Williamson's actions were malicious and completely out of proportion to any political objective. We now turn to the requirement of full disclosure.

In addition to the facts set out in Part A above, it is submitted that Williamson has failed to make a full disclosure of the following further facts: the involvement of Gen Coetzee. If Coetzee was not involved in the decision to murder Ruth First, which is highly improbable, there can be no doubt that he would have discussed it shortly thereafter with his senior officers, including Williamson. Either he would have been furious with the unauthorised action, or he would have insisted that he be informed in advance of any similar future action.

CHAIRPERSON: Isn't there a third proposition, that he could have approved of the action, and told them to continue in future?

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman, yes, that is an important omission on our part, or he knew all about it.

CHAIRPERSON: No, not that he knew about it.

MR BIZOS: He authorised it?

CHAIRPERSON: He was quite happy that they should take such actions without his instructions?

MR BIZOS: That would have been almost an expressed authority, Mr Chairman, or certainly an implied authority, both of whom keep quiet about, so it strengthens the non-disclosure point.

CHAIRPERSON: Another possibility, you said he would have done one of two things, I suggest there is a third possibility that he might have said, well, you people are getting on with your job, I leave it to you?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, we do not put it that way, because he had on a previous occasion countermanded an order Mr Chairman. If that is found as a fact, then there is a third possibility that it was done with his knowledge and consent and he is keeping quiet about it, and Williamson is keeping quiet about it.

Mr Chairman, if he countermanded an order, it would have been without saying that he would want to be informed or consulted if another attempt was going to be made, but we have heard none of that.

The attempts to murder Marius Schoon, the 1984 bomb which killed Jeanette and Katryn Schoon was not the first attempt on the life of Marius Schoon. Marius Schoon testified about a telephone call to his parents-in-law in Johannesburg during which it was claimed that he had died in hospital in Botswana.

I don't know that we can elevate that to an attempt to kill him Mr Chairman, but merely showing the state of mind and the malice of those that knew him, and Williamson was one of the persons in the centre of things as to how they wanted to terrorise people.

He also spoke about the two young men who had come up to Gaberone during September or October 1982. They acted suspiciously and one of them was armed with a pistol. He described an incident later in 1982 when during which he had found what appeared to him to be a bomb, strategically placed under his vehicle.

Brigadier Schoon states that there was an assassination attempt on the life of Marius Schoon during 1981. His description of the incident is similar to the first attempt described by Marius Schoon, but for the fact that Brigadier Schoon speaks only of one person being sent to Gaberone, whereas Marius Schoon speaks of two.

Dirk Coetzee confirms another attempt that Marius Schoon would not have known about. According to Dirk Coetzee, he was about to embark on a mission to kill Marius Schoon, when he was informed in the presence of Brigadier Schoon, that the order had been countermanded by Gen Coetzee. Brigadier Schoon disputes this.

However, long before Brigadier Schoon submitted his amnesty application, Dirk Coetzee had already recorded in his manuscript his account of his mission, and its cancellation by Gen Coetzee. Brigadier Schoon was, we submit, a most unimpressive witness, for example his claim that killing was not his style, is startling bearing in mind the number of deaths for which he has sought amnesty.

Dirk Coetzee has proved to be a reliable witness. See for example his account of his manuscript, Williamson's breach of the need to know rule, both in relation to the death of Ruth First and in relation to Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. Both accounts have subsequently been proved correct. These accounts were also confirmed in evidence by Coetzee before this Committee, Mr Chairman.

If Gen Coetzee countermanded the order to kill Marius Schoon in 1981, it is inconceivable that anyone in the high command of the Security Police, including Williamson, could have thought that a further attempt to kill Marius Schoon, could be embarked upon without the express authority of Coetzee.

Furthermore after the death of Ruth First in 1982, it is highly improbable that Williamson would not have consulted Coetzee before dispatching a bomb to kill Marius Schoon. It is significant that Jeanette Schoon was not the target of either the attempt referred to by Brigadier Schoon, or the aborted attempt referred to by Dirk Coetzee, an important factor to be taken into consideration, in relation, we submit Mr Chairman, to whether or not Jeanette was, I use the word as a shorthand and convenient way, a legitimate target.

Or indeed whether she was a target at all of the Security Forces Mr Chairman, and whether Mr Williamson initiated it. We will deal later, because there is contradictory evidence as to who it was addressed to, Marius Schoon or Marius and Jeanette Schoon, but we will deal with that.

When asked whether he knew of any prior attempt to kill Jeanette Schoon, Williamson is not able to refer to any attempt that was specifically directed at her. He states I heard that there had been a threat against both of them, and that they had been advised to withdraw from Botswana because they were both potential targets of the South African Security Forces and they subsequently left Botswana.

We will deal Mr Chairman, with whether there are other means to deal with high profile people if they were thought to be any sort of danger. And of course, what happened in Botswana is on the evidence a clear example of the alternative methods. Informing the Botswana authorities that if these people continue there, they would be in danger, was a most effective method Mr Chairman. It got Mr Makgoti out, Heinz Klug and eventually Marius and Jeanette Schoon. We submit that that is an important factor to take into consideration.

CHAIRPERSON: That was merely to get them to move from A to B, they were just as much a danger or more so, in Lusaka than they had been in Botswana, weren't they?

MR BIZOS: Well, it would depend Mr Chairman. Because of the shared border, possibly because of the shared border, they may have been more anxious to get them out of there, but certainly it was a way of immobilising them in relation to the work that they were doing, and their organisation was doing.

CHAIRPERSON: It had nothing to do with killing them?

MR BIZOS: It had nothing to do ...

CHAIRPERSON: So it did not form part of paragraph (k), Williamson asked about previous attempts to kill? This had nothing whatsoever to do with that?

MR BIZOS: Yes, no, no, it is a point outside that which I make as an aside, it is not in the written Heads Mr Chairman, but merely a factor to be taken into consideration.

The "dekstorie" in Rapport. Gen Coetzee concedes that he may have told two Rapport journalists shortly after the bomb, that the Security Police had information that Jeanette and Katryn Schoon had been killed by the ANC as a result of an internal struggle within the organisation.

The bomb exploded on 28 June 1984, it appeared in Rapport on 1 July 1984. Coetzee was asked during cross-examination when he had found out about the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. His answer, I suppose sir, it was reported in the press shortly after the occurrence.

He states further that he had no information as to who might have been responsible for the bomb, and that he cannot remember if he tried to find out. If Coetzee was in a position to brief journalists so soon after the bomb, then his source of information could not have been the newspapers themselves.

He would not have briefed journalists without himself being in possession of all relevant facts. He could not risk putting out a version, that could subsequently prove embarrassing. It is submitted that Coetzee is obviously reluctant to disclose what he actually knows about the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon.

Then we submit ...

CHAIRPERSON: From this one can assume, can't one, that he must have known some detail about the nature of the bomb and how the bomb was delivered to them?

MR BIZOS: Yes. Yes Mr Chairman, otherwise he goes and puts out a story and then some enterprising journalist comes and contradicts him. For a "dekstorie" to have any prospect of success, it must stick fairly close to the truth, but take a turn off, or go off on a tangent, in the tail so to speak.

On top of page 51, Williamson was not merely a messenger. Williamson again reduces his role in the murder of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon to that of a messenger. The arguments in this regard in relation to Williamson, Goosen and Coetzee that are advanced in Part A, we give the reference, also relevant, the circumstances around the death of Ruth and the countermanded attempt to kill Marius Schoon, only serve to heighten the improbability of Williamson merely having acted as a messenger.

It is accordingly submitted that it is highly probable that both Coetzee and Williamson were involved in the decision to murder marius Schoon. We will later submit Mr Chairman, the sort of meeting that Mr Williamson and his co-conspirators would have had to have had before they decided to attempt to kill the Schoon's in Angola.

The intended target of the bomb, Mr Chairman. Williamson claims that the bomb was contained in an intercepted communication between the ANC in Botswana, addressed to Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Lubango, Angola.

Was the bomb addressed to Marius Schoon only? In Raven's written amnesty application, he states that on questioning Williamson about the Schoon incident, he said that the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon, but that it served them right. Raven confirmed this during his cross-examination.

That is an important admission Mr Chairman, by two persons involved and where Mr Williamson says it was addressed to both, it may well be that the Committee cannot come to a decision as to which is the truth, but this is a factor which is almost a factum probandum and not a matter of mere detail. If a person gives contradictory versions, and you do not know which to believe, then you say well, you have not spoken the truth and I therefore find that you have not made full disclosure.

Williamson cannot deny that he told an Observer reporter in 1995 that the bomb had been addressed to Marius Schoon only. I don't know, he states, I don't know whether I didn't mention Jen. I don't know whether he didn't take it, I really cannot comment Mr Chairman, that was what was published in the newspaper.

He cannot deny that there was a second admission made by him. The admissions by Williamson to Raven and the Observer reporter that the bomb was intended to Marius Schoon, taken together with the absence of any attempt to specifically target Jeanette Schoon, should lead to a finding on the probabilities, that the bomb was addressed to Marius Schoon only.

CHAIRPERSON: Why? Can't one equally make the finding Mr Bizos, that he intended to target Marius Schoon, but that he sent it in a letter addressed to both of them, careless of whether it killed her or not?

MR BIZOS: That is also a probability Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But what you say in 37.2(a) that it was in a letter addressed to Marius and Jeanette Schoon?

MR BIZOS: That is what he says Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And if he did that, knowing that she was not at that time, a legitimate target, but careless of whether she got killed or not, it is not a matter for amnesty, is it?

MR BIZOS: That is true Mr Chairman. Either way, but in addition Mr Chairman, if you cannot make a finding of fact, and you do find that there is a possibility that he spoke the truth, when he spoke to Raven and when he spoke to the Observer reporter, then the consequences for him on another ground, are also no amnesty because we say in subparagraph 3 on page 52, the admissions by Williamson to Raven and the Observer reporter that the bomb was intended to kill Marius Schoon, taken together with the absence of any attempt to specifically target Jeanette Schoon, should lead to a finding on the probabilities that the bomb was addressed to Marius Schoon only.

The legal consequences of such finding, are dealt with below Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I haven't read them, but isn't that that he should be granted amnesty in respect of culpable homicide, if he had no intent to murder, but was reckless or careless?

MR BIZOS: Well Mr Chairman, I don't know with respect, whether reckless disregard reduces it to culpable homicide, but in any event, it is merely an alternative argument depending on the fact that you make.

Primarily Mr Chairman, we say that once he makes these contradictory statements, the obvious finding to make is that he has not told the truth Mr Chairman.

Therefore you cannot rely on any one of the versions in order to grant him amnesty.

CHAIRPERSON: Mustn't we have regard Mr Bizos, that all these people are telling us something that happened 16 years ago, 17 years ago and something that they have no doubt thought of, many times since then?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, that would be an overgenerous approach in my respectful submission.

On their own version, they didn't murder people every day Mr Chairman, it was not a matter of common occurrence in their evidence. If they thought about it all the time, all the more reason why they should remember the details and the excuse proffered whenever a major contradiction was shown up, that it happened a long time ago, it may be that for some peripheral retail it is an excuse, but on going onto the very root of the matter as to who the bomb was addressed to, cannot be excused on that ground, in our respectful submission Mr Chairman.

Mr Chairman, perhaps I should refer to what he said at page 1336 Mr Chairman. What he said, a parcel from Gaberone to Angola, addressed to Marius, was brought to Williamson's Unit. They said right, here is this parcel from the ANC in Gaberone, to Marius Schoon in Lubango, doctor it. We doctored it and gave it back to them and that was that.

Would you like to see where your words are? Mr Williamson, I remember it Mr Chairman. You remember it, did you take any steps to correct that statement Mr Williamson? He says no, he says it was a generalised interview.

What he specifically said, that the envelope was addressed to Marius Mr Chairman. He can't come here and say something that I have been living with this for 13 years, or whatever, and say well, I may have been mistaken as to who it was addressed to.

CHAIRPERSON: Was there questioning at this time, about his inspection of the contents of the parcel?

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, Mr Berger will deal with this Mr Chairman, because he did the cross-examination of Raven Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: No, I am not talking about Raven, I am talking about Williamson.

MR BIZOS: He was questioned, we will refer to the passages Mr Chairman.

Having said elsewhere Mr Chairman, that he intended to kill Jeanette, the question of culpable homicide cannot come into being, because what are you then going to do with that fact Mr Chairman, where he has given contradictory facts?

We cannot pick bits of the version in order to fit into a pattern, so culpable homicide is out, with respect. We ask at page 52, was there in fact an intercepted mail item? In Raven's written amnesty application, there is no mention of a large, official envelope or an intercepted mail item. Marius Schoon's evidence that he and his family arrived in Luanda during December 1983, was not contested.

There they spent some time before leaving for Lubango. The bomb exploded on the 28th of June 1984. Some five or six months after their arrival. Williamson states that an extraordinary long period of time passed before he heard about the explosion. So long that I thought that we would never hear about the envelope again. I can't remember how long, but it could have even been in the region of six months.

On top of page 53, if Williamson is correct in his estimate of the delay between the dispatching of the bomb and the news of the explosion, then it is highly unlikely that the bomb was conveyed in an intercepted postal item. Marius Schoon also expressed doubts as to whether the bomb had been conveyed in the envelope intercepted from Botswana.

He said that not one of his comrades from Botswana had come to him at any time, since the explosion to surmise that perhaps their letter had been intercepted and used to convey the bomb. Let me concede Mr Chairman, at the outset, that there is of course another possibility that if anybody did so, he may have had the sort of feeling of guilt that he may not have wanted to come forward, but that is a make way Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, something that just sort of entered my thoughts. Suppose they had decided to target Marius while he was still in Botswana, that was the reason why Marius left, because his life was in danger? That was roundabout still in - he was eventually killed in 1984, so he left in 1983?

Soon after they had taken that decision, they heard he was in Lubango somewhere, but they have prepared this bomb now six months previously, so since then, the bomb has been floating. They have already decided to target him and whatever he had been doing in Lubango, after they had once posted this letter, and even if they had found out that he was a lecturer, he had abandoned politics, they couldn't reverse it?

MR BIZOS: There is a probability in that, but they would not have addressed the letter to Lubango shortly after that departure.

ADV DE JAGER: No, he was first in Lusaka?

MR BIZOS: First in Lusaka and then in Luanda for a while and then at the garrison and the garrison town.

ADV DE JAGER: We still don't know whether it was addressed to the university or ...

MR BIZOS: Yes, we don't know that. But Adv De Jager, an intercepted letter from Botswana, couldn't have been put into motion, whilst they were still in Botswana.

It may well be that the fact that you, Adv De Jager, raises this as a probability, is a factor to be taken into consideration, that we deal with later, that we know that there was a serious threat to his life in Botswana. We know that that decision must have been taken at a fairly high up level and it must have been either planted deliberately or the information was leaked to the British High Commissioner's office.

So that in order to be in what one may call, hot pursuit, a new meeting would have been necessary, a new meeting in which the Head of Intelligence of necessity, had an important role to play. A new meeting at which, what Intelligence is there available as to what he is doing in Lubango, would have been absolutely necessary and we will actually refer you to the passages where Mr Williamson actually says that he was asked and we also say in due course, they would precisely have found out what was happening in Lubango, because we will give you the references later.

They say that they had military intelligence and contacts with UNITA in order to deliver the bomb. We will give you Williamson's words for it, so that it is vital to the full disclosure.

CHAIRPERSON: One very different fact which has been causing me some concern, if we have, if we are going to have to consider the question of the bomb having been prepared or sent a long time before, and I don't know if there is any evidence on it, I haven't got my records here with me, and that is for how long a disassembled nine volt, PM3 Duracell battery would be operative? I am not sure that any evidence was led on that point and it seems to me that if it is of any relevance whatsoever, it is perhaps a matter that we should ask the Amnesty Committee's Investigators to obtain a statement from some recognised experts and supply it to the various parties. If they wish to disagree, they can then obtain other.

I don't propose to call evidence and have another hearing on this, but if it is suggested that the bombs were prepared two years before or anything of that nature, six months before, it struck me that a disassembled battery of this nature, may only last a week or two. It is a matter that perhaps should have been investigated when Mr Raven was giving evidence, I don't think it was.

It is a matter that we should perhaps find some clarity on.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, we certainly have no objection to that being done. I personally have no knowledge whatsoever as to how long batteries last.

CHAIRPERSON: What worries me, is that it is a disassembled battery. That may well considerably shorten the life of a battery.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, in relation to Adv De Jager's question, with respect sir, I believe that you may have put your finger on the pulse which would explain the statement in Raven's application on page 108, Bundle 2, page 108.

MR CORNELIUS: Mr De Jager, may I hand this up to you, I still have your application.

MR BIZOS: It is a short passage - Jeanette Schoon and his daughter, and in subparagraph 4 of page 108, he says at a given date, I cannot remember if it was 1982 or 1983, Williamson instructed me to construct an explosive device in the form of a letter. It was to be constructed as an envelope, A4, the size of approximately 30 to 40 pages thick.

Now, we have already submitted the improbability. I know that he has changed his version in order to reconcile it with what Williamson says, but it may well be that it was in 1982 that these two bombs were constructed, and it may well be that the Ruth First one went forward and because a previous one had been, a previous attempt on the Schoon life had been countermanded, this one was kept back.

That would most certainly accord with Mr Raven's statement in his application. But be that as it may, it only shows that in this mishmash of contradictory evidence, there has not been full disclosure Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Could I place on record that in Volume 1, page 44, appears what the identical version, except - Volume 1 was the one I relied on, he refers there to a disassembled nine volt battery, in Volume 2 he refers to an assembled nine volt battery.

MR BIZOS: Yes well, it only goes to show that dialogue does help to try and ascertain the truth Mr Chairman, I am indebted to you.

Mr Chairman, if you could note next to paragraph, Mr Chairman, in answer to your question, Mr Chairman, as to whether Williamson was asked about the documentation in the envelope and other matters, and we said yes, the answer is at page 1199 Mr Chairman, Williamson's evidence Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: Kindly repeat the page.

MR BIZOS: 1199. The answer Mr Sibanyoni in the Ruth First incident you were not afraid of going through the documents, were you not? Were you not afraid that going through the documents, would leave fingerprints? That is correct Mr Chairman. Mr Sibanyoni, was it not a concern in the Schoon's issue? No Mr Chairman, because I asked whether I could actually in the first case, I left all the documentation in an envelope and I left it with the Brigadier, and in the second case I asked, could I have these documents once the IED had been made to replace those documents in the envelope Mr Chairman. He certainly had, he certainly looked at it.

We deal with B(2) on page 53 Mr Chairman. Williamson claims that on the information available to him, Marius and Jeanette Schoon were legitimate targets for assassination. It is however submitted that Williamson has not made a full disclosure of what he actually knew in relation to the activities and living arrangements of Marius and Jeanette Schoon, and their children in Lubango.

May I take this opportunity Mr Chairman, of clarifying one matter. All sides Mr Chairman, assume that the Schoon children were there when Williamson visited, Mr Chairman. We spoke about children Mr Chairman, throughout the period. In fact Mr Chairman, Fritz was only approximately two years old when the bomb exploded so that when Mr Williamson went there, it would have only been Katryn. We merely want to make that clear, but that there was no doubt that Williamson knew and ought to have known that there were two children by the time the bomb ...

ADV DE JAGER: Fritz was in fact ... (tape ends) ...

MR BIZOS: And then we deal with Williamson's knowledge, Botswana and before. Williamson knew Jeanette Curtis during her student days when she was involved ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, sorry to interrupt you - ...

MR BIZOS: (Microphone not on). Williamson knew Jeanette Curtis during the student days when she was involved in the Welfare arm of NUSAS. He agrees with a description of her as one of the flower children of that period.

Mr Chairman, in relation to the question asked as to whether he could have forgotten. This wasn't an incidental sort of enemy Mr Chairman, this was a person in the student movement in which Williamson played an important role. How does one forget whether one sent a bomb to a fellow student, Mr Chairman?

He was particularly familiar with the activities of Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Botswana. During his days as an informer, his activities were directed at the white left in the country. There is no reason to question the evidence of Prof Klug in this matter.

He admits staying at the home of the Schoon's for a few days, when I passed through Botswana. He would therefore have seen how they lived and how they integrated their domestic life with their political work.

It is clear from Exhibit RR that by 1980, Williamson had been particularly successful in infiltrating the Schoon network. You remember what RR is Mr Chairman, the documents that were produced by Mr Maharaj from the archives, the Intelligence documents.

In his written amnesty application, Williamson states that the Schoon's had been the subject of intense South African Intelligence scrutiny in Botswana and were to my knowledge, regarded as key ANC/SACP operatives and hence in terms of the counter revolutionist strategy of the time, prime targets.

There is no suggestion in any of Williamson's evidence that Jeanette Schoon was involved in the activities of MK. He accept that she was not in any aspect involved in military matters, either in Botswana or Angola as a matter of fact. That is his own evidence.

Williamson concedes that a press statement released after the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon, a fairly accurate picture of her life and work. He reluctantly accepts that the training Marius Schoon received at Funda Camp, considered and making leaflets and bombs to surreptitiously disperse those leaflets in small arms instruction for self defence, and that it was confined only to that. That is his evidence.

However, he concedes that he has no further information of the nature of his military training. As pointed out by Maharaj, the training received by Schoon at Funda, could hardly have been described as military training. If Williamson had information from someone who had seen Marius Schoon at Funda, then he would have known that Schoon had not received military training there.

When asked what work on his information, Marius and Jeanette Schoon were doing in Botswana, Williamson correctly answered mainly involved in the, I mean their specific task was involved in what was called Internal Reconstruction Mr Chairman, which was the rebuilding of the underground structures of the ANC inside South Africa Mr Chairman.

He concedes that this was a political activity. It is correct that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were involved in political activity on behalf of the ANC in Botswana. They served on the political sub-committee of the Senior Organ. Jeanette Schoon was also involved in Trade Union Work.

They were not involved in any military activity, whatsoever. The fact that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were involved in political work in Botswana, did not make them legitimate targets for assassination. That is so, notwithstanding Marius Schoon's view that we knew that we were targets in Botswana of what we were doing. We were not killed in Botswana for whatever reason and from the point of the Security Police as regards our Botswana activities, we could perhaps have been regarded as legitimate targets.

They were not involved, either directly or indirectly in the military activities. Marius Schoon confirmed that he had supported the armed struggle in the sense that he understood why it had been waged, but that he had not participated in it.

If Marius and Jeanette Schoon were legitimate targets in Botswana, then so were National Party organisers, teachers and lecturers who taught the politics of history of the National Party, school principals who urged their pupils to register for conscription, organisers of White Trade Unions as a whole and all the white South Africans who voted for the National Party and supported the SADF. Clearly that cannot be so.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, the factual position, wasn't the targets sort of identified on different grounds? The Security Police might have considered people to be targets on a wider basis, including more people than the ANC would?

They didn't use the same criteria obviously to work out whether a person was a target or not?

MR BIZOS: Yes, that may be Mr Chairman, and I don't know that per se that would preclude amnesty given to a person that went beyond the ANC criteria, but in each case, the proportionality test has to be applied.

It may be that a person who moves around the, who has many friends in the sort of, by association type of thing, and the person is not a well informed person. A Security Force person is not well informed, and he said well because you moved around with these leftists and because you made speeches at universities, and because he did that, that and the other, I concluded that he must be a high profile ANC person and I eliminated him.

For that person, that may be, he may even on the somehow or other principle, satisfy the proportionality thing, but not the Head of Intelligence and not the Generals, not the epicentre Mr Chairman, can satisfy the proportionality.

ADV DE JAGER: You see, because we - in dealing with for instance PAC members, they had different criteria for targeting a person.

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Chairman, they did. They did and it may be that the people merely passed their teenage years in the Amy Biehl murder, it may be that it is open to them to say that this was their organisation's policy and they believed that they were entitled to carry out their organisation's policy in furtherance of their struggle.

But, that is not available to the Head of the Intelligence Unit, or a senior person that sits on the Sanhedrin, whose office is next to the General. That is the important, so that the grey area that you are speaking of, Adv De Jager, is one that one can understand on both sides.

CHAIRPERSON: I regret Mr Bizos, that I don't agree with your comparison in paragraph 49. Is it not understandable that the Security Police would have special regard for influential senior white members of the ANC who were thought to be propagating the views of the ANC amongst members of the white community in this country, that they would be particularly prominent in the views of the Security Police as a source of danger to what the Security Police believed this country stood for?

MR BIZOS: I would submit with the greatest respect, Mr Chairman, that it would be not in compliance of the provisions of the Act and indeed not wise to use that argument because none of them have said in these proceedings that because they were white, we considered them more dangerous, more dangerous people and therefore more likely targets.

This argument has not been made and I do not know Mr Chairman, I do not know whether or not in adopting that argument in its form, in one or other form, may not introduce a racial equation into this ...

CHAIRPERSON: Wasn't the whole of South Africa subject to a racial equation Mr Bizos, one cannot ignore it?

MR BIZOS: Of course not.

CHAIRPERSON: One must remember that the ANC was not founded in 1948 to fight the Nationalist Party, it was founded in 1912.

MR BIZOS: That is, I am not unmindful, nor did apartheid start in 1948. I am not, I am on record as having said that Mr Chairman, but I do not think with respect that in deciding whether Williamson decided to kill Ruth First or the Schoon's, because they were white, I don't think it is a fact that can be taken into consideration at all Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: No, they were not killed because they were white, the point I am trying to make it is because they were white in the ANC, they would appear to be more prominent, they would stand out as leaders.

MR BIZOS: Oh, I see what you mean. Their prominence was obvious?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and accentuated by their colour.

MR BIZOS: No, I understand what you mean Mr Chairman, it is not his case. But I do understand and people oversees often asked you, how come that we see crowds in football grounds and there are sprinkling of whites applauding this, you know, people obviously found this strange. Perhaps because there were such people, we are what we are today and not in a race war, Mr Chairman.

Williamson's knowledge from Botswana to Angola. In relation to the departure of Marius and Jeanette Schoon from Botswana, Williamson again appears to have received accurate information. In his written application he states some time before the Lubango attack, the Schoon's had in fact left Botswana and had been resettled by the ANC in Lubango because of intelligence information which were relayed to the ANC by the British authorities, to the effect that the Schoon's lives were at risk if they remained in Botswana.

A small point perhaps, but you might draw some inference from the use of the word if, that they may be safe. That the, what was communicated that if they left Botswana, they may be safe.

At the time of the Schoon's departure from Botswana, they were headed for Lusaka, Zambia. They remained there from June to December 1983. From Lusaka they moved to Luanda. It was only from Luanda that the Schoon's moved to Lubango. Yet, Williamson must have known about their arrival from almost before they got there. We say here that we ask you to compare Williamson's evidence of the six month delay in the sending of the bomb, and the explosion.

It is submitted that Williamson could only have had such detailed information on the movements of the Schoon's, if he had continued to keep them under intense South African Intelligence scrutiny.

Then we come Mr Chairman, perhaps to the most relevant portion in relation to this and that is why were they killed in Lubango. Williamson claims that he had no intelligence as to what the Schoon's were doing in Angola. He claims that he did not know how many ANC people were in Lubango, nor that there were only four adult South Africans there.

In his evidence in chief he states I remember specifically that once it came to our attention that the Schoon's had in fact moved into Angola from London, that the general opinion was that they had gone there to play an even more high profile role in the command and operational structures of the ANC as an organisation, and as I said, I referred a bit earlier Mr Chairman, in 1984 the involvement of the situation in Angola, was a high profile military association, or it was I think I used the term a war zone, Mr Chairman.

There were no command or operation structures of the ANC.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, before you go on, is that a typing error, Angola from London, did they go to London?

MR BIZOS: Yes, that is what he said, that he had information that they went to London for, Mr Chairman, indeed I am reminded that Mr Schoon testified that they went to London for a short period to participate in the interviews by their erstwhile employer in choosing their successors, Mr Chairman.

It was before they left Botswana. Yes, they went over to help choose their successors.

CHAIRPERSON: They had been to London, but they didn't go to Angola from London, is my recollection, they went from Lusaka to Angola?

MR BIZOS: From Lusaka, that is right. And we say in paragraph 55, there were no command or operation structures of the ANC in Lubango in 1984. The ANC camps in Angola were all situation in the northern part of the country. Lubango was situated in the southern part of the country.

The ANC was not involved militarily at all in the southern part of Angola. All contact between ANC and UNITA or SADF soldiers occurred on the northern and north eastern borders of Angola. That is the evidence of Mr Tladi. Both Williamson and his contacts in Military Intelligence would have been well aware of such basic information Mr Chairman.

Williamson continues in evidence in chief as follows: at the time in our Intelligence organisation, the allegation was made that the Schoon's were in fact specifically sent to Lubango to cooperate with the Cuban forces that were very strongly there, and that they were assisting in the development of air defence system in Angola.

After a question from the Chairperson as to what training Marius Schoon had in air defence, Williamson continues and that the specific allegation that did come from Military Intelligence because I was asked if I had any information to corroborate the information that they had, was that the Schoon's language ability in some way to be used by the Cubans in Lubango. I reported back Mr Chairman, at that time, that I had no information about the Schoon's involvement, but that request from an intelligence point of view, was put to me. I had no information about the Schoon's.

It is not correct that Williamson had no information about the Schoon's involvement in Lubango. He knew that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were teaching English in Lubango, he admits for the first time under cross-examination that Military Intelligence had actually requested him whether I and my Section had any information about the Schoon's were doing in Lubango and I, myself Mr Chairman, was the first to mention that it was believed that they were teaching English.

The evidence is contradictory Mr Chairman. The evidence in chief, was an over-inflation of the information, but in any event, we are again not dealing with an ignorant and ill-informed person. We will show a little later that on his own admission, they had contact with the Military Intelligence and UNITA to deliver a bomb. If you had that facility, surely it would have been an easier task to get accurate information as to what they were doing.

Williamson claims that it could have been very difficult for him to have found out precisely what the Schoon's were doing, yet it was possible for Williamson to find almost immediately that they were teaching English in Lubango. He does not say how he was able to obtain that information to quickly.

Williamson knew that there was a university in Lubango. He also knew that young Angolans attended this university. When asked would you have still sent them a letter bomb if you knew that they had taken positions to teach Angolan university students, English? Williamson replies that he would still have participated in the operation. Why, we submit only because he really was in an opposite camp with Jeanette Schoon from the very days when he was leading a double and lying life as a student, Mr Chairman, and he is the person who doesn't forgive his opponents easily, his political opponents.

Finally 57.5, Williamson claims that there was grave and serious suspicion about what type of teaching the Schoon's were doing in Lubango. Contrary to what is now submitted on behalf of Williamson and Raven, namely that the Schoon's could have been involved in activities other than teaching, Williamson concern at this point in his evidence relates to the type of teaching the Schoon's were doing in Lubango.

Williamson's knowledge of what the Schoon's were doing in Lubango, has shifted from general opinion that they have gone there to play an even more or high profile role in the command and operation structures of the ANC, to grave and serious suspicion about what type of teaching the Schoon's were doing in Lubango.

In paragraph 59, if the Schoon's were teaching English to Cuban soldiers, Williamson's worse case scenario, they could hardly have been playing a role in the command and operation structures of the ANC. You will recall that that was the basis upon which his application, written application, was made.

That was his evidence in chief. This evidence is both inherently contradictory and contradicts basic facts, such as the fact that there was no command or operation structures of the ANC anywhere near Lubango. It also highlights Williamson's failure to make a full disclosure of what he actually knew to be the position of Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Lubango.

It is therefore submitted that Williamson knew full well that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were in Lubango, teaching English at the University to Angolan students. The presence of the children in Lubango, Williamson claims it did not cross his mind whether the Schoon's had taken their children with them to Lubango. He refers to numerous members of the ANC upper structure and echelons, who had their children safely in cities such as London in schools all over the world. When asked for examples, he mentioned the children of Oliver Tambo, forgetting that they were living there with their mother.

Even on Williamson's version, the Schoon's were not members of the ANC upper structure and echelon and that is the basis upon which he made an application for amnesty and it has fallen flat Mr Chairman.

Williamson concedes that it would have been possible for him to have found out whether the Schoon's had taken their children with them to Lubango, and we give you the reference.

It is however submitted that Williamson knew that the Schoon's were living with their children in Lubango. Williamson confirms that he and his Section have gathered information on what the Schoon's were doing in Lubango. It is highly improbable that such information would not have included details such as where they were living, where they were living and whom were they living with.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that so Mr Bizos? If one has regard to the position at the time, Lubango was an isolated city in the south with large military forces all around it.

Luanda was full of foreigners, activists of all sorts, in contact with the outside world readily available. Is it not probable that Mr Williamson's information about the Schoon's would have been derived from Luanda, the people in Luanda would have been talking about this new couple who had come and moved down to Lubango?

Would they have known the sort of details that you talk about, about where they were living, etc? They would have talked about the fact that these well known people had moved into the country, but if the information was coming from Luanda, would it necessarily have contained the details that you are now arguing he must have, it is highly improbable that it wouldn't have included?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, first of all, Mr Williamson himself in 61.3, we give you the reference, he says that it would have been possible for him to get it, firstly.

Secondly Mr Chairman, there were Military Intelligence that clearly refers to the Military Intelligence of the South African Army, and UNITA operatives that actually delivered the bomb. Now, presumably if you had contact with Military Intelligence people, who could deliver a bomb at Lubango, you could obtain accurate information Mr Chairman.

And again, the personal relationship, we are not - the probabilities with respect, that probability may be good in the general sense, but on the particular facts of this case, one would have thought that a person who had at least lived under the same roof with at least one of the children, the one that was killed, that the ages of the children were such, if he was going to send a bomb Mr Chairman, and he concedes that it would have been possible for him, and he has failed to do it, with respect, the argument suggest that it is not available to him, however, it may have been available on the general probability Mr Chairman.

The probability in fact is Mr Chairman, that he must have known and did not care, particularly having regard to what he said to Mr Raven after the event which we will refer you to.

In paragraph 62.2 Mr Chairman, in his written amnesty application, Raven states that it was only after the death of Jeanette Schoon and her child and the congratulations from Williamson that I realised that they had been the targets for one of the two devices that I manufactured.

On questioning Williamson about the Schoon incident, he said that the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon, but that it served them right. He alleged that the Schoon's had always used their daughter as their "bomb disposal expert". On requesting clarification, he said that whenever they received suspicious parcels, they would throw them into the back yard, and let the child play with them, until such time as they deemed it fit to open them.

We are going to ask you to find that as a fact Mr Chairman. People speak the truth when they speak for the first time, and not afterwards when they can put their heads together into a common version, try to get a common version.

This passage Mr Chairman, also disposes I submit with respect, the suggestion that he would not have had the information, because the information would have come from Luanda.

Here was to his credit, Mr Raven who says that he was shocked to hear that a child had been killed by the device that he had made, he had gone to the person that had approached him to make the device and asked him, well, hi, what went wrong here, we killed a child?

Williamson Mr Chairman, never mind what he says when he is trying to get amnesty, if there was any truth in what he is saying now, he would have immediately said then oh, God forgive us, but I did not know that the children were there.

This is what we mean Mr Chairman, when we say that the general probabilities may indicate one way but the particular probabilities here, show a callousness and a disregard for human life, that is abnormal Mr Chairman.

In 62.3, in his evidence in chief, Raven attempts to modify the statement. When asked how Williamson had congratulated him, Raven let slip in my mind, the perception was that he had said that the Schoon's generally used the child, or can I rephrase that? The slip is significant because it confirms Raven's written statement.

After correcting himself, Raven goes on to repeat the wording from a newspaper article that he subsequently referred to. Nowhere in the newspaper article is there reference to a daughter or a child of the Schoon's.

Under cross-examination, Raven eventually confirms the contents of his written statement. In my mind, this which is said, was purported in my mind, to be said by Williamson, because I don't think I would have gone and questioned somebody else, Brigadier Goosen or somebody else and said what is this about Jeanette and Katryn.

We submit therefore, on paragraph 62.5 that Williamson did indeed utter the evil words attributed to him by Raven. Williamson's denial and attempted explanation, ought to be rejected as false Mr Chairman. Williamson again breached the need to know rule when he intimated to Dirk Coetzee that he had been responsible for the bomb that killed Jeanette Schoon and her daughter.

The evidence was not contested by Williamson when Dirk Coetzee was cross-examined. We quote Mr Chairman, did you get the impression, a question by Mr Berger, did you get the impression at that meeting that he was very proud of what he had done in relation to the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon? Yes, Mr Chairperson, as we were all after operations.

This was a conversation between killers Mr Chairman and it was not put in issue. This is why Mr Chairman, the late Mr Marius Schoon can't really be blamed if he described Mr Williamson's purported sympathies Mr Chairman, or regrets.

Then paragraph 63, Williamson's congratulations to Raven for killing a mother and her six year old daughter, his comment about a "bomb disposal expert" and his gloating attitude to Coetzee, are not the hallmarks of a man who did not know that children could be killed by this bomb and who felt like being hit with a bucket of cold water, when he was told that the child had been killed.

It is with some regret that I must allude to something else, that his statement to Raven is perhaps better described as that the death of Katryn left him cold, Mr Chairman.

We deal with the legal consequences on page 63 Mr Chairman. We have already argued in favour of a finding on the probabilities, that the bomb was addressed to Marius Schoon. On that basis and for the reasons advanced in paragraph 528, Williamson cannot claim an ex post facto political objective in relation to the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon.

Even if the bomb was in fact addressed to both Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Lubango, Williamson has been unable to show a legitimate political objective. Williamson knew that given the geographical location of Lubango, the Schoon's were no longer able to do the political work they had been doing in Botswana.

The South African Security Forces had succeeded in forcing Marius Schoon out of Botswana, they had achieved their aim without having had to kill him. williamson knew that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were teaching English to students at the university of Lubango. He knew that there were no ANC command structures anywhere near Lubango. If he needed any more information on them, he concedes that he could have obtained it.

There was no rush to send the bomb. Out of so many potential targets in the region, why did Williamson and his co-conspirators obsessively seek out the Schoon's, so far away and so isolated and doing nothing more than teaching English Mr Chairman?

Williamson claims that he did not intend to kill Katryn Schoon, yet he knew that the Schoon's had two young children. If he had any doubt whether their children were living with them, he ought to have obtained the necessary intelligence.

In his written application, Williamson states when I heard of the explosion at the Schoon's house at Lubango, I considered the matter carefully and came to the conclusion that the device was probably delivered with the cooperation of Military Intelligence and UNITA.

If Military Intelligence and UNITA could deliver a bomb to the Schoon's, they could much more easily have furnished Williamson with accurate information. Furthermore they could have killed Marius and or Jeanette Schoon without endangering the lives of the children.

We submit, what I mean by that Mr Chairman, UNITA would have done this for a very small price Mr Chairman, what we know of the conflict there, why send a bomb? We submit that Williamson knew that the children were living with their parents, and he deliberately sent the bomb, not caring whether the children became his victims.

Each of the criteria in Section 20(3)(a) to (f) of the Act must therefore be answered against him.

Let us go to the Act Mr Chairman. The motive of the person who committed the act. The act is killing the two people that he killed. What was his motive? No proper motive can be found, we submit, for Jeanette and certainly no proper motive can be found for Katryn.

The context in which the act, the context is that they were in Lubango, teaching English. What was the necessity? Under (c) the gravity of the act, what could be more grave than killing a mother and child so far removed from the actual struggle in South Africa?

Under (d), directed at a political opponent, the mother, yes, was a political opponent, but not the child. Whether this was as a result of an order Mr Chairman, we have not heard other than the order came from a deceased Brigadier, the circumstances under which this was done.

Again Mr Chairman, Williamson could not have been a second grade clerk or messenger. He must have been privy in the inner councils that decided that the bomb should be sent, both on the basis of authority and on the basis of non-disclosure, he is not entitled to amnesty.

The relationship between the act and the directness or proximity of the relationship, if there is one case that cries out that the proportionality test should be applied, it is this one, both for Jeanette and for the child.

Let us pose the question Mr Chairman, how did that killing help the Security Forces in their struggle against terrorism as they called it? If it did anything, and I think these were the words of the late Marius Schoon, it didn't discourage anybody. I think it was Mr Maharaj, it didn't discourage anybody, if anything it gave them greater resolve to continue with whatever they may have been doing.

Then we deal Mr Chairman - I believe also, I am reminded that Prof Heinz Klug also said something, gave evidence to the same effect. The role of Marius and Jeanette Schoon in exposing Williamson, it was put to Williamson under cross-examination it was quite clear that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were substantially responsible for his exposure as a policeman, his reply well, that is news to me, Mr Chairman, I knew Mr Arthur McGiven was substantially responsible.

Prof Klug's evidence concerning the role played by Marius and Jeanette Schoon, in coming to the conclusion that Carl Edwards and Williamson were not to be trusted, was not contested, neither was his evidence that subsequent to the setting of the trap for Edwards, he had telephoned Williamson in Geneva to inform him that he had suspicions regarding Edwards. During the telephone call, Williamson reassured Klug that there was no reason for them to be suspicious of Edwards.

Subsequent to the telephone call, Williamson had offered to arrange scholarships anywhere in the world for Klug and Patrick Fitzgerald and subsequent to the telephone call, no further funding was received by SANA from the IUEF in Geneva.

All those facts were clearly and categorically stated by Prof Klug. Many questions were put to him by counsel, Attorney for Mr Williamson, but nowhere will you find a denial of those facts deposed to by Mr Klug.

If anything, the cross-examination was nothing more than an invitation to repeat the evidence without a denial being put Mr Chairman.

For a person of Williamson's experience in Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, it ought to have been relatively simple for him to have realised that the SANA group in Gaberone were testing him. He must have realised that no genuine anti-apartheid activists could without further investigation, have given a blanket assurance in the light of Edwards' apparently suspicious behaviour.

Since Williamson had no choice but to protect Edwards, he must have realised that his cover too, was about to be blown.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did he have no other choice, Mr Bizos?

MR BIZOS: Mr Williamson?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes?

MR BIZOS: What else could he do Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Blow Edwards himself and tell Edwards that he had to do this, to enhance his own credibility. If, as you say, he must have realised, he must have realised that by doing that, he was going to loose his own, and he must surely have thought his position was far more important than that of Edwards?

MR BIZOS: Well, one can speculate in relation to that Mr Chairman, assume that he had dropped Edwards, would Edwards have kept quiet?

You know, I am not a reader of spy stories, but on the ordinary probabilities, if he had dropped Edwards who was his front man, front in the sense of nearer the conflict, here in South Africa and if he dropped him, there must have been a grave danger that Edwards would have exposed him.

CHAIRPERSON: Wasn't Edwards sitting in Johannesburg?

MR BIZOS: That is my understanding Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Subject to the control of the Security Police?

MR BIZOS: Yes, but he could have left like McGiven had left. He could have gone, all this is speculation. But one thing is clear Mr Chairman, that there is a logical sequence of events on undisputed facts, on which the inference can be safely drawn that the cutting off of the funds, the offering of the scholarships of the key people concerned, the fact that the evidence of Mr Maharaj on paragraph ... (tape ends) ... Min Maharaj in London, Mac Maharaj as he was known at the time. The timing and the fact and circumstances, is too close.

Mr Chairman, he hasn't explained, he has not denied that he stopped the funding. Why did he do it? Why did he offer scholarships? He doesn't explain.

ADV DE JAGER: At what time would McGiven have disclosed his identity, can you perhaps remember the date?

MR BIZOS: (Microphone not on), I think that it was January Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: January?

MR BIZOS: Yes, in a newspaper report, and this prompted Gen Coetzee to go over. I am not sure whether Gen Coetzee went over once it was published, or knew that it would be published, but all this is overlapping.

Mr Chairman, the documents may show that McGiven was coy about giving names anyway, but merely that there was a highly placed person. The withdrawal of Mr Williamson from Geneva, was preemptive, rather than reactive to hard facts becoming publicly known Mr Chairman.

Williamson, paragraph 70, Williamson's claim that it was news to him that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were substantially responsible for his exposure as a policeman, is belied by the contents of Exhibit CCC which is the newspaper report of the Rand Daily Mail by Tony Sterling. In that article, dated the 28th of January 1980, it was reported inter alia that exile sources in Botswana has stated that it was the suspicions of exiles in Gaberone which had eventually led the situation in which Mr Williamson had been forced to blow his cover. Williamson could not have been unaware of the reports in the South African press concerning his exposure, Mr Chairman.

Prof Klug's evidence that he was apparently targeted in 1985 raid on Gaberone, was also not contested. Neither was his evidence that Williamson was in the command centre during the raid. On Klug's evidence there was no reason for either him or the SNS offices to have been targeted during the raid. His assumption that he was targeted by Williamson because of his involvement in Williamson's exposure, is therefore a reasonable one.

It is therefore submitted Mr Chairman, that it is probable that Williamson dispatched the bomb to Lubango, not because he believed that Marius and Jeanette Schoon posed any threat to the South African State, but because he had an old score to settle.

We submit that Williamson did not have a legitimate political objective for sending the bomb, and that his application for amnesty ought to be refused for that and the other reasons that we have advanced.

Mr Chairman, my learned friend, Mr Berger, will deal with Raven, but may I return to the end of the previous batch, and I will be very brief Mr Chairman, in relation to that, because I submit that - Mr Chairman, we submit that the argument on page 42, we submit that the argument about the proper interpretation of the Section, that we must delve into the history of the legislation and compare it to Prof Nogarb's principles and the notice that was published, are not helpful.

We agree with the submissions in relation to the Act that have been made by our learned friend, Mr Jansen, and we also with respect, would suggest that the proper approach is that suggested by Adv De Jager. The words are clear, it is the words that have to be interpreted and applied.

If I may say Mr Chairman, that it is we submit, not proper to go back and say who has been granted indemnity and who has not, the question of indemnity Mr Chairman, was a simple discretion by President De Klerk on the wise advise of three retired Judges.

He didn't even have to take their advise if he didn't want to. He made decisions in our submission, having regard to the preamble of the two Indemnity Acts in the belief that what he did, would lead to reconciliation.

He didn't have to hear evidence, he didn't have to hear argument. He made what is substantially an executive decision and Rapollo's case, you may have noticed Mr Chairman, that I was one of the Counsel that made this submissions there, some of which did not find favour with His Lordship Mr Justice Van Dyk, the matter was not taken further Mr Chairman, because in the process prosecutions did not continue, but the judgement stands.

It has no relevance as to when amnesty is to be given. He wasn't dealing with an amnesty application. I do not know why so much time with respect, has been spent on the Rapollo case.

The other is, Mr Chairman, that this, a very substantial portion of this big pile of argument, really is both irrelevant and misdirected in our submission, and certainly not admissible, nor of any help. What it really amounts to Mr Chairman, in the main, is that they thought that we were at war, that they were obeying orders and public international law was dealt with at some length, and that when people at war are entitled to do what they are doing, and have as a defense an order given to them.

This was tried before Mr Chairman, in another context, and I would invite the Committee to come to the same conclusion, in so far as it has to, and I submit that it doesn't have to, to the judgement of His Lordship Mr Justice Silikowitz in the case of End Conscription Campaign and Another versus Minister of Defence and Another.

The judgement is a long one, I submit it is with respect, a judgement which was correct. Without wishing to introduce any emotion into the matter, it was the case of the securocrats headed by Gen Malan in that case Mr Chairman, that the ordinary law of the land, no longer applied to what may be termed military matters.

If there was a war in Angola, you would have the law of the land did not apply in Cape Town Mr Chairman, and that members of the Security Forces, could commit offences with impunity. That is what the whole debate was about.

If you read the summary of the facts presented to Justice Silikowitz, it really is a summary of many of the contentions of Min Vlok, Commissioner Van der Merwe, Pik Botha and others who had this notion that because people were fighting in Northern Namibia or in Angola, and because there were acts of violence committed within the country, they could do what soldiers could do in a conventional war and in some instances, they could even exceed the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

That was thrown out of court Mr Chairman, but that doesn't matter to this Committee. This Committee is entitled to give amnesty if certain prerequisites are complied with, that is what you have to look at. You don't have to look, with respect, to the Geneva Convention. You don't have to look at the legal perceptions of some of the Generals, and Gen Malan in particular and some of their Counsel as to what the legal position was at the time, it is of no assistance to you whatsoever, Mr Chairman.

Mr Chairman, before concluding, I want to indicate that I personally will not be responding to some of the specific allegations that have been made in these Heads of argument.

My learned friend, Mr Berger, will draw attention to some of them during the course of the argument. I cannot however, Mr Chairman, conclude by merely saying that I will not accept the invitation of trying to defend the manner in which I for which I take full responsibility for Mr Berger and myself, conducted this case.

Unless the Committee wants me to deal with any particular matter, because there are invitations for comments to be made. Unless the Committee asks me to deal with any particular matter, I do not intend saying anything about it Mr Chairman. That is all I have to say, subject to any questions that the Committee may want to put to me, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: The only comment that I would like to make Mr Bizos, is I did not believe yesterday that your estimate of time would be as accurate as it has been. It is now two minutes past eleven.

You are leaving us now, I understand?

MR BIZOS: For the time being.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. So shall we take the adjournment at this stage?

MR BIZOS: I am indebted to you Mr Chairman.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

MR BERGER IN ARGUMENT: (continued)Thank you Mr Chairperson. Mr Visser once referred to me as Mr Bizos' stand in, perhaps his words were more prophetic than he thought at the time.

Chairperson, yesterday I was dealing with, I had just passed page 34 of Part A of the Heads and just to recap, we were dealing with Mr Raven's convoluted version about what he saw and what he didn't see and why he couldn't see the name and address on the envelopes. I had just read to you from page 35, the quote from Mr Raven's evidence where he says, I said to him, why are you talking about sticky paper covering the name and the address and he says, because it could just as well have been on the front of one of the two cases, where I didn't see the address, because it came out the other way and there was sticky tape, I couldn't see the address, therefore it was really a need to know.

What I will do now in order to save time, and because of the approach of Mr Raven in his evidence before you, that everything that he did in the first case, was identical to what he did in the second, is that I am now going to argue on the basis of both, if that meets with your approval.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Berger, I only have a problem with how far, how literally we should accept identical. You know, something could be identical, but not a photocopy, that sort of thing, in the general terms of speaking.

MR BERGER: Yes, Adv De Jager, there is that problem, but Mr Raven's evidence was led on that basis. He was, and if I could refer you to it, it is page 1829 of the record, 1829 at the top, Mr Du Plessis, all right now, Mr Raven, in respect of the Jeanette Schoon incident, can you explain to the Committee, the similarities between the two incidents? Mr Raven, when the request came some two years later, it flashed through my mind, that the device that was built for, which I later found out was for Ruth First, was almost if it was a rehearsal for the second request, because all the components were the same. It was a request from Craig, via Brigadier Goosen or from Brigadier Goosen, via Craig, the same official type envelope thing, the same intercepted mail piece inside,the same type of documentation and it was a question of without sounding callous, you know, here we go again.

Mr Du Plessis, did everything happen in the same way? Mr Raven, in an identical way. Obviously what happened afterwards with the congratulations, is not identical, but that appears even from Mr Raven's written application, which would tend to suggest that he knew that there were two separate incidents.

But it goes further than that, Adv De Jager, there is a reference which I have now put into Part B of the Heads, and that is in paragraph 76.1, it is a reference to page 1922. 1829 was during the evidence in chief of Mr Raven, 1922 is during his cross-examination by me. I beg your pardon, I am completely wrong, it is also during his evidence in chief by Mr Du Plessis.

This comes after a question by the Chairperson at the top of 1922, so you were prepared to make a bomb to kill somebody and make no effort to find out who they were, although all you had to do was look at the piece of paper in front of you, is that what you are telling us?

Mr Raven, that is correct Mr Chairman. Chairperson, you chose not to find out? Mr Raven, that is correct. Chairperson, so you were prepared to kill people where you might have thought their death was a complete mistake? Mr Du Plessis intervenes, he says Mr Chairman, with respect, the testimony was that the address was covered, the testimony was that the address was covered on the envelope. Chairperson, there was some form of covering in the one case, referring to Ruth First. There was no such evidence in the Schoon case?

Mr Du Plessis, in both Mr Chairman. He testified that the incident happened exactly the same, and that means that it happened in both incidents Mr Chairman. So Adv De Jager, the point is that it wasn't just a phrase that slipped in, yes, it was identical.

There is a lot of examination and it was not only his examination, but quite clearly from what Mr Du Plessis says at this point, it was the version that he gave to his Counsel, that it happened identically in both cases, to the extent that the address was covered and this is the important one, that the address in both cases, were covered in exactly the same way.

That is the point I deal with in 16.2.4. He is fabricating now as he testifies because up to this point, this is now at 1925, up to this point, his evidence has been everything happened in the same way and the address was covered in both instances.

Now, when it gets pointed out to him how could you see the address if you were looking at the back of the envelope, then he says well, maybe the covering of the address happened in one of the two cases, which is clearly a departure from the specific instructions that he had given to Mr Du Plessis.

Point 5, Raven's evidence that sticking tape was covering the address emerges for the first time, in his oral evidence. As I say it was not mentioned in his written application, nor in Williamson's written application, nor in Williamson's oral evidence.

Williamson doesn't talk about anything being stuck over the name and the address. We know, and this is perhaps where one needs to look at Part B, we know that on Williamson's version, this is dealt with at page 67, Part B, paragraph 76.3, where I say that Williamson claims to have seen the address but not the name on the first envelope.

He states that he actually saw the names of Marius and Jeanette Schoon on the second envelope. It is page 1199, this is now in the evidence of Mr Williamson being cross-examined by Mr Bizos. In fact, it is a question of Mr Sibanyoni that was referred to this morning, in the Ruth First incident, were you not afraid that going through the documents, would leave fingerprints? This comes after page 1198 where Mr Williamson at the top of the page is responding to a question from Mr Bizos, the page before, did you go through the contents of, if we can call it, the Schoon envelope and Mr Williamson said, I did Mr Chairman, top of 1198.

Mr Bizos, did you put them in their file? Mr Williamson, I put them, I sent them for filing Mr Chairman, and that is one of the specific things I asked, whether we could have the contents of the envelope Mr Chairman.

Then there is further questioning. Mr Bizos asks at the bottom of 1198, why didn't you treat them, this is the envelope, with the gentility that you treated the envelope that was addressed to a person unknown to you, that led to the death of Ruth First? Mr Williamson, because Mr Chairman, on that occasion as I said, the first time that such a thing happened, I was not really one hundred percent sure what was going on.

I didn't see in the documentation, anything that was of particular interest to me. This is the documentation going to Joe Slovo. When it came to the Schoon documentation Mr Chairman, top of 1199, I had for a number of years been monitoring the Schoon's and the ANC activities in Botswana.

These documents related specifically to something that I was particularly interested in. Mr Sibanyoni asked the question about the fingerprints, was that not a concern and he says no, I asked whether I could have it, and then Mr Bizos, did you actually see the names of the people that it was addressed to and Mr Williamson says, I actually saw the names. It was addressed to Jen and Marius or Marius and Jen. It was addressed to both of them.

Mr Bizos, the Brigadier didn't tell you this this time? Mr Williamson, no Mr Chairman, he told me here is a communication from the ANC in Botswana to Marius and Jeanette Schoon and then, when I looked at it, I saw it clearly.

The point is that there was on Williamson's version, no reason why Raven would not have seen (a) the address on the envelope addressed to Ruth First, he claims he didn't see the address, the name and the address on the envelope to Marius Schoon. He claims he didn't see anything.

Even on his version that he was looking at the back of one of them, he would have seen the front of the other. The point of all of this Mr Chairperson, is that Raven has taken a decision to depart from his written applications, he has tried to construct a version which can live with the version of Mr Williamson's and in the process, he has been shown to be fabricating his evidence.

On that basis, we submit that it cannot be said that Mr Raven has made full disclosure of all relevant facts. 17 on page 36, Chairperson makes the point that even on Raven's version, he was given the necessary information. Even on his version of need to know.

He got the name and the address, he chose not to look at it, so he says. But neither Williamson nor Goosen could have anticipated that he would not look at the name and the address and neither of them could have anticipated the awkward way in which he says he went about constructing the bomb, or that he wouldn't have taken the small envelope out of the big envelope.

If he is going to construct a device to put into the big envelope, the most reasonable assumption would be, he is going to take the envelope out of the official envelope. There were no instructions to him to say don't do that. That is why we make the submission in 18, that his current version is so improbable that he did not look at the name and address, that his denial cannot be believed.

And then we deal very briefly with the manner in which the bomb was constructed. Again, in Ruth First and in Jeanette and Katryn Schoon, he estimated, this is a man who is making a device to put into an envelope and he uses estimates, size and thickness and once he had glanced at it, and the evidence is he glanced very briefly at this, he locks it away in his cupboard or cabinet, filing cabinet, and then doesn't look at it again, until he pops it back in after he has constructed the bomb.

He doesn't go back to check to see well, have I got it right, before he does the final finishing touches. We make the point in 20 that for an expert bomb maker, Raven's description indicates a most unusual way of constructing a letter bomb.

And then in that paragraph, we make the point which I submit ...

ADV DE JAGER: Isn't it perhaps the way they are constructing it? Isn't it perhaps the way they construct it, how would we know how an expert bomb maker would construct the bomb?

MR BERGER: No, no, it is not how he actually went about doing the cut out, because there he was very detailed about how he did the cut out. But, the way in which he estimates. It is his job, he is a technical person and he goes about it in a very untechnical way. That is the point I am making, but the really improbable point of all of this, is the point we make in 20 where we say it is inconceivable that he would not have sealed the envelope before returning it to Williamson.

He has been told according to his written application and according to his oral evidence, to construct an IED in the form of a letter, in the written application, in the oral evidence, to replace the contents of an intercepted envelope with an IED, so that it can then be sent on to somebody to kill them.

For some reason, he is not told not to seal it, for some reason, he doesn't seal the envelope. Chairperson, if I remember correctly, it was in fact in response to a question from you, that he gave the evidence that no, he didn't seal it.

He then takes the envelope in both cases, back to Craig Williamson. Craig Williamson says to him are you saying to me, he has a peek inside the envelope and he says everything looked as it looked before, and he says, I said to Raven, are you telling me that this bomb, if it explodes now, could kill one or both of us, and Raven says yes, and he says well, take this to the Brigadier, I don't want it here.

So Williamson doesn't seal it, and then this device goes back to Goosen who had no knowledge about how it is being made because he hasn't had any contact with Raven and then Goosen is presumably going to take a bomb in his hands, and start licking the envelope or gluing the envelope and pressing it down, so that it is sealed again.

ADV DE JAGER: The outer envelope? If we accept that there are two envelopes, the bomb is not in the inside, the sealed envelope and now you've got the other one, and you are sealing the other one, and the device could only explode once you open the inner envelope and I don't know, a string or whatever, is disturbed?

MR BERGER: But the point is Adv De Jager, how does Goosen know that? Goosen doesn't know that?

CHAIRPERSON: But you say in your Heads that he returned the envelope to Williamson without sealing the intercepted envelope, page 1828.

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So it wasn't the outer envelope he was talking about, it was the intercepted envelope?

MR BERGER: No, no, Chairperson, there are three envelopes now on this version. There is the large official envelope, inside that, there is the intercepted envelope and inside that, there is the envelope created by Raven. The bomb envelope, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: He allowed the bomb to slip into the intercepted envelope?

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: It is in the intercepted envelope?

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: He didn't seal the intercepted envelope?

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So it is not the outer envelope that we are talking about?

MR VISSER: (Microphone not on)

MR BERGER: No, it is quite clear, 1832, no it is not 1832.

MR VISSER: I have it here Mr Chairman, I am just trying to be of assistance. This is not my argument Mr Berger, you will appreciate this. Mr Raven, Mr Du Plessis leads him in evidence and Mr Raven says, yes, as I indicated that the device was placed into the steamed, open A4, it was then resealed. Can we just show perhaps that it was - if that is something different, then I apologise. I am just trying to assist.

MR BERGER: No, I am not saying it is something different, but that is not on page 1832.

MR VISSER: That makes sense, because this is the computer again Mr Chairman, and as you know, it never has the same page numbers.

MR BERGER: Chairperson, the evidence of Mr Raven is clearly this and I will not be doing him any injustice if I describe it this way. His evidence before you, his current version, is he gets a large official envelope from Williamson.

Inside that envelope is an intercepted mail item, an intercepted envelope. Williamson says can you replace the contents of the intercepted envelope with an IED? He says fine. He partially lifts it out, gets an estimate of the size, he says it looks like an A4 envelope.

He is now talking about the intercepted envelope. He goes back to his office and he locks the large official envelope, this is the Security Police large envelope, containing the intercepted envelope, he locks that in his filing cabinet. He says he sits and he thinks for a while how he is going to go about the construction of this IED.

He then goes away from Security Police Headquarters, to the Technical Division and he steams open another envelope. This is an envelope which he has obtained. It is a blank envelope, he steams it open and he creates the template from 30 to 40 sheets of paper, stuck together. He cuts out the necessary details to put in the bomb, he puts the bomb in there. If that moves, that will explode, because then the circuit is closed.

He then takes the envelope that he has steamed open and he closes it so that it fits snugly around the IED that he has created. He then takes the IED which is now an envelope, modified envelope, containing the bomb. He takes that back to Security Police Headquarters, he opens his filing cabinet and in the way that he demonstrates with his knuckles and everything, he then allows the IED to slip into the intercepted envelope.

The intercepted envelope is still contained in the large official envelope, that is why he only partially lift it out, he takes the IED and he allows it to slip into the intercepted envelope. He does not seal the intercepted envelope.

The unsealed intercepted envelope containing the envelope which contains the IED, is then taken back to Williamson. Williamson opens the large official envelope, he has a look inside and he sees an intercepted mail item, which doesn't look any different to him than it looked before he gave it to Raven.

He says to Raven, are you telling me that there is a bomb inside there now, and that it could explode and kill us? Raven says yes. He says well, I don't want it here, take it to the Brigadier. That is Raven's current version.

What I am saying, what I am submitting is that Williamson does not seal the intercepted envelope. It goes off to Brigadier Goosen. Brigadier Goosen does not know how the bomb was created. He does not know, because Raven has had no conversation with him.

He does not know that the bomb will be set off by movement of the pages inside the inner envelope and he then, is expected to either lick the envelope or glue the envelope and press the flap of the envelope down, to seal it and he is pressing onto a bomb.

CHAIRPERSON: It is quite safe unless you open the sealed envelope. This thing is made to go into the post bag, to be pressed on by all sorts of other parcels.

MR BERGER: But he doesn't know that Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but he knows there is a bomb in there, it is in a sealed envelope. I find it hard to believe that any experienced policeman would then open the sealed envelope.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Berger, aren't we speculating about what Goosen knew or not? He might have been some sort of expert, he might have done this or that or the following.

The trouble is, or the fortunate or the unfortunate fact is that he is not here, and we couldn't hear him. We are all speculating whether he had in fact instructed, who he took into his confidence and that is where the link sort of, fails.

MR BERGER: The only point that I wish to make, is that it is strange that Raven who has been asked to replace the contents of the intercepted envelope with an IED, does not complete the job of sealing the intercepted envelope.

Chairperson, it was as I say, in response to a question of yours, about surely he would have sealed the intercepted envelope that this evidence was given. If I can find the reference, I will give it to you.

ADV DE JAGER: We appreciate what your submission is Mr Berger.

MR BERGER: Then Chairperson, we come to the probabilities and the improbable version of Ruth First opening two envelopes.

On Raven's version, what she had to do, what she must have done on his version, is that she opened the intercepted envelope, saw that there was another envelope inside, took out that envelope and then removed, started to remove the contents of the inner envelope and it exploded.

We make the submission that what that assumes is a high degree of naivety and carelessness. Raven thought, he says, that the bomb was going to a high ranking official of either the ANC or the SACP. Chairperson, it is like, I would submit, your example of an experienced policeman not wanting to tamper with an envelope that has obviously been sealed.

If Raven thought this was going to a high ranking official of the ANC/SACP who lived with say for example it was going to Joe Slovo, Joe Slovo was very security conscious as opposed to Ruth First.

Can you imagine a high ranking official of the ANC/SACP receiving an envelope, opening it and discovering inside a blank, sealed envelope. Surely that person's suspicions would have been raised and the point is, surely Raven would have anticipated that.

On the evidence of O'Laughlin, we submit, or O'Laughlin's evidence does not allow for the time it would have taken for Ruth First to have opened the packet, removed the inner envelope and then opened the inner envelope. We submit that in the circumstances, it is highly improbable that Ruth First would not have had her suspicions aroused and that she would have opened a blank, inner envelope without exhibiting it to her colleagues in the room.

We make the submission in 20.3 that Raven's current version is not truthful. I have made that submission many times, on many different bases.

We refer there to the video. It is not surprising that he lies in the video. That is not the point. The point of the video, and it was put to Raven, watch Mr Raven, watch how you are capable of lying without showing any signs of discomfort.

We say that Raven is capable of lying, his current version is a lie. If he had stuck to the versions in his written application, as I submitted yesterday, he might well have been entitled to amnesty. But he has chosen to align his version with that of Williamson's.

That choice, that compromise that he was forced to make, has resulted in his failing to make a disclosure of all relevant facts. What he says now happened, we submit is not the truth.

ADV DE JAGER: Would you then say in his original application, he disclosed all relevant facts?

MR BERGER: It appears that what he discloses in his written applications, could be the truth. That he was, if one just looks at that, without - obviously he would have to come here and explain detail, but if one just looks at what he says in the written application, it would appear to be the truth.

But he has now come to the Committee and he has said ...

ADV DE JAGER: He has chosen to give another version?

MR BERGER: Well he said, what I have said there, is just the start of the story. The full story is x and that is the version on which he now seeks amnesty.

That version, is not the truth. He says Adv De Jager, that it is not the truth that he simply made the envelopes, handed them back to Williamson, in other words, Williamson didn't give him anything, he made the bomb in this envelope, handed it back to Williamson and knew nothing further thereafter.

He says that that is not how it happened. Therefore he can't be given amnesty for disclosing all the facts, if it is subsequently found that that is indeed how it happened.

He must stand or fall by what he says to you now, is the truth ... (tape ends) ... Raven's suggestion that what he was describing as one incident, what he thought was one incident, he now believes is two, and the submission that we made yesterday, that he could not possibly have conflated the two issues, I submit that if one just has regard to, if one compares what he says in his first written application at 44 to 45, with what he says in his second application at 108 to 109, one can see that he is talking about two different, or that he recognises that there were two separate incidents.

He talks about when Williamson congratulated him on the death of Ruth First. He talks about when Williamson congratulated him about the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. He would have known that they were two years apart.

CHAIRPERSON: You have referred us to page 44 and 108?

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: They are identical, except the names Ruth First on 44, and Jeanette Schoon and her daughter, on page 108 and the dates?

MR BERGER: No.

CHAIRPERSON: And Angola and Maputo, otherwise the nature and particulars, are identical?

MR BERGER: No Chairperson, they are not. For example, at 44, he talks about being instructed to construct two explosive devices, at 108 he talks about constructing an explosive device.

CHAIRPERSON: One, yes.

MR BERGER: At 44 he talks about a disassembled nine volt battery, at 108 he talks about an assembled nine volt battery. Those are the differences that I am referring to.

Then if one turns over the page, at 45 to 109, the conversations that happened after the deaths of the different women, were different. Most of it is identical, that is obvious.

CHAIRPERSON: Did Bosch give evidence before us?

MR BERGER: No, he didn't. Mr Raven's evidence was that neither of these, that Bosch had not participated at all in the creation of either of these two bombs, then his application was withdrawn.

Chairperson, the other point that I just wish to raise was, before I get on to political objective, was that yesterday you suggested that one might be able to interpret Raven's reference to an envelope at 44 and 108, as the intercepted envelope even though he did not say so. If that is so, Adv De Jager, then he hasn't even made full disclosure here, but it would appear that what he is saying at 18 and at 44 is that Williamson gave him instructions to construct an explosive device in an envelope and that the dimension and form of the envelope, were part of Williamson's instructions to Raven.

I submit that that is what appears from a literal reading of the words at 44 and 108.

Besides Raven's failure to make full disclosure, we submit that his choice in changing his version, his decision to change his version, from the written application so that it fell in line with Mr Williamson's version, also has serious consequences for Raven's political objective.

If he had not been given the name and address on the envelope, if he had not been given an envelope with the name and address, if he had simply been ordered to create a bomb in an envelope as he says, if he had been ordered, I am reading from 108, to construct an explosive device in the form of a letter, in an envelope of a particular size and of a particular thickness, by Mr Williamson and Williamson had said do this for me please, and give it back to me, and that had been all, then Raven could legitimately have said I was simply carrying out an order.

Williamson knew what he was doing, I accepted his bona fides and I acted accordingly. He would have had no problem with demonstrating a legitimate political objective. But he doesn't, that is not his case.

He stated political objective, I am now at paragraph 24, is set out in his written amnesty application. You will remember the debate about what is contained there is not all applicable to him, and he then sets out or he confirms what parts are applicable to him, in relation to the deaths of Ruth First, Jeanette and Katryn Schoon, and what is contained in 25(1) through to 25(4), is what Raven says was his political objective at the time, his personal political objective, to prevent taken by potential activists and terrorists, he talks about MK, he talks about killing people because he couldn't detain them, Security Police didn't want another Nelson Mandela and he said it was important to demoralise MK and other military wings of the freedom fighters.

The he is asked Chairperson, I believe it was by you, whether active membership of the ANC or SACP was a basis for assassination. That simple basis, and he says Mr Chairman, bearing in mind that I didn't know that she was the recipient of the parcel. We submit that his position is that he did not know for whom the bomb was intended, he says, but that Ruth First would in any event, have been a legitimate target in his mind, in 1982.

We submit there are three problems with that approach. First, it is the ex post facto political objective which my learned leader has addressed you on, I am not going to repeat that argument. Secondly, on his current version, he must have known for whom the bombs were intended. On his current version, accepting that there was no sticky paper over the name and the address, he must have seen to whom the bombs were intended. He can't say bearing in mind, I didn't know that she was the recipient of the bomb. That is just not available to him.

Then if he did know the bomb was addressed to Ruth First, he says he knew almost nothing about her life and work and activities, so in his mind, Ruth First couldn't have been in 1982, a legitimate target for assassination, because he had no basis on which to come to such a conclusion.

ADV DE JAGER: If he was only obeying an order, he had been ordered to create a bomb to be used against the ANC, would it matter whether he knew or whether she was a legitimate target or the bomb would be planted against a legitimate target? Suppose it was placed in the street somewhere, and somebody was injured, would that deny amnesty?

MR BERGER: If he was told please create a bomb which we intend to use against the ANC, full stop, that is a different story, but that is not the evidence. The evidence is, here is an intercepted item, create a bomb which will replace the contents of that intercepted item. He is not told anything about the ANC.

He says I assumed, there is no conversation about the ANC, Adv De Jager, he says I assumed that the bomb was to be sent to a high ranking official of either the ANC or the SACP. That is his assumption.

It is not his order, his order is replace the contents of this intercepted item with IED, that is the order that he got.

ADV DE JAGER: (Microphone not on), the only order he received, was to create a bomb. He is working in the Security Police, he is receiving this order from a high ranking officer and later on, the bomb exploded and somebody was killed.

Didn't he act in executing an order as a member of the Security Police, in the ordinary course and scope of his employment?

MR BERGER: Yes, but those aren't the facts of this case. That is what I develop in the Heads of argument. It starts just over the page, I will get there in one moment, if you will bear with me.

28 he is asked in cross-examination, if Ruth First was a highly vocal anti-apartheid activist, concerned with the struggle for human rights in South Africa, and articulating that on every international platform, would that have qualified her as a target for assassination? His answer, no, I don't think so.

It is important to decide whether he knew who the bomb was going to and if he knew who the bomb was going to, whether in his mind, that was a legitimate target, because we will come to the provisions of the Act, which require bona fides and reasonableness.

That is why it is important. He says if that was what Ruth First was about, then she wouldn't have, in my mind, he is talking obviously in my mind, he wouldn't have been a legitimate target for assassination, and that is what Ruth First was about.

So we submit that it is not good enough for Raven to contend that he believed in the powers that be. It would be good enough Adv De Jager, and members of the Committee, it would be good enough if he didn't have more information. But it is not good enough bearing in mind the information that he had. That is the distinguishing feature of this case.

Why do we say that? I wasn't here when Mr Du Plessis argued on behalf of Mr Raven and apparently Mr Du Plessis argues that Mr Raven can rely on Section 20(2)(a) of the Act. I have heard that other Counsel take a different view. My learned leader has already argued. It is quite clear that Section 20(2)(a) was not intended for members of the Security Police.

Members of the Security Police were employees of the State, they were carrying out their duties, in particular in the case of Mr Raven and Mr Williamson, they were carrying out their duties from Security Police Headquarters in Pretoria, they were carrying out their duties as policemen of the State, Section 20(2)(a) can't avail them.

20(2)(b) clearly is of application, and that requires that the act must have been committed bona fide with the object of countering or otherwise resisting the said struggle, which is the political struggle against the State and 20(2)(f) says that such a person in (b) must have had reasonable grounds for believing and these words are important, that he or she was acting in the course and scope of his or her duties and within the scope of his or her express or implied authority. Such a person includes an employee of the State.

He must have had reasonable grounds for thinking this is part of my job, effectively is what the Section is saying. Raven was clearly an employee of the State, no doubt about that, when he made both the bombs.

We make the submission that the suggestion he was acting on behalf of the National Party when he made the bombs, is disingenuous. His say so now before you that he was acting on behalf of the National Party, is with respect self serving. Why do we say that? Well, one has to look at his written applications, Bundle 1, page 48. Page 48, he is asked the specific question which deals with was or were the acts, omissions or offences committed in the execution of an order of or on behalf of or with the approval of the organisation, institution, body, liberation movement, State department or Security Force concerned? That is where Mr Raven should have said I was acting on behalf of the National Party, of an order, on behalf of the National Party or I was acting ...

ADV DE JAGER: But the answer given is clearly also not grammatically correct. He was asked whether he acted on an order and the answer is Craig Williamson, so he doesn't say yes, I had been ordered by Craig Williamson, so it is ...

MR BERGER: The answer is that his order came from Craig Williamson.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, that is what we ...

MR BERGER: That is the import of his answer, and he gives the same answer, exactly the same answer in relation to Jeanette and Katryn Schoon, Bundle 2.

ADV DE JAGER: And he didn't add that Craig Williamson was a future candidate of the National Party or acted on behalf of the National Party?

MR BERGER: No, he didn't say that either. And then the fact that he was a member of the National Party, the fact that Raven says that he was a member of the National Party, does not mean that he was acting in the furtherance of the objectives of the National Party.

He was quite clearly a Security Policeman acting as a Security Policeman, employed by the State. His answer is, was the act committed on behalf of an institution or body, his answer is Craig Williamson.

If one has a look at what Craig Williamson's answer is to both those questions, it is Bundle 1, page 6, question 11, I won't read it out again but Craig Williamson's answer is yes, as detailed above.

If one looks at as detailed above, to page 5, question 10(b), Williamson says at the time of the above incident, the SA State and especially its Security Forces, were in full scale conflict with the ANC and SACP as well as their allies, such as Mozambique.

This pattern of State action against the ANC/SACP escalated in 1982. State action, action on behalf of the State.

ADV DE JAGER: I think we have dealt with this argument rather in full.

MR BERGER: I won't take it any further. I have set out in 29.4 what Williamson says again in his other application.

I submit that it is clear that Raven and Williamson fall under 20(2)(b) and 20(2)(f). We make the submission in 29.5 that blind faith is not the same thing as good faith. Where it was possible for the employee of the State to have applied his mind as to whether his act was capable of countering or otherwise resisting the said struggle, then his failure to do so, negatives his bona fides.

The distinguishing feature with Raven is that he knew or could have known to whom the bomb was being sent. On his version, he could have known and he chose not to look.

It is submitted on Raven's behalf that that bona fide indicates a subjective test, we say that a better way of looking at bona fides is that it imports the need for honesty. The reference there is to a Rhodesian case which dealt with the provisions of the 1975 Rhodesian Indemnity and Compensation Act which spoke about acts committed in good faith by Security Force members, and at 251(e) Judge Beck said I would emphasise that the requirement of good faith which imports the need for honesty and therefore the absence of ulterior motives, also imports in the words of Bristow, J. in Deadlow versus Minister of Defence and Provost Marshall, 1915 (TPD) an absence of "wanton or capricious(?) oppression".

The important part of all of this is what is stated in 29.8 and that is what takes Raven out of the category of a footsoldier, simply following orders.

He concedes Chairperson, that the bomb could have been intended for a personal enemy of Mr Williamson's, or the leader of the opposition or any number, you will remember, I put to him, any number of high profile - in fact Adv De Jager you added or a lecturer, or an Advocate and then Mr Raven said, or Mr Bizos.

Raven knew that at the time, the bomb could have been intended for anyone. He assumed it was going to a high ranking official of the ANC or the SACP. But to test, we submit to test his bona fides and the reasonableness of his actions, we posed the question assume, just assume for argument sake the bomb had been intended for a personal enemy of Mr Williamson, if Raven had known that, I don't know besides Marius and Jeanette Schoon, who Mr Williamson's other personal enemies were, and Heinz Klug and Patrick Fitzgerald, but if there was say somebody that was a personal enemy of his, not connected to the political struggle, and that that person's name was on the envelope, if Raven had known that, in other words, if he had looked at the name and address, then he could not have had and would not have had reasonable grounds for believing that his act or that he was acting and I use the words of the Section, within the course and scope of his duties?

He would have known that wait, this isn't part of my job, I can't get involved in this. It is a personal issue, and he then would have had to refuse to make the bomb.

ADV DE JAGER: But his job was to create explosives, he was an Explosives Expert? If you had been ordered to make a bomb and it is being placed in Church Street, in order to attack the Air Force building there, or the soldiers in the building, and you foresee or you should have foreseen that bystanders could be injured, but that is not your political objective to injure the bystanders, and once you have foreseen that, could you then say well, I had a political objective, I could get amnesty for all the soldiers I have killed, but I can't get amnesty for the bystanders?

MR BERGER: No, no, not at all, that is not the submission and my learned leader, submitted the same yesterday that that is not the submission. It is not the case, we are not dealing with a scenario where I intend to kill X, but Y is killed by mistake.

ADV DE JAGER: Let's take it further. I am preparing a bomb, I know it will be used to kill people, I don't know who at all. Working for the Security Police, knowing that they are fighting the liberation forces, I assumed that it would be used against the liberation forces.

But now my senior, Gen Goosen decided no, I will use this against the AWB. Couldn't he get amnesty?

MR BERGER: He assumes because he does not know, that is why he makes the assumption. If Gen Goosen says to him, make a bomb, he makes a bomb, he gives it back to Gen Goosen. Gen Goosen then, he thinks Gen Goosen is going to use it against the ANC and Gen Goosen uses it against the AWB, or against for some personal motive of Gen Goosen.

Raven's assumption is reasonable. It is reasonable that that bomb is going to be used against the ANC. But that is because he doesn't have any further information. When he has the ability or the capacity to get further information and he deliberately chooses not to follow that route, then the reasonableness of his actions, are called into action.

If in the same example of Gen Goosen, if Gen Goosen, Brigadier Goosen had given Raven an envelope with the name of the target on it, and that target was not the ANC, but somebody else, then Raven would have had to have said but hang on, this isn't part of my job.

What we are submitting is, you must have regard to 20(2)(f). 20(2)(f) talks about a person in (b) who on reasonable grounds, believed that he or she was acting in the course and scope of his or her duties and within the scope of his or her express or implied authority.

If the bomb was addressed to a personal friend of Mr Williamson's, and Raven knew that, it is a different story if he didn't know that, but if he knew that, then it cannot be said that he had reasonable ground for believing that he was acting in the course and scope of his employment.

ADV DE JAGER: But was the course and scope of Raven's authority?

MR BERGER: Well, the real course and scope of his authority was to dispose, not dispose, to disconstruct, deconstruct bombs. It was, the scope, the express scope of his authority was not to go and kill people, but we are talking of a culture within the Security Police.

ADV DE JAGER: (Microphone not on) to create bombs in order to detonate other bombs, that kind of thing?

MR BERGER: Yes, but not to kill people, that is why he has committed an offence.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes. The only thing Mr Berger, that I want you to assist me in, the scope of his functions wasn't to identify targets, wasn't to check whether the target that has been identified, is a good target, or an appropriate target to put it like that. That was the function of his superiors.

MR BERGER: With respect Adv De Jager, that is where we draw the line. If he didn't know who the target was, then that is something that he could leave to his superiors because that is obviously something that they didn't want to discuss with him.

But if he knew, what if the target was his wife?

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, on the other hand, what if, he had read on the envelope the target was Mr Christiaan Pieterse. He has never heard of such a person, should he go and investigate who is Christiaan Pieterse?

MR BERGER: No, he doesn't have to go and investigate who is Christiaan Pieterse, but if by looking at the name, he would reasonably and I emphasise that reasonably, come to the conclusion that this was not something within the course and scope of his employment, then his decision to go further, could not have been in good faith.

ADV DE JAGER: No, I agree with that, but have we got evidence that he in fact knew anything about the Schoon's for instance?

MR BERGER: He says he didn't know anything about the Schoon's, but he knew about Ruth First.

ADV DE JAGER: That was, he knew the name?

MR BERGER: But Adv De Jager, with respect, that is not the focus of my submission.

ADV DE JAGER: (Microphone not on), it is troubling me, so I ...

CHAIRPERSON: You say he should have looked, but the problem is if he had looked, and it didn't tell him anything, where are we? If he had looked and saw Marius Schoon, which meant nothing to him, he would have been entitled would he not, to have decided well my superiors have decided on this target.

MR BERGER: But Chairperson, I keep coming back to the point one has to decide his application on two bases, one, is he telling the truth? If not, then he fails on full disclosure.

But even if he is telling the truth about not looking, the question is, is that conduct reasonable? Was that in good faith? Why would he not look?

CHAIRPERSON: Because he believes in his superior officers. They were doing a very good job.

MR BERGER: But that is not the reason he gives Chairperson. The reason he gives is that he didn't look because the name was covered, but the name wasn't covered.

What is he hiding, why is he hiding? The real question is, why is he giving ...

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, that is another, that is the factual basis whether he is telling the truth or not. I have tried to sort out a legal problem.

MR BERGER: Yes, I understand the legal problem, and the legal problem must then be answered on an interpretation of the Section. What does the Section require and our submission is that the Section requires reasonable conduct on the part of an employee of the State.

We submit that it is not reasonable for him, having the capacity to determine to whom the bomb is going, knowing that there is a possibility that it could go to a personal enemy of Mr Williamson's, it is not reasonable for him not to look.

ADV DE JAGER: Then we would accept he would have known, or Mr Williamson's personal enemies.

MR BERGER: It is an example. That is why, the submission is on his version, his decision to deliberately refrain from looking, was not reasonable. Unfortunately his stated political objective is at the end of the day, inextricably linked to his failure to make full disclosure of all relevant facts.

The question that must be asked is, why is he lying?

Chairperson, our submission is that Mr Raven ought to be refused amnesty on the basis of this failure to make full disclosure and on the basis of the political objective arguments. He should be refused amnesty both in respect of the bomb which killed Ruth First and in respect of the bomb which killed Jeanette and Katryn Schoon.

There are additional points which my learned leader referred to from the Heads of argument of Mr Levine, which we need to deal with.

At page 109 of his Heads of argument Mr Levine makes the point although attempts were made to illustrate that Ruth Slovo was an academic, non-violent ANC sympathiser ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Berger, would you try to go a bit, because you haven't got written argument here, we will have to refer to the others and write down what your argument is.

MR BERGER: Adv De Jager, I am referring to the Heads of argument for Mr Williamson in respect of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon and Ruth First, it is the second bundle, I am told, of argument, top of page 109.

Top of page 109, although attempts were made to illustrate that Ruth Slovo was an academic, non-violent ANC sympathiser, the documentation and outside facts illustrate the contrary.

In this regard, the contrary that she wasn't an academic, she was a violent ANC sympathiser, he says it is necessary merely to look at comrade Nzala's article in tribute of Ruth First.

I don't know where in that article it indicates that Ruth First was non-academic, violent ANC sympathiser. Her listing as a terrorist, this is from the Security Police's own terrorist album, so-called, and that is relied upon as evidence to show that Ruth First was a violent person.

Her descriptions of her in Gillian Slovo's book, Gillian Slovo's video tape, nowhere in the book and in the video tape, can it be said that Ruth First was a violent person.

She was a fierce anti-apartheid critic. That doesn't make her a violent person. And then constant reliance throughout the evidence and now again in the Heads of argument on President Mandela's address to the 50th National Conference of the ANC, on the 20th of December 1997, the reference to Ruth First, Exhibit KK, appears in a paragraph which says, where the President said I am certain that I speak on behalf of the veterans who graced this historic conference and many others when I say that if we were fortunate to smell the sweet scent of freedom, there are many more who deserved, perhaps more than us, to be here to witness the rise of a generation that they nurtured, but for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Oliver Tambo, Moses Kotane, Josuf Dadu, Jabe Marx, Lilian Ngoye, Florence Moposho, Kate Molale, Alex Laguma, Helen Joseph, Joe Slovo, Braam Fischer, Moses Mabide, Ruth First and others, would have been witness to the end of a lap in a relay that they ran with such energy and devotion, and from that we draw the conclusion that Ruth First was a non-academic violent ANC sympathiser?

I suppose the same could be said then of Helen Joseph? It is absurd to attempt to rely on that as support for such a factually incorrect proposition.

Page 116, I am sorry, page 111, paragraph 262, a most outrageous allegation. Marius Schoon has not explained why he as an alleged retiree from the freedom struggle, who went to Lubango, allegedly to teach English, was in Luanda on the day of the death of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. Marius Schoon didn't explain?

Well, page 2877 of Mr Marius Schoon's evidence, Mr Bizos asked, where were you when Jeanette and Katryn were killed, page 2877? Mr Schoon, I was in Luanda sir. Doing what? Mr Schoon, as I said earlier sir, we were spending, taking turns to spend three or four days a month in Luanda to assist the ANC Chief Representative's office with out development programmes around Luanda. I had flown up to Luanda and in fact, we celebrated my birthday a few days early, the night before I flew up from Lubango to Luanda.

I had been in Luanda for a few days and the Chief Representative came into the house where I was staying to inform me about their deaths. This evidence was also incidentally confirmed by Mr Puso Tladi.

How can Mr Levine make the submission that Marius Schoon didn't explain why he was in Luanda? It is astonishing.

ADV DE JAGER: Where was Fritz on that day?

MR BERGER: At the time of the blast?

ADV DE JAGER: Yes?

MR BERGER: He was in the house. My Attorney says that the assumption is that he was in the house, but he was at home with his mother and sister. It is possible that he could have been playing outside, but he was with them in Lubango.

Page 116, this is an assessment of Ms Slovo's evidence, the submission is made in paragraph 264.14, bottom of 116, Ms Slovo was surprisingly vague about her mother inter alia in regard to comrade Nzala's description of her. Page 21 of her book about the beach at Ponto d' Ore, page 25 of her book, where she described her mother as a woman who had given up her life for the struggle, and yet again, President Mandela's inclusion of Ruth First in Exhibit KK, amongst a number of activists, but sought to assert that her mother was despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, merely an academic and a staunch supporter of the ANC. Well, we have dealt with the evidence to the contrary.

Chairperson, and members of the Committee, you saw Ms Gillian Slovo give evidence. To describe her as being surprisingly vague about her mother, when she is clearly a woman who has spent years going into the life of her mother, for her book, for her video, is quite startling. Gillian Slovo gave evidence in a forthright, clear manner.

She answered every question put to her. She explained what her reading was of Exhibit KK. She explained every single reference in her book that was pointed out to her. What was she vague about as far as her mother was concerned?

I would think, I would submit that Gillian Slovo was probably one of the best authorities on the life of Ruth First ... (tape ends) ... evidence read as a whole, will illustrate that she knew precious little of what her late mother was really engaged in at the time of her death.

This notwithstanding, even on Ms Slovo's own evidence, Ruth First was a legitimate target in terms of Section 20(2)(d) of the Act. 20(2)(d) of the Act deals with employees of a publicly known political organisation who commit certain acts. That can't be right, but that aside. Gillian Slovo spoke about her mother being an avid letter writer, constantly corresponding with her mother, visiting her mother and father and we know now from the evidence of Bridget O'Laughlin what activities Ruth First was involved in in Mozambique.

Bridget O'Laughlin who was clearly a close friend and colleague of Ruth First's, all the things that she did, lecturing, preparing lectures, learning Portuguese, going to the movies, going for dinner, going to the beach, going out on field trips, Bridget O'Laughlin's evidence was Ruth First had no time to do anything else and Gillian Slovo's evidence reveals in the light of Bridget O'Laughlin's evidence that she knew a lot about what her mother was doing. Her mother had a very public life.

Not only Gillian Slovo, many people knew about the activities of Ruth First's. Many people knew about Ruth First's public life in Maputo. That public life was so full that there really was no time for anything else.

Page 120, this is a criticism of Mr Maharaj, 268.4 - Mr Maharaj could not however point to any hard facts upon which his suspicions were based. This was a criticism also of Prof Klug, also no hard facts. Both witnesses, I may deal with them both at the same time, both witnesses said these are the facts that I have and these are the conclusions or inferences that I draw from those facts.

If those inferences were not reasonable, well, that is a matter for the Committee to decide. But both witnesses were at pains to point out that the facts upon which they drew certain conclusions. Prof Klug's facts, the facts that he relied upon to draw certain assumptions, were not contested.

The Committee can decide whether on those facts, uncontested facts, his assumptions are reasonable. The same with Mr Maharaj, and Mr Maharaj who gave evidence for an extended period of time, over an extensive period of our history, truly extensive period of our history, showed a remarkable capacity for remembering fact.

That is definitely not a criticism one can draw of the Minister, that he does not have a great command of facts. At 121, paragraph 269 ...

CHAIRPERSON: These are facts relating to Mr Williamson that Mr Levine is talking about, isn't he, not facts in general?

MR BERGER: Yes, but the Minister Chairperson, said these are the facts. He spoke about meetings with Mr Williamson, conversations with Mr Williamson. Every assumption that Mr Maharaj drew or made or inference that he drew, was based on a fact of some or other contact with either Mr Williamson or somebody else in relation to Mr Williamson.

And then 269, at face value ...

ADV DE JAGER: Is it the same point that you have made just before?

MR BERGER: In fact to say that at face value, Mr Maharaj was an impressive witness, because of his confidence, perhaps arrogance. Really, just what a disrespectful and uncalled for remark. On what basis can one say that Mr Maharaj was arrogant? He was confident, which is correct, he was confident of his facts.

When he was challenged, he confidently said no, these are the facts. Given further Mr Maharaj's evidence was devoid of any factual basis and consistent with sheer speculation. That doesn't even bear comment.

123 Chairperson, 270.11, it is difficult to understand why Mr Klug was called as a witness at all, other than for some political motive. I would have thought that the purpose of Prof Klug's evidence was quite clear. Prof Klug was testifying to facts which he knew about, from which he drew the inference that Mr Williamson's actions were motivated by malice.

The Act is specific. The Act is quite specific, if there was malice, you don't get amnesty. Prof Klug's evidence was therefore purely legitimate and necessary. The reference at 122, paragraph 270.8 that Mr Klug was driven to concede that his work for SANA SNS could have been regarded as Intelligence. Prof Klug, we don't have the record, but Prof Klug in fact did not say that, he said then any news agency could have been regarded as an Intelligence Agency.

CHAIRPERSON: So he did, but he didn't say it was Military Intelligence?

MR BERGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Any news gathering is Intelligence?

MR BERGER: Information, yes. Chairperson, we have another about 10 or 15 minutes, perhaps this would be an appropriate time to take an adjournment.

CHAIRPERSON: I take it you want an hour as yesterday. I assume there is no prospects of us concluding this afternoon?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I wanted to raise that point, if we are going to be expected to immediately carry on with replication, or if we would be given the opportunity to prepare some written argument for you, so that we could carry on tomorrow?

CHAIRPERSON: Well, if the written argument is available tomorrow, I am not proposing adjournments and written argument being handed in subsequently, is that what you are proposing?

MR DU PLESSIS: No, what I am proposing Mr Chairman, is that we start with the reply tomorrow and finalise the arguments tomorrow. This would give me and Mr Levine, especially, just a little bit, an hour extra this afternoon to try and put the reply on paper instead of arguing orally now, that is the only question I have.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Levine, what is your attitude to that?

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I am going to be guided by how long Mr Berger is still going to be. If he says well I am going to be another 15 minutes, then I would rather say let's press on, if we could, so that we could then get back to the drawing boards as soon as possible.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, but I don't think the proposal is that we should adjourn now, he should finish his argument and I would, apart from for the two of you having made a request, what about the other legal representatives?

CHAIRPERSON: Are you prepared to argue?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I can reply. I don't think I have too much to reply to. The only question is would it make any sense to hold back the people who are in need of time to present something to you? I could slot in anywhere Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Jansen just has to stand up and say that he is pleased that everybody agrees with him.

MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman, yes, I have nothing in reply, unless Mr Visser has something nasty to say about my client.

CHAIRPERSON: And you won't be very long, will you?

MR DU PLESSIS: Neither do I.

CHAIRPERSON: So, let's see, when we have finished with Mr Berger, who else we can dispose of in the afternoon and then Mr Du Plessis can go and have a pleasant evening.

MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, does that mean that I will not have to reply this afternoon?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Levine can see whether he wants to start replying or he wants to do the same as Mr Du Plessis. We can see that this afternoon. We will adjourn now until two o'clock.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

MR BERGER IN ARGUMENT: (continued) Thank you Chairperson. The next reference in Mr Levine's Heads is at 123, paragraph 271.1.

CHAIRPERSON: Page?

MR BERGER: 123, 271.1, Mr Tladi was an evasive witness in general terms. Chairperson, it is such a broad statement that it is flabbergasting. Mr Puso Tladi gave concise, accurate evidence. He was not evasive, neither in general terms, nor at all. He simply was not evasive. He gave evidence of what he knew. He did not know Marius and Jeanette during the period when they were in Botswana. He couldn't give any evidence about them during that period.

He met them for the first time in Luanda. He knew why they were there, the request had come through his office and he knew where they went. He simply was not an evasive witness and to say in 271.2 that Mr Tladi would not concede any other overlapping in the ANC of the political and military, though the ANC referred to political military organs and then this part, Mr Tladi stated categorically that there was no MK presence in Lubango, but could not put forward any facts on which he based his statements.

First of all ...

CHAIRPERSON: Was that persisted with?

MR BERGER: In argument you mean?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I thought Mr Levine said he was not proceeding with it - the portion from Mr Tladi stated categorically?

MR BERGER: All right, then just the first sentence of that paragraph. His evidence was clear, he said when he was an instructor in the camps, he instructed on politics and others instructed on military matters, and so as far as instruction in the camps were concerned, there were those instructors who did political matters, there were those instructors who did military matters. That is why there was no overlapping at that level. That was as far as his evidence went.

271.3, over the page, 124, Mr Tladi could not say what Marius and Jeanette Schoon did whilst they were in Lubango and in his own words, he did not see them when they came to Luanda on a monthly basis. Mr Tladi knew exactly what Marius and Jeanette Schoon were doing in Lubango.

He was the person who had facilitated their move to Lubango. He received reports from them, as to what their conditions were in Lubango.

ADV DE JAGER: I think what has been argued here is that he wasn't present in Lubango and he couldn't say what they did last Friday or this Friday, you know, in between, because he wasn't present there.

MR BERGER: That is obvious. That is not a criticism of him as a witness. He never pretended to say that he knew what they were doing when he wasn't there, but he knew at the same time, he knew that they were there.

ADV DE JAGER: What their mission was?

MR BERGER: To lecture in English, and he knew, one must remember that he was second in command, one could call it almost the Embassy, a diplomatic mission in Luanda, he was the second in command, sometimes deputising for the Chief Representative.

ANC business in Angola was their business, and his evidence was, if they were doing any other ANC business in Lubango, I would have known about it. That is his evidence. True, he can't say what they were doing on a particular day at a particular time, but if they were there for any other ANC business, other than teaching, he said he would have known, and on the facts, he would have known.

And then, page 104, going back, deals with my learned leader's cross-examination of Mr Williamson on the issue of being best man at Charles Newpin's wedding and the allegation is that Mr Bizos put forward an incorrect fact and he then very embarrassed, had to withdraw the allegation.

ADV DE JAGER: I don't think we will make any decision whether he was a best man or not at Charles Newpin's.

MR BERGER: Adv De Jager, it is just that Adv Bizos asked me just to raise, just to give the reference in the record of that cross-examination and all I will do is refer to page 853 of the record, and one can see what the questions were and what Mr Williamson's answers was. I take it no further than that.

We have not, we have deliberately decided not to respond to each and every allegation in the Heads. We have only highlighted those allegations that are so patently unsubstantiated, but we submit that all the Committee has to do is to simply read the references that we give, and others if required, and the record will speak for itself.

Finally I just have to deal with Part C of our Heads of argument, and that is the amnesty application of Brigadier Schoon, it is at page 68.

We give very briefly the reasons that we believe amnesty ought to be refused. The first one, paragraph 80.1 - I wasn't here when my learned friend, Mr Jansen argued. I am told that he made a concession and his Heads illustrate that.

His concession with respect, notwithstanding, the evidence is there, still there and whatever approach he wants to take, is his prerogative. The fact of the matter is that Dirk Coetzee gave evidence as did Brigadier Schoon and Dirk Coetzee denied the version by Brigadier Schoon that he, Dirk Coetzee, had approached Brigadier Schoon with the plan to kill Marius Schoon. That was a clear point of dispute between their evidence.

That dispute, we submit, cannot be resolved by claiming that one of them is confused. It relates not to irrelevant detail, it relates to the source of the order to kill Marius Schoon. Did it originate from Brigadier Schoon or higher than him, or did it come from below him? That is a dispute which cannot be resolved on the basis of confusion.

If you as a Committee, accept that Brigadier Schoon was not an impressive witness as we submit, and my learned leader, Mr Bizos, has already read portions of the Heads, and I won't repeat it, where we say that he is not an impressive witness.

He had said that - just an example, killing is not his style, and we went through all the amnesty applications that he has made for the deaths of numerous people. He was also, if I am correct, he would have been, had responsibility for Vlakplaas. On the other hand, there is Dirk Coetzee and Dirk Coetzee has been criticised and attacked in numerous fora, the Vrye Weekblad case is an example and my learned friend, Mr Visser, will no doubt rely on the judgement of the Appellate Division to say that Dirk Coetzee, can't be relied upon, but there had been subsequent developments to the Vrye Weekblad case, which I don't need to go into.

Subsequent utterances by Gen Neethling, but what Dirk Coetzee says in his manuscript, has in many instances, been proved to be correct. He wrote that manuscript long before Brigadier Schoon applied for amnesty.

He spoke about incidents which today, numerous incidents which today are accepted as being the truth, and which at the time, he was ridiculed for. Our submission is that in choosing between the credibility of Dirk Coetzee on the one hand, and the credibility of Brigadier Schoon on the other, we submit that the choice must be in favour of Dirk Coetzee.

If that happens, then it means that Brigadier Schoon is not being correct when he says that the origin of the decision to murder Marius Schoon, came from below. Either it originated from him, which he says isn't the case, or it came from above. If it came from above, then clearly he hasn't made full disclosure of all relevant facts.

There is also another point of credibility which doesn't relate to this specific attempt, but it relates to Dirk Coetzee's version that he was involved in an attempt to kill Marius Schoon. I don't quibble, we don't quibble with the notion that they could be talking about two separate incidents, that is quite possible that there could be two separate attempts.

Dirk Coetzee says he denies that he suggested to Brigadier Schoon, that they should kill Marius Schoon. In the other attempt, Dirk Coetzee says that he was present in the office of Brigadier Schoon when the order came through from Gen Coetzee, to call off the mission.

ADV DE JAGER: Wasn't that, was it in the office or did a certain Du Preez convey this to Dirk Coetzee?

MR BERGER: No, no, he was in the office of Brigadier Schoon and Dirk Coetzee, conveyed the message from Gen Coetzee.

MR DU PLESSIS: In fact Mr Commissioner, you are correct, he was on the point of leaving him, and he was called by Jan du Preez and told that the mission has been told off.

We may be wrong, but we agree with how you remember it.

ADV DE JAGER: I think Jan du Preez told him in the office, I can't remember now, but I know that he had been told by Jan du Preez.

MR JANSEN: Yes Mr Chairman, that is my recollection as well. I think it just records with the manuscript, it was in Schoon's office and Du Preez brought the message. That is my recollection.

MR BERGER: Then the point is, he was in Brigadier Schoon's office when the message came through? Yes, in fact the manuscript, the reference is paragraph 5.4.12.2 and he says in (2), I was ready to depart when Schoon ...

ADV DE JAGER: Sorry, could you kindly give the reference again?

MR BERGER: Sorry, the paragraph Aborted murder of Marius Schoon, is 5.4.12.2, in the first paragraph under that, which is another (1), he says Schoon, that is Brigadier Schoon called me one day and said I must report to Captains Rudy Krause and Jan Coetzee at Zeerust. He said that the mission would be to take out Marius Schoon, whom he said was a white ANC member in Botswana.

Captains Krause and Coetzee would brief me on the mission. Next one, (2), I was ready to depart when Schoon called me to his office. Brigadier Jan du Preez was there and I was told that Gen Johan Coetzee, Chief of Security, had called off the mission.

When I asked why Brigadier Jan said that the General had not given a reason. The point here and the point in his evidence before you was that Brigadier Schoon was present when the order came through via Du Preez, from Coetzee via Du Preez, to say the mission is off and his evidence is at page 3113 of the record, before I could get to the point of leaving Security Police Headquarters for Zeerust, I was again called in by Brigadier Schoon and in the presence of Brigadier Jan du Preez, in Brigadier Willem Schoon's office, Brigadier Jan Coetzee instructed that the mission, it must be Jan du Preez, instructed that the mission is to be called off on instructions from Gen Johan Coetzee.

When I asked for a reason, Brigadier Jan du Preez just said no reason was given by Gen Coetzee.

MR VISSER: May I just explain my interruption Mr Chairman, is the submission by my learned friend not that Dirk Coetzee was in the office of Willem Schoon when the order of Gen Coetzee came through that they shouldn't continue with the operation, because that is as I understood his submission was what he said in the first place?

MR BERGER: That is what Dirk Coetzee said, that the order came through. It came through via Jan du Preez. He never said that he heard Gen Coetzee give the order, but in any event there is time for reply

MR VISSER: Sorry?

MR BERGER: There is time for reply.

ADV DE JAGER: I asked the question about whether he didn't come from Du Preez, and you couldn't answer me and he tried to answer me, so I should be blamed for introducing Du Preez, because nobody told us about Du Preez, and that is why I asked didn't the message come from Du Preez?

MR BERGER: The point is that Brigadier Schoon denies this. He says it didn't happen and again, although it doesn't bear on the mission for which Brigadier Schoon seeks amnesty. It bears on other issues, other questions in the case that my learned leader has already argued.

The full disclosure point is the full disclosure about who else was involved, from where did the order come? The other point Chairperson, is in 80.4, Brigadier Schoon justifies his decision to approve an attack on Marius Schoon, on the basis that reliable information indicated that Mr Schoon was involved in acts of terrorism.

The full sentence, the full quote reads that Dirk Coetzee came to me and said that he had ways in which to take out Marius Schoon. Reliable information indicated that Mr Schoon had been involved in acts of terrorism and other actions which were aimed at endangering the safety of the Republic of South Africa, and that he was regarded as one of the enemies.

It was clear that Mr Schoon provided help to terrorists from and to the RSA, to commit acts of terrorism against innocent citizens. South African Police had no lawful authority to address these gruesome deeds and especially not with regard to Mr Schoon's involvement in these acts.

Then in the light of that he got a .38 revolver and ammunition and he gave it to Coetzee - which is also disputed by Coetzee, who says he went, in his mission just before he was about to go up, he went with that gun in the briefcase.

The point here is that Brigadier Schoon says he had information that Marius Schoon was responsible for acts of terror and that he was giving assistance to so-called terrorists to enter South Africa and commit acts of terror.

The evidence before this Committee has proven beyond doubt that Marius Schoon was not involved in acts of terror. There can be no doubt about that. When Williamson was asked in his evidence what were the activities of Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Botswana, he said and the reference is earlier in our Heads, he said they were involved in internal reconstruction. They were doing political work. Internal reconstruction, we have heard from other witnesses, is the setting up of ANC branches inside the country. Not MK branches, political branches.

Marius Schoon was involved in the political side of activities in Botswana, he was not involved militarily and he was not involved in any acts of terror. Now, the question, the argument will be well, that is all well and good, but how was Brigadier Schoon to know that? The answer I submit is that Brigadier Schoon says he got his information from Marius Schoon's file.

Marius Schoon's file was supplemented from time to time by Intelligence, Security Police Intelligence. Craig Williamson's Section were responsible for Security Police Intelligence. If Craig Williamson and his Section knew that the activities of Marius Schoon in Botswana were of a political nature, then that is what would have been reflected in the file.

We only have Brigadier Schoon's say-so that that is what he read in the file. If one accepts that he is a credible witness, well that is one story, but if one accepts that he is not a credible witness, then his say-so is just self serving.

We make the submission in 80.6 that Brigadier Schoon was not a satisfactory witness. His claim that he had reliable information that Marius Schoon was involved in acts of terror, ought to be rejected. Chairperson, that concludes our submissions, I thank you and your Committee very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you and Mr Bizos.

Now gentlemen, we come to the question of reply. Who is going to kick the ball off into play?

MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman, could I by saying that I have no reply.

MR CORNELIUS: I will follow Mr Jansen closely, Cornelius for McPherson, I have no reply either Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, yes, I would like just to go through what we have heard today and I will probably give you a reply which will not take longer than an hour, I am hoping not longer than an hour, I can't believe it will be longer.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you implying by this, that you don't want to reply now?

MR VISSER: I prefer not to Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Levine?

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I may well be longer than the hour, but I would like to assimilate my thoughts, put them down in writing to the extent that I am able to do so in the relatively short period of time. I hope to be ready to address you tomorrow morning.

Mr Du Plessis?

CHAIRPERSON: He has already indicated the same.

MR LEVINE: He has indicated the same and he believed that it wasn't necessary for him to be here this afternoon for that reason.

CHAIRPERSON: I hope he is already preparing his reply.

MR LEVINE: I think he is dealing with it Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well gentlemen, in those circumstances it seems that we will adjourn till tomorrow morning, half past nine and we should finish by midday tomorrow.

No wait a bit, no, Mr Du Plessis, hasn't confined himself to an hour. Anyway, we will see what we can do, half past nine tomorrow.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS