ON RESUMPTION
ADV MPSHE: We are ready to begin Mr Chairman. We are going to continue with the Ribeiro matter Mr
Chairman. The Chair and the members of the Committee will recall very well that when we adjourned the
son was still in the witness stand. So we are going to continue on that.
R U L I N G
JUDGE MALL: Before evidence is led in the matter we had indicated that we were going to announce our
decision on an application that was made before the close of proceedings or during the hearing last Friday.
The Committee has given due consideration to the application by Mr Currin that an order be made
calling upon applicants in this case to disclose the identity of their informers. Having regard to the
common law as expounded by the Appellate Division in, for example, R v VAN SCHALKWYK 1937
(AD) and subsequent decisions, the Committee has come to the conclusion that for present purposes it is
not appropriate to accede to the request and the Committee
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
396 RULING
accordingly rules that we will not call upon witnesses to disclose the identity of their informers.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin, your witness. Mr Ribeiro, you are reminded that you are still under your
oath. You understand that?
CHRISTOPHER REGINALD RIBEIRO: (s.u.o.)
EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DEN BERG: (cont)
Thank you Mr Chairman. I had commenced with leading Mr Ribeiro's evidence and so I will
complete that.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, please do.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Ribeiro when we completed the hearings on Friday you had told us a little bit
about your parents' background as well as about the incidents on the day. Please will you tell the
Committee about your attitude and your family's attitude to these present applications?
MR RIBEIRO: We are vehemently opposed to the granting of any amnesty to the applicants. My parents
died a brutal death. To lose a single parent violently is extremely painful. To lose two parents
simultaneously, violently, is devastating, but no words can describe the sheer pain of losing both parents
violently for no reason at all. The applicants for amnesty have done nothing to ease the pain by their
blatant lies about my parents, especially my mother, whom they so unashamedly claim, assisted comrades
financially in my father's absence. My parents were extremely close and they would not have taken major
decisions without the other's knowledge. It is therefore evident to my family that the amnesty applicants
have come to this Committee without a modicum of remorse. They have come here just to save their own
skins.
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My brothers and I were at university at the time of my
parents' deaths. Through the actions of those who planned and carried out the assassinations we failed to
complete our education as my parents were our sole sponsors. It is not my parents who were so unjustly
punished, but those of us who are left behind to deal with the pain and emotional suffering. Since the
advent of the TRC, since 9 October
1995, my own personal life has been under threat by third forces who are, obviously, to, as far as my
family is concerned, in cahoots with the amnesty applicants as that is my family's opinion. They are
constantly monitoring my actions and I have had to go into hiding on several occasions to survive. The
latest was in January this year. I have reported those whom I have recognised to the highest authorities. I
have been to the Attorney General's office, I have consulted the Minister of Justice and I have also
informed other higher authorities. How can we be expected to forgive and forget or to condone the
granting of amnesty in the face of such animosity and hatred?
Furthermore, had the applicants been sincere in their endeavours to come clean they would have
done so before the advent of the TRC. With the knowledge of hindsight and under the same
circumstances, should they ever prevail today or in a different life, my parents would not hesitate to oppose
apartheid as vehemently as they did. My family's guess is that under the same circumstances and with the
knowledge of hindsight, the perpetrators would definitely murder again should such circumstances prevail
because none of them have had the slightest decency of even attempting to apologise in public for their
criminal actions. My family cannot condone the granting of amnesty to the applicants.
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We vehemently oppose their applications for amnesty.
In saying so, however, it must be clear that it is not vengeance or hatred that we pursue, but
justice. My parents were killed for nothing and the granting of amnesty could be a travesty of justice. We
can only reconcile if justice has been seen to be done.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VAN DEN BERG
JUDGE MALL: Mr du Plessis.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: If you will just bear with me for a moment. Mr
Ribeiro, the evidence that was given by the applicants in this matter about your parents' death entailed
evidence which was also given in October and other evidence included in their applications which, for
purposes of the Committee, is not repeated every time. Now, I have heard what you said now, the last few
remarks you made and I want to start with that. What I want to tell you is what the applicants testified
already before this Committee, in public, pertaining to all their applications. Firstly, in the opening
statement, which was addressed to this Committee right at the start of these hearings in October, the
applicants openly and publicly said that they were sorry about what happened during the time of the
struggle, expressed their sincere regret about the fact that people died on both sides and they expressed the
fact and the hope that the people of this country could reconcile and work together in future. That was read
into the record as part of the applicants' application.
Furthermore, I want to read to you what was also repeated in evidence already, what was said by
Captain Hechter and Warrant Officer van Vuuren and all the other applicants about reconciliation. I am
going to read it to PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 398 C RIBEIRO
you in Afrikaans. This was testified over and over again and it is also included in Captain Hechter and
Brigadier Cronje's applications. Mr Chairman, I know this has been dealt with before, but if you give me
the opportunity to read this to the witness.
JUDGE MALL: Your purpose of your reading this is really to convey to this witness that they have in fact
...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
JUDGE MALL: ... said so, they have expressed remorse during the course of their evidence.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes.
JUDGE MALL: Because he was not present he was not aware of that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Correct, correct.
JUDGE MALL: Maybe you could just ask him that question. Does he accept that that evidence was
provided?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Ribeiro, you were not here when that evidence was given. Do you accept what I
say that such evidence was given before this Committee?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, as you say it is on record, I cannot dispute that, but I still cannot forgive them.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right. And Mr Ribeiro on Friday I personally went to you and offered my
condolences and regret to you on behalf of myself, my attorney and all the applicants, is that correct?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, it is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Do you accept that we are sincere?
MR RIBEIRO: No, not at all.
ADV DU PLESSIS: You also accept that I am not sincere as well as the applicants?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 399 C RIBEIRO
MR RIBEIRO: Let me put it this way. You are there to represent the interests of your client and as a, can I
say defence attorney, you will do anything to get your clients off the hook. So, I pursue it, I perceive it
basically as an attempt, a further attempt only of trying to get your clients off the hook and I cannot accept
that because there
is no sincerity and the pain cannot be wiped away by just saying sorry. None of them have even tried to
say, look, you are your brothers were at school, we can do this to send you back to school, but even that we
will not accept because we cannot go to school with blood money. We just cannot accept your apologies.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Alright Mr Ribeiro, that is your right to say that. I must say that I understand what
you feel and I understand what you have gone through. What I, however, do not understand is the fact that
you doubt our sincerity, but I hear what you say and I will leave it at that. Now, Mr Ribeiro, your father, he
was a leader in the community, is that not so?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, he was.
ADV DU PLESSIS: You agree with that and he was somebody that the young people looked up to?
MR RIBEIRO: He was highly respected in the community.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Highly respected?
MR RIBEIRO: In the community. Not just young, I mean, that everybody respected him.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And your father was part of the struggle for freedom, if I can put it like that?
MR RIBEIRO: My entire family was opposed to apartheid.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Your entire family was opposed to the Government of the time, is that not so?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 400 C RIBEIRO
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: They were opposed to the National Party?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we were.
ADV DU PLESSIS: They were opposed to white domination?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we were.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And therefore they were part of the
struggle for freedom, isn't that right?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we were.
ADV DU PLESSIS: The struggle for freedom of the oppressed majority of this country?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we were part of the struggle for freedom of the majority, of the oppressed masses, but
we were not violently supportive of ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: Can you speak a little louder, I did not hear. You were not?
MR RIBEIRO: We were not violently supportive of the struggle for freedom.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right. Now, Mr Ribeiro, is it then fair, also, to say that your father and your mother
also supported the liberation movements?
MR RIBEIRO: How do you mean support? I mean could you just...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well supported the ideas behind it, supported ...(intervention)
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, definitely.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... the philosophies of the liberation movements.
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, definitely.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Supported the objects of the liberation movements?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we did.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 401 C RIBEIRO
ADV DU PLESSIS: The ultimate goal of the liberation movements, namely ...(intervention)
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, we did.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... namely black majority power?
MR RIBEIRO: Not black majority power, but freedom, freedom for the masses.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Freedom, let us put it like that.
MR RIBEIRO: Democracy.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Freedom and democracy. Right. Now, Mr Ribeiro, and it was not a secret amongst
the supporters of the liberation movements at that time that your parents supported the ideas of the
liberation movements at that time, is that not so?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: You agree with me?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right. Now, did your parents have contact with a lot of young people in that time?
Comrades and everybody, all the young people?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, due to the, especially due to the nature of the work that my father was doing when
comrades were injured by police atrocities, they definitely did have a lot of interaction with youth.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And your parents also discussed with the comrades the struggle and the objects of the
liberation movement and what it stands for, is that not right?
MR RIBEIRO: That is a distinct possibility, yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Your parents were highly intelligent people?
MR RIBEIRO: Well, that is a compliment and, well, it is a compliment.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 401 C RIBEIRO
ADV DU PLESSIS: I am putting that to you because I perceive you and the rest of your family also as
highly intelligent people and I ...(intervention)
MR RIBEIRO: I will also regard that as a compliment and thank you for the compliment.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And your parents, am I right in saying,
that your parents also explained to the comrades what the struggle was about from somebody, from an
intelligent point of view, what the struggle was about, what the goals were, about democracy that was one
of the objects, etc., is that right?
MR RIBEIRO: I would submit that anyone who joined the struggle, joined it because he knew what was
wrong with the system at the time and anyone that joined the struggle knew what the struggle was all
about. So I would submit that it would be unfair to say that my parents would, as intelligent people as you
put it, would discuss with them the reasons for the struggle. They knew, all comrades knew exactly what
the struggle was about.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, on a broad basis, but your parents must have known exactly what the
philosophical ideologies of the PAC entailed, of the ANC, etc and they could, in an articulate way,
formulate it, but on an understandable level to the young people, is that not right?
MR RIBEIRO: Can I put it to you this way. That I too was a young comrade at that time and I had very,
very deep grasp of the policies of democracy at the time and if my parents did discuss the principles and
ramifications of the struggle with anybody, it was not in a teaching role, but just to discuss the dynamics of
it all. Not as in telling them they must do this, you must do that, no.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 402 C RIBEIRO
ADV DU PLESSIS: But in the capacity as a leader and somebody to whom the comrades and the people
looked up to?
MR RIBEIRO: I would not say in a capacity as a leader because as far as I am concerned my parents were
not leaders, they were just highly respected people in the community.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Ribeiro, I just want to make something clear. I am not trying to dispute what
you said about your parents so you need not be wary of my questions. I am simply asking you questions
about your parents.
JUDGE MGOEPE: On the other hand, Mr du Plessis, it became unclear as to whether your question was,
"did your parents", later it sounded as though you were saying, "could your parents as intelligent people"
and there is a vast difference. If you ask a witness to say, did your parents discuss politics with the
comrades, it is one thing, but if you come and say, could your parents, as intelligent people, discuss
politics, you get different answers.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And somewhere along the way, you know, you just mixed the two and one did not
know exactly what you were dealing with.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I am sorry, Mr Chairman. I did not realise that it came over that way. Let me
ask the question then as his Lordship, Mr Justice Mgoepe, said. Let me ask you straight out. Did your
parents discuss the ideologies and the ideas of the liberation movements with the people they treated, for
instance, as patients?
MR RIBEIRO: They discussed ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: When you say "they", are you implying that his mother treated patients?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 403 C RIBEIRO
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, let me first ask him about his father. Let me ask you about your father first.
MR RIBEIRO: Well, I would think it natural for my father to discuss ideologies and principles of the
freedom struggle with comrades.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And your mother?
MR RIBEIRO: I would say the same applies to her to.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Ribeiro, your father also, you testified that your father treated comrades
who were injured by the police?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Can you recall specific patients that they treated and what kind of injuries did they
suffer and because of what? Can you give us a little bit more information?
MR RIBEIRO: Well, firstly, I cannot recall the names of specific people who were injured because there
were hundreds of them. And secondly, I can only give a description of the injuries that they suffered
because I am not a doctor, I am a layman.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I just want the examples on a broad basis. I am not asking you ...(intervention)
MR RIBEIRO: There were those who were shot in the back by birdshot. There were those who were
sjambokked with, I do not know what, but pieces of their flesh would either be torn away or open wounds
were the result and welts. Those with broken bones and other gunshot injuries. It was such injuries.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And am I right in saying they were mostly people who were injured as part of the
actions of the liberation movements during a struggle such as marches,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 404 C RIBEIRO
boycotts, mass action, etc? Am I right in saying that?
MR RIBEIRO: Could you just repeat the question please?
ADV DU PLESSIS: What I am trying to put to you, Mr Ribeiro, is am I right in saying that the people
who were treated for these injuries suffered these injuries because of their participation in things like mass
action, boycotts and all
the other actions that went together with the struggle at that time?
MR RIBEIRO: I obviously cannot dispute the fact that some of them would have been present in marches
or such actions, but at the same time he has also treated hundreds of people who were innocent bystanders
and just maliciously assaulted by the police.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did your mother support your father in his work?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, she did.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Ribeiro, I am going to put to you what I am going to argue and I just want
your comment, in all fairness, for purposes of the Committee. I am going to argue that the evidence you
gave that your parents were not high profile activists cannot be right in the light of the fact that according to
the evidence both the South African Defence Force and the South African Police, separately, before they
started working together, but first separately, decided to target your parents or decided that your parents or
your father, specifically, was a target. I am going to argue that that indicates that your parents were high
profile activists. Would you want to comment on that?
MR RIBEIRO: The fact that both the Defence Force and the Security Police targeted my parents, in my
family's mind, as my family knows, because we were with them every single day, PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 404 C RIBEIRO
was not because of their so called "high profile". They were killed to intimidate and to try and destabilise
the community of Mamelodi only just because they were well- respected and well loved and that, we are of
the firm opinion, could have been seen as the reason to intimidate and destabilise the community of
Mamelodi. Definitely not
because, as you claim, that they were high profile activists.
Furthermore, I have already testified that after my father's detention and subsequent trial, he took
a back seat to politics and just lived an ordinary life. So at the time of his death he definitely was not high
profile, he was just an ordinary citizen.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right. Mr Ribeiro, can you give us an indication exactly what is on your father and
your mother's tombstone?
MR RIBEIRO: Let the march to freedom proceed and ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Ribeiro, what I found particularly moving, of what is on their tombstone, is an
extract from a Psalm in the Bible. Do you recall that? You do not have to remember exactly. I am just
asking you do you recall that?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, I recall it.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And I am putting it to you that I found it moving and what I also want to put to you is
that not only myself, but each of my clients, each one of the applicants, also found that very moving and I
would say that in sincerity. What is also on the tombstone, Mr Ribeiro, it says, "Your death was not in
vain".
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that correct. And what is also on the tombstone on the top right-hand side or left
top side, I
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 405 C RIBEIRO
think, is the black power sign, the black fist. Is that correct?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right and from that I deduct that you and your family are very proud that your
parents were part of the struggle and that they died as part of the struggle?
MR RIBEIRO: As I said earlier on that if you have got to live the same life again under the same
conditions, yes, we would oppose apartheid as vehemently as we did. As much as we have lost, we have
no regrets for having participated in the struggle against apartheid.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And one last point I want to make, Mr Ribeiro, and that is that I want to say to you
again, here, in public, in all sincerity, even though you doubt it, that I, my attorney and my clients extend,
in all sincerity, our sympathies to you and your family.
MR RIBEIRO: May I just say, in all sincerity, I have really no faith in lie detector tests because I know
they can be manipulated, but would your clients ever be prepared to undergo such?
ADV DU PLESSIS: I think they would. I have not taken it up with them, but I think they would. I would
definitely.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE WILSON: Mr Ribeiro, we have heard that your parents used to have film shows in the garage,
was that just for entertainment purposes?
MR RIBEIRO: Mr Chairman, to put it in, as mildly as I can, that is a blatant lie. What happened in my
parents' garage was that due to the lack of facilities in the townships a group of amateur community actors
had asked for permission to rehearse in my parents' garage, to rehearse their plays PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 406 C RIBEIRO
in my parents' garage and that is all that they were doing. There were no, there were never ever any videos
shown in my parents' garage.
JUDGE WILSON: Not even ordinary films?
MR RIBEIRO: Not even ordinary films. All the videos that we used to watch we use to watch in my
parents, in the house in the lounge and those were just family - that was just family and friends.
JUDGE WILSON: We have heard about one film that was supposed to have been shown there. I do not
know if you have seen it or had a chance to since then, Cry Freedom, is it. If I read the, that well known
producer Richard Attenborough.
MR RIBEIRO: Your Honour, I would submit that had Cry Freedom been shown in my parents' home, in
the garage, over ten years ago, then I would have seen it then and I would not have seen it for the first time
in the cinemas when it was recently unbanned in the 90's.
JUDGE WILSON: You have only seen it recently?
MR RIBEIRO: Pardon?
JUDGE WILSON: You have just seen it recently?
MR RIBEIRO: I just saw it recently in a cinema when it was unbanned recently, in the 90's I think it was
and, to the best of my knowledge, that film was also produced in the 1990's. I have got no, absolutely no
knowledge of it ever having been produced prior to that.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, if it had been, it would have been very difficult to get hold of a copy of a banned
film in this country, would it not?
MR RIBEIRO: Yes, definitely.
JUDGE WILSON: Thank you.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
407
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination?
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DEN BERG
JUDGE MALL: Mr Ribeiro, you may be excused.
MR RIBEIRO: Thank you, Sir.
WITNESS EXCUSED
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 408 ADDRESS
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, if you will just give me a moment please. Mr Chairman, I just wanted
to clear the
position up in respect of Captain Hechter, in respect of Captain Hechter's testimony. We have not been
provided with the preliminary investigation which was promised. Mr Mpshe told me this morning that the
Attorney General undertook to provide us with copies this morning. That means that that aspect still
remains open and, as far as I understood on Friday, Mr Visser wanted to ask Captain Hechter still
questions, but I am not sure. Otherwise my evidence is finished.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe can you throw on any light on whether the record of the preparatory
examination will be made available?
ADV MPSHE: Yes, Mr Chairman, my learned friend is correct. On Friday we had a discussion with a
member from the office of Attorney General, Antoinette de Jager, and she promised to make this available
to us today, but I have not received them as yet. That is correct.
JUDGE MALL: Yes. Before any further evidence is led were you able to get hold of Annexure A to the
post mortem report which you were to be furnished?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I do not have it with me now, but I have set the action to get it sent to me.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: I was in touch yesterday with one of the magistrates in Garankua, Mr Toebra Klaasie. He
said he will make copies for me and forward them.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you.
ADV MPSHE: I can promise, make an undertaking that before the Committee leaves their copy will be
made available,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 409 ADDRESS
shall have been made available.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, it may be necessary to call witnesses or to recall witnesses depending on what is said
on Annexure A.
ADV MPSHE: Then, Mr Chairman, in, if there is a portion, I am going to request one of the days, either
today or tomorrow, that we adjourn early so that I can go and fetch it myself, because I know where they
are.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Mpshe ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: Can they not fax these things to you Mr Mpshe?
ADV MPSHE: I can phone and find out whether it is possible for them to fax me, Sir.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: But the undertaking that he made was, when I spoke to him yesterday, was that he was
going to send it down to me here.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: Failing which I will find it at home because we live in the same area.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Mpshe, was it not handed in at the de Kock trial too?
ADV MPSHE: Sorry, could you repeat?
ADV DE JAGER: Was Annexure B not handed in at the de Kock trial?
JUDGE MALL: A.
ADV MPSHE: Annexure A.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes, Annexure A.
ADV MPSHE: I was told that it was handed in and that that
will form part of what Antoinette de Jager is going to give to us.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr Mpshe, may I just, the allegations made by PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 409 ADDRESS
Captain Hechter regarding the, an attorney or somebody who prepared questions for him in advance, as
also the fact that somebody presided over the proceedings. They have enjoyed
quite coverage in the press. While Captain Hechter was not able to remember the names of the people
concerned and taking into account, also, that this matter enjoyed a great deal of publicity, I had hoped that
the gentlemen concerned with the proceedings, they would have known about these allegations which were
made last week and, possibly, they would, on their own, come forward to try and put the record straight and
then they would, possibly, contact you. Now, have or have they not contacted you?
ADV MPSHE: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, nobody has contacted me, but I may hasten to
state this that when this was disclosed last week, Mr Brian Currin appearing for the victims of the - the
families approached me and said that he is aware of newspaper reports on this wherein the names of the
people are mentioned and that he will make copies thereof and make them available. I think I am speaking
under - he can confirm that.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes, Mr Currin?
MR CURRIN: Mr Chairman, what we said was that the, we were instructed by Mr Ribeiro that the
proceedings were reported in the newspapers and that he believed that the name of the magistrate was
mentioned and that he would try and get hold of those copies and let us have them. We have not got them
yet. Straight after today he is going to go and try and get hold of them so we can see whether the persons
are, in fact, named, but he believes that the magistrate was named in the newspaper report at the time.
JUDGE MGOEPE: In the meantime, bearing in mind that some of PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 410 ADDRESS
the allegations imply some impropriety, it is sincerely hoped that the people concerned would be able to
remember that they themselves are the people referred to and they
will come forward and contact the Commission or the Amnesty Committee.
JUDGE WILSON: Even though we have not been given copies of the preparatory examination record,
surely it would only take a couple of minutes to telephone the Attorney General's office where they have
copies, they may not have made additional copies, and ask them. The preparatory examination record will
surely disclose the name of the magistrate who presided over it and the name of the parties who
participated, the prosecutor, defence counsel and things of that nature.
ADV MPSHE: Thank you Mr Chairman. That is indeed correct and these are some of the things that we
were promised by Advocate de Jager, as it may well be remembered, when she was here during the
hearings. When the hearings were going on she approached me and said that they do have the copy of the
PE available in the AG's office and copies will be made and be forwarded to us. The applicants' counsel
can also confirm that.
JUDGE WILSON: What I am interested in is notifying people who are now implicated because although
their names have been - not been mentioned there offices have and they should surely be informed.
ADV MPSHE: That is correct Mr Chairman. May I, if it will be apposite at this stage, be mindful of the,
our being behind schedule right now, that when Antoinette, when Advocate de Jager was here, her main
problem was that her hands are actually full and she cannot afford to be coming
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 411 ADDRESS
up and down all the time and actually insisted that if we can have somebody or who, myself or the
applicants' counsel to go up to their office to make these copies ourselves and
let them be made available. I do not know how that can be done because I am tied to this hearing. Perhaps
during lunch time if we adjourn at quarter to one and to resume at quarter to I may be able to dash up to
their offices.
JUDGE MALL: Okay, one of the Judge's secretaries could be able to assist you, I am sure, if you asked.
ADV MPSHE: Thank you. Thank you, I will make use of that.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you.
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I do not know whether Mr Brian Currin or Mr van den Berg is through
leading their evidence now. If that is the case I just want to say something pertaining to this matter as well.
JUDGE MALL: Are you through?
MR VAN DER BERG: Mr Chairman, the position is we indicated on Friday that we wish to call an
activist to testify on behalf of the Ribeiro's. That was Mr Moss Chikane. We made arrangements for him
to be present today. I do not know whether he has arrived as yet, but perhaps when he does arrive then we
would call him. We are told that he is on his way.
JUDGE WILSON: From where?
MR VAN DEN BERG: From Mamelodi, Mr Chairman. That is the only witness we propose calling, Mr
Chairman.
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I can make the comment now. It does not affect the witness, Mr Chairman,
it affects the
implicated persons in this matter in particular. Mr Chairman, I want to comment about the most implicated
persons here. That is Neil Robey as well as Charl Naude.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 412 ADDRESS
Mr Chairman, all other members, all other persons mentioned in this application have been informed and
served accordingly except the two. Inasfar as Charl Naude is
concerned, Mr Chairman, I could not find or his whereabouts and in my endeavour to ascertain his
whereabouts I wrote a letter dated the 12th of February to our nodal point SAPS to give me the information
about the two gentlemen. Up to date I have not received any information. If the Chair would like to see a
copy of my letter I have it with me.
Inasfar as Neil Robey is concerned, Mr Chairman, I also made contact with the investigative unit
through the person of Jerome Chaskelson before coming to this hearing and we together phoned Messina,
because our information was that Neil Robey was running a shop or a business down in Messina and we
contacted Messina. We were told by the people running that shop now that Neil Robey is no more in
Messina, but he may be found in Zambia. That is the report that I wanted to make Mr Chairman. Thank
you.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, I have no further comments in respect of the Ribeiro matter. I am
prepared to go on with the other matters.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 412 CAPT HECHTER
ADV MPSHE: Then the next matter will be the killing of the policeman and his wife in Hammanskraal.
Thank you.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. You will find that incident on page 324 of Captain
Hechter's application. Captain Hechter and Warrant Officer van Vuuren apply for this incident and I beg
leave to call Captain Hechter.
JUDGE MALL: The name of the people who died, the policeman and his wife. ?
ADV MPSHE: Irene Motasi.
JUDGE MALL: Just spell that.
ADV MPSHE: Irene.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: Motasi, M-O-T-A-S-I.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: And the husband was Richard Motasi.
JACQUES HECHTER: (sworn states).
EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Captain Hechter, could you explain
to the Committee how it happened that you received instructions regarding to this matter, could we start
right at the beginning.
CAPT HECHTER: If I remember correctly it was late in the second half round about December of '87, it
might have been a bit earlier, but it was late in that year. The then second-in-charge of the branch, Colonel
Ras, one morning called myself, Captain Loots and Sergeant van Vuuren in. He summonsed us to his
office and the then Commanding Officer, Brigadier Cronje, was ill at the time and not present. He
called us to his office and told us that there was an instruction from the Divisional Commissioner that an
agent, an ANC agent, who is also a policeman attached to the Hammanskraal training centre, had given
very damaging
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 413 CAPT HECHTER
information to the Zimbabwean forces which led to the death of many of our agents and he also had
information about the police stations in the vicinity, what they looked like, what was happening there, etc.
A sort of a target analysis is what he had done.
Now, the instruction was to eliminate this policeman and it was given to Colonel Loots, myself
and Warrant Officer van Vuuren where we were all gathered together. But the Colonel also said, Colonel
Ras also said that Phillip
Loots had to go to Brigadier Stemmet to obtain the necessary names and addresses and particulars in
connection with this man. Flip Loots then left, we remained behind in the office and I think it was about an
hour or two afterwards he returned to the office and gave me the man's particulars. Whether he did so in
writing or orally, I cannot remember.
I contacted Mamasela, asked him to come in and I gave him these particulars and told him to go
and verify these. To find out where the man lived, what kind of car he drove. I think that was more-or-less
the kind of information I needed.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now Captain, could we just stop there for a moment. This particular instruction
which you received, you have testified now that it came from Brigadier Stemmet.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Was there any file in your unit or section regarding to this policeman?
CAPT HECHTER: As far as I can remember, no. I cannot
remember such a file. If there was such a file it was not a general topic in my office. It could have
perhaps, have related to one of the other units, but I did not have knowledge of that and I cannot remember
that I verified it. PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 414 CAPT HECHTER
If I had done so, I cannot remember that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is it possible that Brigadier Stemmet had received information about this policeman
from another unit without your unit knowing about it?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes. Brigadier Stemmet, by virtue of his office, had contact with National Intelligence
and the Police's Intelligence Section, Military Intelligence. So it is possible that he received information
from them, but as far as I know we had no information.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, could you continue on page 345. Please continue.
CAPT HECHTER: After Mamasela came back later in the day with this information, we then decided to
attack that very evening. Captain Loots decided he would accompany us on this operation and that
evening, it was late, it would have been late or fairly late. I cannot say exactly what the time was. We left
Pretoria, away from the Security Branch and I think we once again drove in a combi because it just melted
and blended into these black residential areas and Danny Hletlhala(?) was, he was also a policeman, and he
accompanied us. I think he was a constable at the time and he had a nickname of Slang or Snake and he
was the driver and it was decided that he would guard the vehicle. Then there was Mamasela, Paul van
Vuuren, myself and Captain Loots.
We all left to go to Hammanskraal where this person was living at the time in that vicinity. We
stopped some distance away from the house. We got out, we were dressed in dark clothing and we had
also covered our faces with balaclavas. Mamasela wore a balaclava which he pulled very low over his ears
and forehead. We were armed. Captain
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ADV DU PLESSIS 415 CAPT HECHTER
Loots, Paul and myself each had an AK47. Mamasela had a hand gun. I cannot remember what type of
hand gun it was. We went to the house. We sent Mamasela ahead. He knocked on the door and asked
whether Motasi was home. A woman answered the knock at the door and they stood there for a while
talking to each other. We stood round the corner. We could hear them speaking, but she could not see us
and we could not see them. He came back to us and told us that Motasi was not at home at that time.
We then discussed the matter and decided we would go back and wait for him in the house.
Mamasela once again knocked on the door, she once again opened the door and he then pulled out his hand
gun and took her, forced her back into the house to one of the back rooms. We did not want her to see
what we looked like. We then entered the house and to make things appear as normal as possible we put
the lights off, but switched the television on. I cannot remember how long we waited, but it was a
considerable time. Then a vehicle stopped outside. It was a small Mazda vehicle. I cannot remember the
colour. Somebody looked through the window and said, here he comes. The front door had been locked
again and whilst he was busy trying to open the front door with his key, as he was starting to open the door,
I pulled open the door from the inside and dragged him into the living room. He immediately realised there
were problems because he put up quite a fight. We were wrestling with each other and eventually I started
throttling him and so gained control over him. I then placed a pillow on his head. Warrant Officer van
Vuuren shot him four times with the AK47 rifle. The pillow was to deaden the sound of the gunshots so
that it could not be heard far away.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 415 CAPT HECHTER
ADV DU PLESSIS: Captain, I want to interrupt you there. On page 326, the last paragraph you refer to
Captain Loots and his involvement in the assault.
CAPT HECHTER: During this struggle and wrestling, Captain Loots hit me with the butt of his AK47
rifle and after that I told van Vuuren let us go or I said go and call Mamasela and let us go. As far as I can
recall that was the first time that Colonel or Captain Loots had been involved in any kind of operation of
this type so there was a lot of
tension. So automatically I gave the necessary instructions. I did not wait for him. The two of us left and I
sent Paul back to call Mamasela.
Whether I am still inside the door or just outside, I do not know, but I then heard a shot, but we
continued walking because we turned round and looked, but we continued walking and then Mamasela
came out and then Paul. He was standing in the doorway, if I remember correctly, in the passage I think.
We then went back to the car and we asked what shots these were and Mamasela said he had shot
the black woman. When I asked him why he had done so and he said that she had seen his face and would
be able to identify him and he was afraid of being identified by her and that that would cause problems for
him later. They then went back to the house and the next morning Captain Loots reported to Ras that the
operation had been completed.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now Captain, as regards the black woman, did you ever give any instructions for her
to be shot?
CAPT HECHTER: At that stage, no. As far as I was concerned it was not necessary for her to be shot.
Later when Mamasela explained to me why he had shot her I accepted what PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 416 CAPT HECHTER
he said, that she would be able to identify him with negative consequences. Namely that we would be
identified, the hit squad activities would be revealed and the whole system, the whole security branch, the
Government, everybody would then be involved as a result of this identification and the revelations which
the witness could make.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now Captain, did you ever have the intention for the woman to be shot and killed?
CAPT HECHTER: Originally, no. Initially, no. When we left to go and perform this operation it was not
my intention.
When we entered the house or just before we entered the house I said to Mamasela take her away to a back
room where she will not be able to see us. The idea was not then to shoot her. Later he also did not receive
any instruction to shoot her, but I can understand why he did so.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Before Mamasela pulled the trigger and shot her dead did you ever form the intent to
kill her?
CAPT HECHTER: No, I did not feel that it was necessary to shoot her. I would certainly not have shot
her.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, Captain you have already partially answered my question, but was any action
taken against Mamasela?
CAPT HECHTER: No, I did not act in any way against Mamasela and nobody else acted against
Mamasela. Mamasela, at that stage was of vital importance to the Branch due to his ease of movement in
infiltrating certain groups that we could not see our way clear to repudiating his actions and if he was
unmasked it would have been very dangerous for us and our
entire operation. It would have forced it to a halt.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Captain, do you know whether there was a report-back on the incident?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 417 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: As I said Captain Loots reported that he had told the Colonel what happened.
Thereafter, I do not know. He told Colonel Ras or he reported to Colonel Ras that the operation had been
successfully completed.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Captain, was it reported back that the woman had been shot?
CAPT HECHTER: I assume so. I do not think he would have said that we had only shot the man when
we had also shot the woman.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, the political objective is set out on
329 to 333 and the specific and more detailed motive on the bottom of 333 to 335. Do you confirm the
correctness of this?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, I agree with it, Chairperson.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, could you look at 335. The last paragraph on page 335 and could you read that
to us please.
CAPT HECHTER: "The elimination of the particular informer was necessary by virtue of his
involvement in the ANC's activities whilst he was a policeman and part of the
security forces. It was a situation which could not be tolerated and which
demanded serious action".
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now Captain, the last aspect which I want to deal with. Did you ever, afterwards,
hear that there were ...(tape ends)... was eliminated?
CAPT HECHTER: I think the first time I heard about it was when you showed me certain documents or it
might have been during our earlier talks. The allegation was made that the man had been eliminated
because he had instituted a civil
claim against the police.
ADV DU PLESSIS: In the time that you had been involved in
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 418 CAPT HECHTER
this action and afterwards, was such a thing ever put to you?
CAPT HECHTER: No, not at all. No, it was never mentioned to me. I heard about this for the first time, I
think, from Warrant Officer van Vuuren. He told me about this in October, yes. The Attorney General
apparently told him that and he then told me about it and that was the first time I heard about it and then
you showed me certain documents which Mr Currin had made available to you and whether I had any
knowledge of the events or circumstances. Well, we will speak about that later.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman. Captain Hechter, your evidence
says that you had a meeting with Colonel Ras, General Ras at that stage, no, he was then Colonel Ras.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct Chairperson.
MR CURRIN: And he gave you certain information about Sergeant Motasi and you have given us, you
have told us in evidence what that information is. Could you tell us how long that discussion took?
CAPT HECHTER: Unfortunately not, but I cannot imagine that it could have lasted for very long. He said
that the information had come from the Divisional Commissioner and just briefly explained what the man
was about. So how long could that have taken, maybe ten to 15 minutes, I do not know, but it would not
have been longer than that.
MR CURRIN: A short discussion.
CAPT HECHTER: It was a discussion.
MR CURRIN: I see and you got this information and you
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 419 CAPT HECHTER
accepted it?
CAPT HECHTER: I accepted it.
MR CURRIN: I see. Did you take any steps whatsoever to check or to verify the information?
CAPT HECHTER: Not at all.
MR CURRIN: So you were told by a senior officer that one of your colleagues who is a sergeant in the
police force stationed in Temba is passing on information to the security forces in Zimbabwe and that is
enough for you, without any questions, to proceed and to eliminate, to kill this person?
CAPT HECHTER: The information came from two senior officers in the police force. I had no reason to
doubt Colonel Ras at the time who was my Commanding Officer. If he had verified the information with
Brigadier Stemmet I certainly would not have questioned him or doubted his information.
MR CURRIN: I see.
CAPT HECHTER: I had worked with him for a long period and I never had any problems with him. I
trusted him completely. He was an honourable man, he was an officer of high repute. So I had no reason
to doubt his instructions.
MR CURRIN: I see. And you are given this broad, general information that he is giving sensitive
information to the security forces in Zimbabwe?
CAPT HECHTER: That was good enough for me.
MR CURRIN: Did you ask what sort of information?
CAPT HECHTER: I have already said that he told me that the man had certain information, that he was a
courier. I forgot to mention that. He was also a courier who took information through and passed it on to
the ANC. Whether he took it to Zimbabwe, I cannot tell you. I do not know whether he actually went over
to Zimbabwe, I do not know
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 419 CAPT HECHTER
whether that was discussed, but he was also a courier and, if I remember correctly, he had information
relating to the police stations. You see, at that stage many of our police stations were targeted by the ANC
for attack. So this was similar kind of information. General information about their police stations and so
on. That was what was conveyed to us.
MR CURRIN: So you are now saying that he was actually also a courier for the ANC? This is now new
evidence. You have not said that before.
CAPT HECHTER: It is very possible. If you say so then I will accept that. I have not mentioned it
previously, but I am saying it now.
MR CURRIN: In your written application you said,
"We understood that whilst he was a policeman he passed on information to the
Zimbabwe information services".
Then you go on to say,
"It was essential to eliminate him since he, as an ANC member, was dangerous for the
security forces in South Africa".
CAPT HECHTER: Correct. I also did not mention Stemmet's name in - or Brigadier Stemmet's name in
the application, but that was in fact the case. It is a fact that is what happened.
MR CURRIN: So it was also told to you that he was a courier for the ANC? That is what you are telling
us now?
CAPT HECHTER: I assume so. Maybe this fact came out whilst we were having discussions or perhaps
during the drafting of the application. It might have been told to me on that particular day. It must be
reiterated we are talking about
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 420 CAPT HECHTER
11 years ago and things that happened then. Many things have happened since then. I worked for many
more than 12 hours on each day. Many things were put to me, but I cannot remember exact words
verbatim. I cannot remember precise information. You must accept that.
MR CURRIN: I understand what you say. Did you ask what sort of information, did you ask for details of
the information that he was giving to Zimbabwe?
CAPT HECHTER: No, I would not have done that.
MR CURRIN: You would not.
CAPT HECHTER: I would not have queried my Commanding Officer on his information. It might have
been discussed, but at this stage I cannot say, yes, it was discussed. What I do know is that I would not
have queried him.
MR CURRIN: It was never suggested to you, though, from your evidence that he was involved in any way
in any acts of violence or anything of that nature?
CAPT HECHTER: No, not as far as I can recall.
MR CURRIN: The fact that you agreed to eliminate him must, we assume, that that is now based on a
conclusion that he was a - I am trying to think of the terminology that you have always use in your
applications, a prominent leader, a prominent activist, high profile activist?
CAPT HECHTER: No, he was simply a problem. Not at all, he was an agent. He was not an activist, he
was not high profile, he was simply an agent who worked underground, in all probability. I cannot testify
to that. I do not have, I did not check the information, I did not verify it. I have already told you that.
MR CURRIN: Did it enter your mind to suggest to your senior officers that if they have this evidence that
one of your
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 421 CAPT HECHTER
colleagues in the security forces is a spy, that he is a committing a very, very serious political offence, an
offence, it is treason, and that they, that he should be charged?
CAPT HECHTER: You simply did not make that kind of suggestion to a senior officer.
MR CURRIN: One does not put that sort of proposal to a senior officer?
CAPT HECHTER: I think if he had wanted to charge him, he would have done so. As a lieutenant you
simply cannot say to a higher ranking officer you are doing something incorrectly and let us do it this way.
It does not work that way in the military.
MR CURRIN: Even, are you telling us that if you, as a policeman, are instructed to commit murder by a
senior officer, you do not question the instruction?
CAPT HECHTER: That is under normal circumstances. I am speaking of very different kinds of
circumstances to what we experience here. Whilst we are sitting here calmly and collectedly many years
after the actual incident, in English it is called "heady days". You did as you were told. The Colonel was
in charge of the branch, his commanding officer, he was a Brigadier. He was actually a little god and those
were his instructions. I would simply not have considered doubting it. I would probably have been
demoted to uniform branch if I had made that kind of suggestion.
MR CURRIN: At that particular time ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: So you were interested in saving your own skin, if I can put it that way, and were not
prepared to ask questions about this other policeman?
CAPT HECHTER: Not at all. I had no reason to doubt my
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 422 CAPT HECHTER
Colonel. What reason would I have had to cast any doubt or dispute the actions of my Colonel,
Chairperson?
JUDGE WILSON: But a man had given away information to another country, you did not question him,
you did not seek to find out who his contacts were, you merely decided to murder him which is not the
conduct of a policeman, it is not the instructions one expects from a senior officer.
CAPT HECHTER: He was eliminated, that is correct.
JUDGE WILSON: He was murdered and you say that the, as I understand your evidence and correct me,
the position in your unit was that you would not question instructions to murder, you would just do it. ?
CAPT HECHTER: If I received instructions to eliminate a man, I would have done so, yes.
MR CURRIN: I want to put it to you before I proceed to the next point that it will be, it is strenuously
denied that Sergeant Motasi was an agent, that he was a spy and that he passed on any information
whatsoever to the security forces in Zimbabwe. It is also denied that he was a courier for the ANC. It is
the first time that information has come to our knowledge. I put that to you.
CAPT HECHTER: You put it to me, but in all the other applications which we have dealt with so far not
one of these high profile activists or anybody who had been eliminated, thus far, has it been put to me that
he had in fact been involved in any actions. Not one of them had been involved in anything wrong.
MR CURRIN: That may be the case. I want to read to you what you said in your written application with
regard to going out to the residence of Sergeant Motasi, his wife and his son.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 422 CAPT HECHTER
"We got into a car and late that evening we went to the policeman's address. The
address was identified beforehand by Mamasela. A black woman, presumably his wife,
opened the door and said that he was not at home. Because he was not at home we then
went away to discuss the matter".
The impression I get from that statement is that the group of you went to the house, knocked on the door,
Irene Motasi answered the door, told you that he was not there and you went away. Is that the situation?
CAPT HECHTER: We did not go away, we just moved to stand around the corner. Mamasela came from
the door to us, he stood there speaking to us, he turned round. She closed the door after speaking to him.
He then turned around. We are talking about seconds, minutes. He went back and knocked on the door
again.
MR CURRIN: I am interested in the first time he went to the door. Before, are you saying you did not all
go to the door? In your evidence-in-chief you said, your verbal, oral evidence, you said that only
Mamasela went to the door. I am trying to get clarification. The first time was it only Mamasela or was it
all of you?
CAPT HECHTER: All of us went to the house, we walked to the house and stood around the corner where
she could not see us.
MR CURRIN: Okay.
CAPT HECHTER: We are talking about five or six paces or perhaps ten paces. He then walked those ten
or how many paces to the front door to speak to her.
MR CURRIN: Okay, so he went on his own to speak to her.
CAPT HECHTER: Correct.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 423 CAPT HECHTER
MR CURRIN: I want to assume that before he went to speak to her you discussed your plan, namely, the
immediate plan of getting into the house.
CAPT HECHTER: Correct. Yes, we discussed it, that he would knock and ask whether Motasi was at
home. If he was at home he would have asked him to come outside.
MR CURRIN: Okay, alright. So he goes to the door and he knocks on the door. He is a visitor.
Obviously one does not want to create suspicion, is that correct?
CAPT HECHTER: Correct.
MR CURRIN: The lights in the house are on?
CAPT HECHTER: I cannot remember, but I assume that that would have been the case. She would not
have walked in the darkness.
MR CURRIN: She would have turned the lights on. So this friend, someone looking for Richard Motasi,
knocks on the door. She opens the door and she has a conversation with him. Could you hear the
conversation?
CAPT HECHTER: I am sure we would have heard it. I cannot specifically remember it, but we must have
because we were close enough.
MR CURRIN: You cannot remember what was said?
CAPT HECHTER: I assume that the conversation was conducted in a black language.
MR CURRIN: I see, but his instructions were to go and ask if Richard is there?
CAPT HECHTER: Correct.
MR CURRIN: Okay. Obviously there was a discussion. She said he was not, no suspicion is created.
Correct?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes.
MR CURRIN: Obviously not and because you went and you PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 424 CAPT HECHTER
knocked a few minutes later and she opened the door.
CAPT HECHTER: And she opened without any hassles. That is correct.
MR CURRIN: Obviously when he went to the door the first time he would not have stood there with a
balaclava on his face?
CAPT HECHTER: The blacks did walk around wearing their balaclavas. It was not a balaclava which
covered his eyes. It was actually rolled up which just rested on his forehead and covered his ears and the
back of his head.
MR CURRIN: But not over his face?
CAPT HECHTER: Not over his face, not at all.
MR CURRIN: So you knew and, in fact, all of you knew that when he went to the door the first time his
face would be completely visible to Mrs Motasi?
CAPT HECHTER: That is obvious, yes.
MR CURRIN: You then returned to the rest of the group?
CAPT HECHTER: No, he returned.
MR CURRIN: Sorry, he comes to the rest of the group and you have a discussion and you decide that he is
going to go back again and get into the house and you are going to wait for Richard Motasi, Sergeant
Motasi. Is that the discussion that took place?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
JUDGE MALL: Tea.
MR CURRIN: I am told that it is tea time. Would you like to stop at this critical stage or should I finish
this particular point of the cross-examination?
JUDGE MALL: We will take a short adjournment Mr Currin.
MR CURRIN: Thank you.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 425 CAPT HECHTER
ON RESUMPTION
JUDGE MALL: Yes, Mr Currin.
JACQUES HECHTER: (s.u.o.)
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CURRIN: (cont)
Thank you, thank you. Joe Mamasela has now come back to you, he has told you that he had a
discussion with Mrs Motasi, that Sergeant Motasi is not there, you then have a debate and you decide to
proceed with the operation. Correct?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct Chairperson.
MR CURRIN: You send Motasi back to the door?
CAPT HECHTER: Mamasela.
MR CURRIN: My apologies. You send Mamasela back to the front door. She is obviously not suspicious
of anything, she opens the door the second time. Correct?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson.
MR CURRIN: He forces his way in and you then follow? Correct.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: When you went into the house your intention was to kill Sergeant Motasi when he returns?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: After the very first time that Mamasela knocked on the front door, each one of you knew
that Mrs Motasi had already seen Mamasela.
CAPT HECHTER: Is that a question? I am sorry.
MR CURRIN: Yes, I put it to you.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: So you all knew that she had seen Mamasela. How could you hope to continue with your
operation and kill Richard Motasi without knowing at that stage that his wife
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 426 CAPT HECHTER
would have to be killed?
CAPT HECHTER: It is easy to say now. It was difficult to decide then.
MR CURRIN: Why do you say that?
CAPT HECHTER: One had to take so many decisions at that
moment. The thought might have occurred to us that she would have to die, but if I had wanted to kill her,
I would not have sent her to a bedroom in the back of the house. I would have said to Mamasela, take her
back and shoot her. I would have said to Mamasela, take her back and shoot her now because she is going
to be a problem to us. That instruction was never uttered, that thought never occurred to me, it was never
part of my planning.
MR CURRIN: I am testing the veracity of your evidence. I want, are you telling this Commission that the
disclosure of the identity of each one of you, including Mamasela, was not absolutely critical throughout
the operation?
CAPT HECHTER: That is why we had balaclavas. These that only revealed the eyes. So she would
never have been able to identify us. The, Mamasela had this over his face and she saw him for a maximum
of ten to 20 seconds while they were talking and thereafter he was sent back to take her to the bedroom. It
was easy. She would walk in front of him, she would be told to lie on the bed and she would be covered
with a blanket.
MR CURRIN: You were not there.
CAPT HECHTER: We are merely speculating now.
MR CURRIN: You were not there. You are speculating.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct. I am saying ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: You told us that Mamasela had his balaclava
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 427 CAPT HECHTER
rolled up above his ears when he went to knock on the door for the first time so as not to look suspicious.
Are you now trying to change your evidence?
CAPT HECHTER: Never, never. Not over his ears, above his ears, over his ears onto his forehead, on to
his forehead. So she could only see his eyes and his mouth.
MR CURRIN: And his nose.
JUDGE WILSON: The whole of his face.
CAPT HECHTER: And his nose, yes, by all means she could have identified him.
MR CURRIN: That is the point.
CAPT HECHTER: She could have identified him.
MR CURRIN: She could have identified him.
CAPT HECHTER: That is it. I have no problem with that.
MR CURRIN: Right, so you go into the house knowing beforehand that one of you will be identified,
could be identified as the killer of Richard Motasi.
CAPT HECHTER: Why did they not kill her immediately?
MR CURRIN: I am not, you must answer the questions.
CAPT HECHTER: No I am asking you.
MR CURRIN: I cannot answer the questions.
CAPT HECHTER: I cannot either.
MR CURRIN: So you cannot answer that question.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr Currin, maybe we should put it this way. Captain, after Mr Mamasela had been
there for the first time and when you people later decided to get, to proceed with the operation what did you
think eventually was to happen with that woman who had, just a few minutes ago, seen fully the face of Mr
Mamasela?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, perhaps Captain Loots could say. At that stage I cannot think that we
had discussed it in any PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 427 CAPT HECHTER
way, that we were worried about it. I cannot say at this point. What I do know, however, is that it was
never discussed that we should take this woman out, eliminate her, but if it had to have been said to
Mamasela I would probably have said to Mamasela, take her to the room and kill her. Do you understand
what I am saying? If that was the
intention, to eliminate her, but that was not the problem. JUDGE MGOEPE: On the other hand it might
very well be that it was such a foregone conclusion that it needed no discussion, that she was going to be
killed.
CAPT HECHTER: That may be. I cannot dispute that, but it was never discussed. What was discussed
was that it was not necessary to shoot her.
JUDGE MGOEPE: I fail to see why you would not know as to what would have to happen to her when
this thing was planned with such precision, the whole operation?
CAPT HECHTER: Which precision are you referring to because we went there, we knocked at the door,
she opened, we went back. We did not foresee that this man was not going to be there. If we got there and
the man was not there, we discussed the fact that he was not there, we went back and we decided to go and
wait in the house.
JUDGE MGOEPE: But the fact that this woman had previously seen full face, Mr Mamasela, must have
made an impression on you surely?
CAPT HECHTER: We should have foreseen it, we did not.
JUDGE MGOEPE: No, I am saying it must have made an impression on you.
CAPT HECHTER: Possibly it did. I cannot dispute that with you. As I said we were operating under
controlled circumstances. One could, under those circumstances you
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MR CURRIN 428 CAPT HECHTER
dealt with, you made decisions at the spur of the moment because it was a very heady situation, you were
incredibly charged. I cannot say. It could be. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a crystal clear answer.
JUDGE WILSON: Why go into the house, all of you, and sit there for some considerable time listening to
television
when Mrs Mamasela must have been aware that there
CAPT HECHTER: Motasi.
JUDGE WILSON: ... were a number of you there, that you were not talking any African language
amongst yourselves. Unless you knew she was never going to be able to tell anybody.
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, firstly let me start with your question. We all went in because we could
not hang around outside. It was an ordinary township. There were people walking up and down past the
house so we all had to go into the house. Secondly, we did not speak to each other while we were sitting in
the lounge. We all sat there and if we were to have spoken to each other we would probably have
whispered. She was taken to the back of the house and to tell you the whole story, I only saw a day or two
later in the newspaper that, I hear Mr Currin says that a boy was also involved. I only read in the
newspaper later that a boy had also been there. I did not know that and Mamasela did not report that to me.
He merely said that a woman had been shot so I did not know that there was a third person in that house.
We did not go into the house, we were in the lounge and we executed the operation and we left.
MR CURRIN: What I fail to understand is why this case is different from all the others. You have
repeatedly said before this Committee that the identification of Mamasela was a death warrant. If
somebody identified Mamasela, that
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 429 CAPT HECHTER
person would have to be eliminated because Mamasela was so important. You are telling us in this case
you did not even consider or think or discuss about hiding the identity of Mamasela. I put it to you that that
is highly improbable.
CAPT HECHTER: What do you want? Do you want me to say that I gave instructions that she should be
shot.
MR CURRIN: No.
CAPT HECHTER: Is that what you want me to say?
MR CURRIN: No, that is not what I am wanting you to say. I put it to you and I will argue to this
Committee that from the moment the group of you sent Mamasela to the door and Mrs Motasi opened that
door and she identified Mamasela and you then decided to go back into the house, from that moment Irene
Motasi was a dead woman.
CAPT HECHTER: Might be. I will never argue that with you, because if she did identify him we would
have had a problem, but the fact that it was discussed, no, it was left to his own - I am looking for the
appropriate Afrikaans word, his own conclusion. I did not give him the instruction, I cannot say at this
point in time. It was at his discretion, it was not discussed.
MR CURRIN: Can you explain why Sergeant Motasi suspected that he would be eliminated by the police?
CAPT HECHTER: Did I say that?
MR CURRIN: I am asking you a question.
CAPT HECHTER: I cannot think that he would have suspected something like that or he would have
thought so.
MR CURRIN: Well, I put it to you that Richard Motasi, five months before he was killed by the police,
came to see me as his attorney and advised me that the police would assassinate him.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 430 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: Did he tell you why?
MR CURRIN: He did.
CAPT HECHTER: Because if he did that it proves that he was an agent and that he was busy with
dangerous operations and that the police could come and eliminate him at any time.
MR CURRIN: There will be evidence before this Committee
that Richard Motasi, in the early 80's, was involved in a dispute with a Colonel van Zyl and that Richard
Motasi was assaulted by van Zyl which caused permanent injury to his eardrum. That assault resulted in
years of antagonism and victimisation by many members of the South African Police towards Richard
Motasi. That he was, attempts were made to intimidate him not to sue for the assault and that it was in fact,
that that dispute between Richard Motasi and the police and, in particular, van Zyl and other members
which resulted in the instruction to eliminate him. It had no ...(tape ends)
CAPT HECHTER: ... African police started to eliminate people who were claiming a lousy R10 000,00
from the State. It would have come from there. Then we would have been much busier than we were. We
would probably have had to kill thousands of persons if we had started killing people who had instituted
civil actions against the State. What I also picked up in your documents was the antagonism of Mr Motasi.
He also drew a firearm on his commanding officer before he assaulted him. Is that not an indication, I am
now talking about the documents which I saw from you, is that not an indication that Mr Motasi was really
an agent? That he was totally opposed to the establishment, the police, the Government? I do not know, I
am putting a question to you.
MR CURRIN: Maybe those are the conclusions that you and
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 431 CAPT HECHTER
many of your colleagues came to without any justification.
CAPT HECHTER: Unfortunately, we did not have the documents. I saw the documents on Friday so my
conclusion is one that I have just formed. I did not have insight to the documents at an earlier stage.
MR CURRIN: Richard Motasi wrote a letter which he sent to the then State President, Mr P W Botha, he
sent it to the
Minister of Law and Order, he sent it to the Commissioner of Police, it was after many years of conflict
regarding this particular matter and in the second-last paragraph of his letter, which is on page 26 of the
bundle, which I have asked my learned friend to make available to the Commissioners, he says, this is the
letter that he writes, he says,
"I love my career, but for the sake of my future and success in the force I am compelled
to make a humble and urgent request for an investigation before it is too late because I
am really penalised for nothing. I am asking for your based cooperation in this regard.
Looking forward to your sympathetic and positive response".
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, perhaps to assist the Committee members, I see Committee members are
having a problem. These are the documents that were put before the Committee last week, unmarked, but
the first cover has got an emblem of the Bophuthatswana Police. May I move that they be marked Bundle
"Q", 26.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, the trouble is I have a bundle that is marked, it is marked "I", in fact.
ADV MPSHE: It is marked "I".
JUDGE WILSON: And the paging goes on to page 20. Then it
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MR CURRIN 431 CAPT HECHTER
skips to page 25.
ADV MPSHE: That is correct.
JUDGE WILSON: Then it goes to page 35.
MR CURRIN: Is it all mixed up?
JUDGE WILSON: Then it goes to page 54 and ...(intervention)
ADV MPSHE: (Aside to Mr Currin) Your letter is on page 25, the one you are reading now.
MR CURRIN: Okay.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And there is no page 26.
MR CURRIN: Okay. Mr Chairman, you could, it is one, it is one.
ADV MPSHE: Can we have it marked "Q" then.
MR CURRIN: If that is the case please ignore your bundle and we will rearrange it for you and make sure
that you get it in proper numerical order.
JUDGE WILSON: I do not think it is just the numerical order. I think there are numerous pages missing
or else they are all wrongly numbered.
MR CURRIN: I will have to check on those. One of the attorneys assisting me arranged for these things to
be put together.
JUDGE MALL: (Speaker's microphone not on) - Well, when you hand them in, will you number them as
exhibit "Q" (...indistinct) "U". We already have up to exhibit "T". This document, when it comes to us, I
recall that you said that at some stage some documents were handed in. The relevance of those documents
at that stage did not register with us. So they are probably ...(intervention)
INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.
MR CURRIN: We will rectify those documents and I apologise that they are in that state.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 432 CAPT HECHTER
JUDGE MALL: Thank you. Please proceed.
MR CURRIN: As you have already indicated the deceased's young son was in the house when they were
assassinated.
JUDGE MALL: When you say "as he has indicated", he merely says he read in the paper or some such
source that that was so.
MR CURRIN: Okay. I put it to you that it is correct that their son was in the house at the time. He is now
a young teenager sitting behind me over there. The neighbours heard his crying during the night and the
next morning when it had not stopped they went to the house and found him there with his parents. Do you
know about that?
CAPT HECHTER: I testified, as the Honourable Judge Mall said to you, a day or two later I read about it
in the newspapers.
MR CURRIN: Have you, once you heard that, that there was a child involved, have you ever at any stage
made any effort to find out what happened to that child?
CAPT HECHTER: No, not at all.
MR CURRIN: We have heard in other cases where you attacked houses with activists in the houses, that
before the attack was launched, attempts would be made to find out who is in the house to ensure that there
are not innocent woman and children in the house. Did you make any attempts to find out before you went
there the very first time who would be in the house?
CAPT HECHTER: No, no attempt.
MR CURRIN: Have you any idea what you would have done if that young child had walked down the
passage while this was happening?
CAPT HECHTER: No, in retrospect, none.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 433 CAPT HECHTER
MR CURRIN: In your application when it was lodged you filled in your forms and you were asked to
name the victims and on page 200 and, let me see which.....
JUDGE WILSON: 300.
MR CURRIN: Of your application, yes. I seem to have misplaced my papers with - in your application,
but in your application when asked to name the victims you say "Unknown".
CAPT HECHTER: Thereafter I filled in the name Motasi.
MR CURRIN: When did you do that?
CAPT HECHTER: At that stage it was not known to me. We
only found out the names afterwards.
MR CURRIN: At the time that you killed Sergeant and Mrs Motasi did you know their names?
CAPT HECHTER: I had grounds to believe that if I had sent Mamasela I would have known where I was
sending him and what.
MR CURRIN: And you would have known their names?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: When did you decide to apply for amnesty in respect of Sergeant and Mrs Motasi?
CAPT HECHTER: All these applications were done at the same time.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, the applications were drawn during the last week of September last
year, first week of October.
MR CURRIN: The day after he was killed, he and his wife were killed, I read a report in the Sowetan
which said that he was killed by ANC terrorists. Did you, were you involved in putting out the information
that he was killed by ANC terrorists?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 434 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: No, not at all.
MR CURRIN: Who would have been responsible for making ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: If it could have been read perhaps we could read the Sowetan and find out who
reported that, but possibly the person could have come to that conclusion since they were killed with an
AK47 rifle which was a known ANC terrorist weapon.
MR CURRIN: And of course that was the sort of statement that you would want to have read, is it not?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes.
MR CURRIN: If he was killed by ANC terrorists, if the
police wanted people to believe that he was killed by ANC terrorists, why was he not given a State funeral,
a proper State funeral that policeman that are killed in action are normally given?
CAPT HECHTER: I would not know.
MR CURRIN: There was not a policeman to be seen at his funeral.
CAPT HECHTER: I cannot answer you.
ADV DE JAGER: But if they killed him because they thought he supplied information would they give
him a State funeral?
MR CURRIN: Well, publicly he was killed by the ANC. He was ...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: No, that was in one newspaper.
MR CURRIN: Sure. Yes, that was the perception that was created. I understand why they were not there.
I am just wondering why the lie did not persist.
JUDGE MALL: I think if you just confine yourself to the real issues, the relevant issues.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CURRIN
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 434 CAPT HECHTER
JUDGE MALL: Thank you. Mr Mpshe, have you any questions.
EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE MPSHE: Captain, on page 327 of your application, the first two
paragraphs, the first paragraph you state,
"I put a pillow over his head and van Vuuren shot him four times with an AK47".
May I ask was it necessary really to do it in this fashion, to suffocate him first and whilst suffocating, blow
him off with the AK47?
CAPT HECHTER: No Chairperson, he was not suffocated with a pillow. He had already been strangled.
I could have continued strangling him, but it would not have tallied with the alleged actions of the ANC at
the time. I put the
pillow on his face after he had lost consciousness to mumb, to sort of silence the sound. If you shot
through a pillow it could not be heard at a distance.
ADV MPSHE: Was he shot through the head?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, as far as I know he was shot in the head.
ADV DE JAGER: You did have the intention to create the misconception that it was the ANC?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, at that stage we operated in that fashion. Most of our attacks, the ANC would
have known that they were not responsible, but the broader public would have thought that it was the ANC
and at the time of - our attacks were often done in the way that the person themself had, who had killed this
person or the perception would be that it was the ANC, but there would be nothing indicating that we had
actually committed the offence.
ADV MPSHE: Now, you have already testified, Captain, that the death of Irene Motasi was unnecessary
and you would not
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 435 CAPT HECHTER
have done it yourself. Are you telling us then that she died because she happened to be in the house or is it
another case of being married to somebody wanted?
CAPT HECHTER: In retrospect, Chairperson, it is clear that after she had identified Mamasela and he
realised and he decided that he had been identified so she had to die. We could sit and rationally discuss
this. I could say that, yes, she should have died. She identified him, she could have been part of the
apparatus put there by the State and she could have exposed this apparatus by identifying him, but I cannot
say exactly what went on in the minds because it was a snap decision, it was a long time ago and at this
point in time I say, yes.
ADV DE JAGER: Anyway, did you as commanding officer approve of it and also your seniors?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, afterwards it was approved. After he had, I had asked him and he had said that
she would have been able to identify him. I said that is fine, we will accept it as such.
ADV MPSHE: Captain, page 330 of your application, I think paragraph five, they are numbered. That is
where you talk why sometimes elimination takes place.
"Elimination usually took place of high profile or very effective activists..."
and in your evidence when cross-examined by my learned friend, Brian Currin, you stated it very clearly
that Richard Motasi was not a high profile activist.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct Chairperson. This was a general motivation, but if you look at any of
my applications you will see that it was a general motivation, but in my testimony I explained why and
how it worked.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 436 CAPT HECHTER
ADV MPSHE: Yes, I understand that.
CAPT HECHTER: I accept that this is not correct. This where we referred to specifically as him being a
high profile activist is incorrect, he was an agent.
ADV MPSHE: So, this is misleading, actually, to the Committee.
CAPT HECHTER: Definitely.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, in this regard I just want to state this again as I have done previously.
At the stage when we drew the applications we were under a lot of time constraints. That is why we
incorporated general motivations and in certain instances a paragraph or two paragraphs might not accord
with the exact happening of that specific incident and that is why we give specific evidence
about that.
ADV MPSHE: Now Captain, was there a file about Richard Motasi?
CAPT HECHTER: As I said to you, Chairperson, if there was a file it was not kept in my office. If it was
in my office it was not my desk which was the Black Force desk. I did not have a file on him. If there was
a file I did not have insight into it.
ADV MPSHE: You know I am saying this because in all incidents wherein some of your colleagues
testified, including yourself, evidence would always be led that there was a file, but did not have access into
the file, but you believed that information was contained in the file.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
ADV MPSHE: So in this one you are not even aware that there was a file?
CAPT HECHTER: Not in my files. It is possible that it was
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 437 CAPT HECHTER
with General Stemmet or at the time Brigadier Stemmet of National Intelligence. Perhaps it would be
better if he could be subpoenaed to come and testify as to where he obtained the information which, to
which I reacted.
ADV MPSHE: Captain, is it not done that if a member of the police force commits a crime, he be charged
for that crime? Discipline or whatever?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson.
ADV MPSHE: Was Motasi ever charged for being an informer or for being an agent?
CAPT HECHTER: No, not at all.
ADV MPSHE: Why, if you know?
CAPT HECHTER: I would not know. I was not his Commanding Officer. I did not know about this man
prior to the night
on which we eliminated him.
ADV MPSHE: You see the question why I am asking you this is because I want to put it to you that this
man was never an informer as you stated or an agent. If he was he would have been charged. Mr
Chairman, members of the Committee, I want to refer to that bundle that is not properly compiled, but I
will direct the Chairman and the Committee to the exact page where I am going to refer the witness to.
JUDGE MALL: Please.
ADV MPSHE: In that bundle it is numbered page 7 with a black marking pen and it has got a heading,
"Proceedings of Trial". Mr Chairman, I just want to give the witness a copy. If the Chair could bear with
me. I want you to have a look at that page. This is when Richard Motasi was charged or it was a
disciplinary hearing and no mention is mentioned of him being charged for being an agent or whatever, but
simply for him having acted against a senior.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 438 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: I do not see any information about agents here. I do not see it mentioned here.
JUDGE WILSON: This was, of course, in 1984. Three years before the time we are talking of.
ADV MPSHE: Yes, Mr Chairperson, that is indeed so, but these are the incidents that led, ultimately, to
why we are here.
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, when one looks at these documents here, I just read them very quickly.
Then the conclusion can be drawn that Motasi did not get along well with the police, the Government and
everyone. In one of these letters he even made mention of his Captain. The fact that his Captain did not
like him. So it appears as though nobody liked him according to what he said to Mr Currin.
One has to draw the inference that the system, Government, Government and the system at the time did not
like him much and that is the conclusion which I draw now. I did not draw any conclusions then because I
did not know about this information. I received this information from Mr Currin and if one looks at the
information you can see that after he was transferred, there is not one policeman in South Africa that has
not been transferred. We spoke to the Minister about that. He absconded. In other words he did not want
to cooperate. He was a problem. Did that not perhaps lead to the fact that he started supplying
information? I am busy speculating, but most of the speculation is being referred back to me.
ADV DE JAGER: Then we could also probably speculate about the fact he was rebelling against
authority, had nothing to do with politics, but the, we could possibly see this as the reason why he was
killed.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 438 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: You see, I am being asked to speculate as well so I cannot testify, I can only testify
about what I know and what happened with me, but I am being asked to speculate constantly about whether
things could have been or could not have been.
ADV MPSHE: I will not take it any further Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Well, can I ask you a question about this. I have not got all the papers here, but I like
you have had to read them very quickly, and it would seem that since about May 1987 when he said he was
ill, he did not go back to duty.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct. I would fleetingly conclude that because I also looked at the
documents fleetingly. Mr
Currin made them available to us as a courteous gesture so to me it was not that important.
JUDGE WILSON: But he had stayed at home, he had not been at the police station, he had not been in
contact with the police despite written orders for him to come to duty wearing his uniform, he had ignored
them.
CAPT HECHTER: I presume so. I do not know Mr Chairman.
JUDGE WILSON: So on that it would seem he had been in no position to get any information of
assistance to anybody for at least six months before he was killed?
CAPT HECHTER: He still had free access to police stations due to the fact that he was a policeman. He
could have visited after hours. I do not know, we are merely speculating once again.
JUDGE WILSON: So this information that justified his killing, you know say his information he might
have picked up visiting police stations after hours?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 439 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: I would say that we should ask General Stemmet that question, Chairperson.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, that is for your counsel to decide.
CAPT HECHTER: Thank you Chairperson.
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman and members of the Committee, before I conclude my questioning of the
witness, I want to bring it to the attention of the Committee that, as I have stated earlier on, that I do obtain
information from the investigative unit and this information does not come to me simultaneously. It has
just been sent to me, couriered or faxed down to me. I did, I am in the possession of a statement made by
Joe Mamasela under Section 29 of our enabling Act. Now, I received this last week, Mr Chairman, and
this morning before we could commence I approached
counsel for the applicants and made him aware of the statement that I have that I may use when
questioning the witness and ask him, I actually said to him, I know I should have given you this last week
Friday, but I was also out of time to do that. Will you object if I give it to you now before we start, and he
will confirm if I am wrong, and he stated that if it favours him I can hand it up, I can give it to him. If it
does not he is going to object. But now the object I am trying to make here is that this document, Section
29 investigation or inquiry, I want the Committee's directive here.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I please respond to that. The discussion was held in that
...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: May I just ask?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Why are we talking about this if this witness is still being questioned?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 440 CAPT HECHTER
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I am through with him. I just want ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: You are through with him?
ADV MPSHE: Yes Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: So it has got nothing to do with him?
ADV MPSHE: It has a lot to do with him, Mr Chairman, on condition or provided I am allowed that to use
this Section 29 inquiry statement from Joe Mamasela. That is why I am still keeping him there, Mr
Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: I understand. Thank you.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, my attitude relates to the Committee's views on this matter. Right
when we started in October with leading evidence in this matter, we brought an application to the
Committee that certain State witnesses,
including Mamasela, be called to support the versions of the applicant. That was denied. That application
was denied that they be subpoenaed. We are confronted now, I have not seen this affidavit, because my
learned friend did not want to let me peruse the affidavit unless I said that I agree that the affidavit can be
used. I said I cannot do that because of the fact that I do not know what is in the affidavit.
What I cannot do, Mr Chairman, is or what I can do is if the affidavit clearly supports the
applicants I would have no objection if the affidavit goes in, obviously. If it does not support the applicants
it would open the question up again, would I be entitled to cross-examine Mr Mamasela. If that question
arises we come back to the Committee's decision that Mr Mamasela cannot be called or will not be
subpoenaed by the Committee to give evidence before this Committee.
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ADV DU PLESSIS 440 ADDRESS
So at the end of the day, if the affidavit does not - contradicts my clients and my clients are cross-
examined on that basis, they are going to be confronted by cross-examination on the basis of an affidavit of
which the evidence cannot be tested by us which would be grossly unfair towards the applicants, Mr
Chairman, and that was never the intention of the Act.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Can we clarify something? Is it an affidavit or is it a record of proceedings, Mr
Mpshe?
ADV MPSHE: It is a record of proceedings, it is not an affidavit.
JUDGE MGOEPE: It is not an affidavit?
ADV MPSHE: Not at affidavit.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chair ...(intervention)
JUDGE MGOEPE: Sorry, can I just, Mr du Plessis, I am just trying to respond to what you are saying.
This is not an affidavit, this is a record of what the witness, Mamasela, said and he was recorded
somewhere else. Now, surely, should this not be treated the same way as if it was a court record? What
difficulties are there if, for example, somebody was to produce a record of proceedings at a criminal trial
of, say for example, Colonel de Kock and the record is produced and the witness is cross-examined on the
basis of what stands there in the record? The usual procedures, surely, should apply when, as if we were
conducting a trial. You would first have to agree with your learned friend whether or not you both agree
that the record is an accurate reflection of what transpired.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, Mr Chairman ...(intervention)
JUDGE MGOEPE: And then you would use it, you would not
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ADV DU PLESSIS 441 ADDRESS
admit the truth of the contents thereof, but it could only be used solely for purpose of cross-examination.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, to show that Mr Mamasela said something different when he
gave evidence, but not necessarily that what Mr Mamasela said was necessarily the truth.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes, you do not admit the truth, you do not admit the truth of the contents thereof, it is
purely ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chair ...
JUDGE MGOEPE: ... for cross-examination purposes.
JUDGE MALL: I think it should be clear whatever a witness said in any previous trial or proceedings does
not automatically become evidence in a subsequent trial or in subsequent proceedings.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, that is clearly so in a normal
civil matter or even in a criminal matter. The only problem that I foresee is that in these proceedings we
deal with one principle and that is full disclosure. If the Committee can give me an indication that the
Committee if such, presumably contradictory evidence is put to Captain Hechter and conflicting statements
appear from the record, namely that Captain Hechter says one thing and Mr Mamasela said something in a
different proceeding under oath, that the Committee will not take that into account when deciding on full
disclosure, then I have no problem. However, if the Committee intends to take such contradictory
statements into account when considering full disclosure then, obviously, I have to safeguard my clients'
rights.
JUDGE MALL: That stage may or may not arrive. I do not know, none of us knows what questions are
going to be put, but I think you must concede that if there is information in PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 442 CAPT HECHTER
Mr Mpshe's possession which he would like to put to this witness, to say to him another witness in some
other proceeding has said this, what are your comments on that, the witness may well agree with it and that
is the end of the matter.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Mr Chairman, I do not want to be obstructive so I am not going to argue this
matter further. I just and ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: I understand the point you are making.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I just, I do not want to say I want to place it on record because then I am on
television again saying that so I want to make that clear for record purposes, Mr Chairman, that, obviously,
we reserve our rights in this regard and if we are prejudiced at the end of the day in respect of the
Committee's decision relating
to this procedure, we reserve our rights now pertaining ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: I understand.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Chair, I have only got one problem. In the light of the decision, should this
document not have been served on the applicants and should they not have been informed that it would be
used?
ADV MPSHE: That is true Mr Chairman, but as I have indicated ...(tape ends)
ADV DE JAGER: ... the Truth Commission since October or since when?
ADV MPSHE: I am not sure whether it was since October, but they, on the top of the record they give me
it is dated 21st February. Now to respond fully to what the Committee member has said. As I have
indicated earlier on that the
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 443 CAPT HECHTER
investigative unit sends me document as they know that I deal with certain matters on certain days and they
peruse their information desk or whatever and send it down to me, but at the time when I informed even
implicated persons as well as the counsel for the applicants, I did not have this information because it is not
in our custody, but IEU's in team.
JUDGE MALL: Well, Mr Mpshe, to the extent that you are not going to hand that document in as part of
the record of these proceedings, to that extent, my view of the matter is that you be entitled to put questions
of the contents of that document as to what Mr Mamasela may have said or not to test this witness to hear
his views on the matter, but whatever Mr Mamasela said does not become evidence in these proceedings.
ADV MPSHE: I am well aware of that one, Mr Chairman. Mr
Chairman, may I then be given the opportunity to hand up these documents ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV MPSHE: ... to the Committee members as well as my learned friend.
JUDGE MALL: Well, you cannot - you can put your questions to this witness without handing the
document to us.
ADV MPSHE: Thank you Mr Chairman. I am indebted to the Chair. Captain, I want you to have a look
at page 2 of the document I have just given you. Let us start with page one then. One, two, three, four
under the fifth Mamasela down the page it starts with, "with in reference with Sergeant Motasi" do you see
that?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, I did.
ADV MPSHE: I am going to read that out to you.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 443 CAPT HECHTER
"With in reference with Sergeant Motasi a lot of things have happened ..."
ADV DU PLESSIS: Opened.
ADV MPSHE: "... have opened my eyes in reference to this particular case because, more often than
not, when the Security Police wanted us to do something they will always use
false accusations and say this man is an informer, he works for CIO or he
works for this or that so that it must be justified as a political event".
What is your comment to that?
CAPT HECHTER: We have heard too many stories from Mamasela to really take anything that he said
seriously. For the Harms Commission and the Goldstone Commission he testified that he had no
knowledge of these events and now he is testifying that we were doing this and that and the other. So I am
not prepared to accept any of his accusations.
ADV MPSHE: Are you saying what he is saying here is false or are you just saying ...
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, that is what I am saying.
ADV MPSHE: ... you do not accept what he is saying?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, I say they are false.
ADV MPSHE: And the very following paragraph again, have a look at it. I will read it for convenience.
"But after the death of this man when I read in the press I found that he was completely
innocent. He was not a member, he was not a spy of CIO, he was just a Sergeant in the
police force at Hammanskraal who was just doing his job and one of his commanders, a
Colonel "klapped" him and then
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ADV MPSHE 444 CAPT HECHTER
he made a civil case against him and that is precisely why he was killed".
Just comment on that.
CAPT HECHTER: Mamasela is drawing an inference from something which he read in the newspaper
and that is hardly evidence. He received instructions from a senior officer and he believes what he reads in
the newspaper, but that which is, his senior officer or what the senior officer told him, that he assumes must
be incorrect.
ADV MPSHE: Are you saying what stands there is wrong?
CAPT HECHTER: Correct.
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman then I refer back, still with the witness, back to the bundle that was handed
in by my learned friend with particular reference to the question whether a civil claim was made or not.
JUDGE MALL: This is now Exhibit "U"?
ADV MPSHE: That is Exhibit "U", Mr Chairman. Sorry for that.
JUDGE MALL: What page on the exhibit?
ADV MPSHE: Exhibit "U", Mr Chairman, it is written "4"
right at the top, right-hand top. It is a letter from an Attorney S K S Makambeni to the Commanding
Officer of Hammanskraal. I just want to show the witness the letter, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Page four of the bundle "U"?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I do not have a page four.
JUDGE MALL: Just give us the date of that letter. Maybe it is paged differently.
ADV MPSHE: Thank you Chairman. It is dated August. No, no.
JUDGE WILSON: 8th of November 1984.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 445 CAPT HECHTER
ADV MPSHE: 8th November '84. My learned friend says they do not have it, Mr Chairman. I will leave
it at that, but the point I wanted to make was that a civil claim was indeed made.
JUDGE MALL: Well, put your questions to this witness if your want to question him about it.
ADV MPSHE: I put it to you that a civil claim, as Mr Mamasela has indicated here, was indeed made or
lodged by Motasi against his Senior, Mr van Zyl, as per letter I have referred to.
JUDGE WILSON: What ...
JUDGE MALL: Just hold it.
JUDGE WILSON: What has this letter got to do with the action that he later instituted?
JUDGE MALL: Roy, just let, Mr Hechter hasn't replied. You have asked a question of this witness, have
you not?
ADV MPSHE: I have done so, Mr Chair.
JUDGE MALL: Yes. Well, wait for his reply.
CAPT HECHTER: I do not have what you have in front of you. I do not have that document.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Chair, could you kindly assist me? The document referred to, we have got a one,
two and then four, is that correct? Is that the document you are referring to, the letter of the 8th of
November 1984?
ADV MPSHE: That is correct. A letter ...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: Well, will you kindly help me, where does it state that there is any civil claim?
ADV MPSHE: Now my copy is gone again.
JUDGE WILSON: There is a letter page five in my bundle which clearly refers to a civil claim. That is a
letter addressed to Colonel van Zyl.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 446 CAPT HECHTER
MS KHAMPEPE: Mr Mpshe, are you perhaps not mistaken? Do you not want to refer us to page five of
the bundle and not page four?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe, please I think ...
ADV MPSHE: ... and members I am, I ...
JUDGE MALL: ... I think that there will be a great deal of confusion before we start talking about this
bundle of documents. I would rather that we have those papers put right, in proper sequence so that there
can be no confusion. Each time you ask a question on page so and so, it will be differed, it will be
numbered differently here and we will be just making the thing a little more difficult than it is necessary to
do so.
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, I am indebted to the Chair. I think I may right now stop putting this to the
witness because there is still another witness, applicant on the same thing, by then I want to believe, the
documents will be in order. I will stop now with this witness.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, if there is anything in the letter dated
8th of November 1984, you say that certain things are said in that letter which show that an application or
an action was instituted. You want to ask him whether he agrees or knows about it, is that what you want
to do?
ADV MPSHE: Yes, Mr Chairman. I want his comment on that, Mr Chair.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, Mr Hechter, do you see that?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, no, I have Mamasela's statement, I have read that. Could you please
repeat it to me.
JUDGE MALL: No, we are talking about Exhibit "U".
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 447 CAPT HECHTER
JUDGE MALL: Yes, not Mr Mamasela's statement.
CAPT HECHTER: Yes.
JUDGE MALL: Exhibit "U" concerns Mr Motasi, the papers concerning Mr Motasi.
CAPT HECHTER: The page, Chairperson?
JUDGE MALL: No, just look at the letter dated the 8th of November 1984 please.
JUDGE WILSON: Page four.
CAPT HECHTER: I have it, it is page four, "Attention Captain Swanepoel".
JUDGE MALL: Yes, just read through it quickly first just before you can be questioned about it.
CAPT HECHTER: I have read it Chairperson.
JUDGE MALL: Now you are invited to make a comment. Put your question Mr Mpshe. His comment on
what?
ADV MPSHE: His comment, Mr Chairman, on the contents of the letter in relation to what he said where
Mr Mamasela mentioned a civil claim.
CAPT HECHTER: What do you want me to say? I do not understand the question. I deny that I had any
knowledge of it. I do not deny that a civil claim was instituted, that I have now seen. I saw these
documents for the first time on Thursday or Friday. It is clear, very clear that a civil claim was, indeed,
instituted against the State, but, as I have already testified, that does not mean a thing. There are thousands
of civil claims instituted against the State on a daily basis and those people are not eliminated. So one
cannot draw the inference that because he instituted a claim he was therefore killed.
ADV MPSHE: That is exactly what I am trying to do.
CAPT HECHTER: I think that is putting it a bit broadly.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 447 CAPT HECHTER
ADV MPSHE: That is exactly what I am trying to do. Then turn over to page five.
JUDGE MALL: Is that the second page of that letter?
ADV MPSHE: The second page of the document, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: It is a completely, page five is a completely different letter, page five is a completely
different letter is it not?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, as I have indicated I think I better ask my learned friend to put these things
right. I will stop my cross-examination here. It is a mess.
JUDGE WILSON: Page five is a completely different letter.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin, this is your bundle of documents is it not?
MR CURRIN: It is and again I apologise and we will sort it out during the lunch break.
JUDGE MALL: Very well.
ADV DE JAGER: Captain Hechter, on page five there is a reference to a claim instituted by the deceased
against Colonel van Zyl. The letter is addressed to him and he says
that he is claiming R10 000,00 in damages for assault and yes, assault, inter alia. Were you aware of the
fact that such a claim was instituted?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, I have now testified on numerous occasions that the first time that I heard
of this claim which we later realised was, in fact, the truth was during October, I think, September or
October whilst we were busy drawing up the papers for this application. Warrant Officer van Vuuren came
and said that the investigation staff from the Attorney General's office had told him or their words were,
here we have one of the people and we are going to
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 448 CAPT HECHTER
catch him because this was not a politically motivated murder. You shot him, you eliminated him because
he had a claim against the State. That was the first that I had heard of anything about a civil claim against
the State and I want to state again that to shoot a man because he instituted a civil claim for R10 000,00,
well, the State would not have thought twice about paying that amount.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes, but one of your senior officers, possibly had some kind of a grievance against this
man. It is, it is possible that he could have wanted to eliminate an enemy under the guise of a political
crime. I am not saying that is what happened, but it is possible.
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, it is possible, it is highly unlikely, but it is possible.
ADV DE JAGER: Were you aware of it?
CAPT HECHTER: Never.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV MPSHE
JUDGE MGOEPE: Captain, who was in charge of the operation on that day? Was it you?
CAPT HECHTER: Since I was in command of the Hit Squad of
that branch I could say that I was in charge of that operation. There was a more senior officer present, but I
will accept that I was in overall command of that operation. JUDGE MGOEPE: Before the deceased was
killed was he questioned about his, so called ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: No, no, he was fighting like a tiger.
JUDGE MGOEPE: But that was not the reason for the operation?
CAPT HECHTER: No, we did not even think about questioning him.
JUDGE MGOEPE: The fact that he fought like a tiger is
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 449 CAPT HECHTER
irrelevant ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, but after I had restrained him he was shot.
JUDGE MGOEPE: You could have questioned him if you had wanted to?
CAPT HECHTER: I could have. I believe I could have if I had taken him out of the house. We could not
question him there because he was screaming very loudly.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Was he ever questioned prior to that incident as far as you know?
CAPT HECHTER: No, not at all. We had to shoot him and get it over with and get away.
JUDGE MGOEPE: So whatever, if he was an agent and if that was indeed the reason why he was killed
and if he had never been questioned, he died with the information?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Which information you never sought to get from him?
CAPT HECHTER: With hindsight, yes, that is the position. He was shot without the information ever
being extracted
from him.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, did you not want that information if he had that information?
CAPT HECHTER: My instruction was not to arrest him or to kidnap him or to bring him in for
questioning. My instructions were to eliminate the man.
JUDGE MGOEPE: If, in fact, he was a person, he was an agent would the Security Branch not have been
interested in the information he had?
CAPT HECHTER: Possibly and possibly they already knew who his contacts were. Perhaps they already
knew that, I do not PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 450 CAPT HECHTER
know.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, you said that he was also a courier?
You said he was also a courier?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, that was part of the discussion around him on that morning.
JUDGE MGOEPE: If there was such a view why was his house not searched?
CAPT HECHTER: When I grabbed him and dragged him into the house he was screaming and shouting,
there was a lot of noise. He put up a terrible fight, made a lot of noise and the moment I managed to
restrain him we shot him and we left the house, we left the scene.
JUDGE MGOEPE: You never intended to search the house?
CAPT HECHTER: No.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Why not, if he was a courier?
CAPT HECHTER: Would he have concealed the information in his house? Information, a trained agent
does not carry around his information with him and he does not conceal it somewhere in his house.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Have you not searched the houses of suspected people in the past?
CAPT HECHTER: Those would have been just ordinary activists, but I concede, I will wholeheartedly
concede that it should have been done, but it was not.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Why? If there was the slightest belief that this man was an agent and he was a courier,
why was his house not searched? I mean ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: Because you do not, if you are a trained agent, you will not conceal evidence or the
information somewhere in your home. You will, you have dead-letter boxes where you would hide or
secrete information or
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 450 CAPT HECHTER
evidence so that should your house be searched the information is not found in your possession.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you search his vehicle?
CAPT HECHTER: No, we could not. We just had to run.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, as I understand your evidence, you surprised him?
CAPT HECHTER: Correct, yes.
JUDGE MGOEPE: He did not expect that you people would come to his house that day?
CAPT HECHTER: Well, nobody would expect the police to come to your house or a hit squad.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now why would you think that it would be futile to search his house? Why do you
say that you would not expect him to, you would not expect him to have anything incriminating in his
house if you came under ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: I never had any information regarding my actions, round about my home. You simply
do not operate in that way. You hide your information or evidence somewhere else and not at your home.
JUDGE MGOEPE: So, well, was his body searched?
CAPT HECHTER: No, his body was not searched as far as I can recall. Perhaps, Captain Loots, no, his
body was not searched.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, if he was an agent who was caught by surprise by yourselves, did you not think
that you might find something important?
CAPT HECHTER: It is possible.
JUDGE WILSON: Was his car searched?
CAPT HECHTER: No.
JUDGE WILSON: It was parked just outside.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 451 CAPT HECHTER
CAPT HECHTER: No, at that stage we could not search the car. Shots had already been fired. More than
one shot had been fired and van Vuuren will testify that he fired four shots. I read very briefly in this letter
that according to Mamasela we shot six shots altogether. So, there had been a lot of noise and we simply
had to get away. It is hard to remember how many shots had been fired.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Why were four shots fired? You need one shot to kill a man if you are worried about
noise.
CAPT HECHTER: I cannot answer that, I do not know.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, Captain, you kept on emphasising that a person could not have been killed
simply because he had a civil claim against the police and that a lot of people would have been killed for
that reason, but is it not so that quite apart from the civil claim, in this particular instance, there was a
continuous friction between the deceased and members of the South African Police?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, I cannot give you an answer to that. Before this incident I had never met
the man, I saw him that night for the very first time and I eliminated him
according to my instructions. So, I did not know anything about this story. I did not know anything about
it. From September, October last year, I think, I learnt about this civil claim for the very first time. I had
no knowledge of it before then.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And I assume, because you did not search him, you did not search his car, you did not
search the house, I assume in your report nothing was said about what was found or not found?
CAPT HECHTER: There was no written report. The
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JUDGE MGOEPE 452 CAPT HECHTER
instructions required us to eliminate him. I do not know what Captain Loots reported back, but I assume
that he would just have said that the man had been eliminated. I cannot answer on his behalf.
JUDGE MALL: I want you to listen carefully. The fact that you were not even told before eliminating,
search his house, see what information you can pick up, search his car, question him, the fact that those
questions were not told to you must be some indication, surely, that the reason why this man was being
killed was not because he was suspected of being a courier? If he was suspected those who instructed you
to do it, would surely tell you, see that you can find maximum information to prove that he was a courier.
We have some information, but see what you can find on his person and in his house that would confirm it?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, yes, in retrospect, yes, that is the case and I agree with you. Did they not,
perhaps, already have the necessary information? Information received through other intelligence
channels, perhaps, about this man. You see the Brigadier or the General had access to information from
Military Intelligence sources, National
Intelligence, Security Police, Intelligence so, I do not know. What you are saying to me actually makes
complete sense, but at that stage I did not see it that way.
MS KHAMPEPE: Captain, I can understand that you had very specific instructions and that was to
eliminate Mr Motasi and to do no more. So, when you planned how you were going to execute the
operation you did not know whether Mr Motasi was staying with his wife nor whether he was staying with
other people in the house?
CAPT HECHTER: At that stage Mamasela had already been sent
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MS KHAMPEPE 453 CAPT HECHTER
to verify the address. Whether he came back and said there was only the woman present in the house or
other people, I really cannot tell you now, but I assume he would have told us who was living in the house
in so far as he could ascertain those facts, but I cannot give you a clear answer.
MS KHAMPEPE: So you are not sure whether you established that information, whether there would be
other people in the house or not?
CAPT HECHTER: I believe that Mamasela would have ascertained that for us otherwise we would not
have gone to his house. If we were aware of the fact that there were lots of other people in the house, we
would not have gone there because we, it would not have been practically executable to go to the house and
eliminate a lot of people.
MS KHAMPEPE: Was it, perhaps, very important for the operation to be urgently executed before proper
and sufficient information was established in this regard?
CAPT HECHTER: That was not my inference, Chairperson, that it was a matter of great urgency. It
might have been, but as far as I can recall, those were not my instructions that it had to happen on that
particular night. The urgency of
it was not impressed upon me.
MS KHAMPEPE: Thank you.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Just to make a follow up to one of the questions I asked you about searching the
house. For how long did you wait in the house before the man arrived?
CAPT HECHTER: I do not think it could have been more than ten minutes. I am not sure, though. I do
recall that we had to wait for a while, but you are excited, you are charged up, I cannot remember.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And until he arrived you were just sitting in PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 453 CAPT HECHTER
the house not doing anything?
CAPT HECHTER: It might have been. I stood at the door, I was waiting at the door to wait for him.
Perhaps Captain Loots searched the drawers, perhaps van Vuuren did, I cannot remember. I certainly
conducted no search and I cannot recall us, during our planning, discussing searching the house. As far as I
can recall that was not part of our planning.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, you are now saying that if your memory serves you well, but earlier on when I
put questions to you, you were very emphatic about it, you clearly said you did not search, there was no
plan to search?
CAPT HECHTER: As far as I can recall it was never discussed. So I do not think there was such an
instruction. I doubt that and I do not think we did any searching. If we did so it would have been done on
an ad hoc basis by one of my colleagues, but it was not discussed or planned beforehand.
JUDGE MGOEPE: You were very emphatic that you did not search and there were no instructions to
search?
CAPT HECHTER: I did not do any searching in the house and
as far as I can recall there was no instruction to search for documents. That is correct.
JUDGE WILSON: Would you describe ten minutes as a "geruime tyd".
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, definitely, depending on circumstances, but that is a reasonably long time,
considerably long time.
JUDGE MALL: And during that time while you sat or stood by the door and the others were in the room,
was Mamasela not in that room with you?
CAPT HECHTER: Not at all, he was somewhere in the back of
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MALL 454 CAPT HECHTER
the house with the woman.
JUDGE MALL: Was he armed?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, he had a hand gun with him.
JUDGE WILSON: Giving her more and more opportunity to observe him?
CAPT HECHTER: In all probability, yes.
JUDGE WILSON: Can I ask you one more, it is a completely different question. Do you know what
Brigadier Ras's initials are?
CAPT HECHTER: Not at all. I do not know any of these people. I went through the documents and I do
not know any of them, never met any of them as far as I know.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, it is M T. It is M D and he is present here.
JUDGE WILSON: It says that he has applied for amnesty.
ADV DU PLESSIS: He is going to, Mr Chairman, his application is not in yet, but he is going to and he is
here and I will call him as a witness as well.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, on the papers that somebody has given us, I read we have received additional
amnesty applications from W A Nortje, M D Ras and D Willemse.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, his sons initials are also M D and they are, his son is represented
by other lawyers.
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination of this witness?
RE-EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman, very shortly. Captain
Hechter, would it have been dangerous for you to have searched the house after the shots had been fired?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, after the shots had been fired it was definitely dangerous.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 455 CAPT HECHTER
ADV DU PLESSIS: In retrospect, would you have expected to found any information there?
CAPT HECHTER: No, you do not store information at your house.
JUDGE MALL: You know that might be how you as a, if you had been a courier or an intelligence man,
that is probably how you would have worked ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: I am speaking from my own experience.
JUDGE MALL: Quite right. You cannot assume that everybody would work in the same way.
CAPT HECHTER: I will concede that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking you how you would have operated?
CAPT HECHTER: I would not have operated in that way and I would not expect any other agent to
operate in that way and to conceal information and evidence at his home.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, last question, when you acted in this incident were you convinced,
in your own mind, that you were eliminating an enemy of the State and the National Party Government?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, definitely.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, if you will just bear with me please. Captain Hechter - Mr Chairman,
if you will just bear with me, please.
JUDGE MALL: Certainly.
ADV DU PLESSIS: My attorney and I was in a little bit of a disagreement about a question, Mr
Chairman, I am not going to pose the question as the Court, as it pleases you.
JUDGE MALL: I will allow your attorney to ask that question. (General laughter)
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
456
JUDGE MALL: Thank you very much. You are excused.
WITNESS EXCUSED
JUDGE MALL: It is five to one and we adjourn at two. You will be calling the next witness, Mr van
Vuuren, is that it?
ADV DU PLESSIS: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Okay, we will take the adjournment and resume at two o' clock.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION
ADV MPSHE: I do not know whether this will, what I am going to say will disrupt what is going on now,
but I am told by my learned friend, Mr Brian Currin, that the witness they have been waiting for, Mr Moss
Chikane, is now available. I do not know whether it will be possible to squeeze him in to get rid of the
Ribeiro matter or we continue with leading of the evidence, Mr Chairman. I am in your hands.
JUDGE MALL: (Not speaking into the microphone)... the evidence will be of a limited nature.
MR CURRIN: Mr Chairman, he will testify, his evidence will be of a limited nature.
JUDGE MALL: Any difficulties about that?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, Mr Chairman, I am not sure if he is a victim. Obviously we do not have a
problem, we are just
a little bit concerned whether dragging out of the time of these proceedings and, as I read the Act, an
affected person could be a person that is named in respect of which evidence is given to his prejudice or a
victim, Mr Chairman. I do not know what the purpose of the evidence is, but I am in the hands of the
Commission in that regard. We just do not want these hearings to drag out, we want to finish this
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
457
week, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: (Indistinct) that Mr Currin.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr du Plessis, just before Mr Currin answers, you are going to call Mr Ras? Is he a
victim, an applicant, he is a witness.
ADV DU PLESSIS: No, Mr Chairman, but clearly, he is a witness to exactly what happened. If this
person ...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: This one may be a witness for the victims.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, if he is a witness to what happened on that day or if he can shed some light on
the facts of the matter, clearly then I would leave it in the hands of the Committee, Mr Chairman, but on the
other hand, the question arises how far should the people concerned be allowed to call witnesses in respect
of the applicant's application.
JUDGE WILSON: The Act quite clearly says they can testify, adduce evidence, does it not?
MR CURRIN: It does Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I think we are wasting time ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Yes ...(intervention)
MR CURRIN: ... with respect, by even arguing about this. He can cast light on the situation and we would
submit that his evidence is going to be relevant and will assist the Committee in coming to findings.
JUDGE MALL: Call him.
MR CURRIN: Thank you. Moss Chikane. My colleague, Mr van den Berg, will lead the evidence.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Chikane, will you be giving your evidence in English?
MR CHIKANE: English, Sir.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR VAN DEN BERG 457 M CHIKANE
MOSES MABOKELA CHIKANE: (sworn states).
JUDGE MALL: Thank you. How do you spell your name?
MR CHIKANE: My name is Moses Mabokela Chikane.
JUDGE MALL: The second name, how do you spell that.
MR CHIKANE: It is M-A-B-O-K-E-L-A.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you. Yes, Mr Currin.
EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DER BERG: Thank you Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Sorry.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Chikane, is it correct that you are presently a Parliamentarian?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
MR VAN DEN BERG: And that you have been in Parliament since 1994?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Could you tell this Committee when you first met Dr and Mrs Ribeiro?
MR CHIKANE: I met the Ribeiro's, I think, in 1967 when I was a victim of, what then, would one call
apartheid. I travelled from the Commissioners office here in town, and I was going home by train and I
was assaulted by ticket, white ticket examiners then. Then my family decided to take me to a doctor and it
happened to be Dr Ribeiro.
JUDGE MALL: So that was 1967?
MR CHIKANE: 1967, Definitely.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Chikane, what was your involvement in the struggle?
MR CHIKANE: I have been involved in the struggle since
1973, 1974. I was a member of the BPC, SASO, the Black Consciousness Movement group.
MR VAN DEN BERG: In the process of that involvement did you come into contact with Dr and Mrs
Ribeiro?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR VAN DEN BERG 458 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: Well, yes, besides that he acted as my doctor on the incident that I have already
mentioned. We were also attending the same church and beside we use to meet quite a great deal when we
had meetings. I would be one of the, those who would invite him to come and speak. It would be myself
and a certain Kanakana Matsela who is now late, unfortunately. So I have known and we have, in terms of
politics, I think we have been very close.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What became of the organisations BPC and SASO?
MR CHIKANE: Both organisations were banned in 1977. I think the month was October.
MR VAN DEN BERG: And that was shortly after the death of Steven Biko?
MR CHIKANE: That was shortly after the death of Steve Biko.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What became of your involvement in the struggle after the banning of those
organisations?
MR CHIKANE: Well, I think the black consciousness family then fell into two parts. There were those
who wanted to continue in the old philosophy of black consciousness and there were those who felt that we
should broaden the philosophical position to include everybody else, the non-racial group that later was to
be known as UDF.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Are you aware that Dr Ribeiro was detained in 1980?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
MR VAN DEN BERG: And that he faced a trial in 1981?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Can you remember what the charges were?
MR CHIKANE: I think, amongst others, was assisting people with money when they were going to exile.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR VAN DEN BERG 459 M CHIKANE
JUDGE MALL: When they were going where?
MR CHIKANE: When they wanted money for transport when they were going into exile. That is
amongst the charges that I can remember. Although I did not attend the trial, but this is what was reported
in the papers.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Your involvement in the struggle, where were you resident at the time?
MR CHIKANE: Mamelodi.
MR VAN DEN BERG: And all your involvement was in Mamelodi?
MR CHIKANE: It was in Mamelodi and, of course, the surrounding.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What was the extent of Dr Ribeiro's involvement in the struggle after 1981?
MR CHIKANE: I would say actually Dr Ribeiro was never a political activist of that classical sense. He
would not be a person who would go and organise a meeting, you know. He is a person that would get, I
would say he is a concerned person. He was a sympathiser, for lack of better words.
MR VAN DEN BERG: You said that after the banning of SASO and the BPC he became involved in one
section of what remained of the Black Consciousness Movement and that ultimately led to the
establishment of the United Democratic Front?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What was your involvement in the United Democratic Front?
MR CHIKANE: I was the Secretary, I was a founder member of the UDF and subsequently I became a
Secretary of the, co-Secretary of the Transvaal UDF.
MR VAN DEN BERG: And what activities were you involved in?
MR CHIKANE: Well, my activities was to set up structures,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR VAN DEN BERG 460 M CHIKANE
to educate our people politically. That was my task.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Were you ever detained?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, several times.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What is the link between the United Democratic Front and the African National
Congress?
MR CHIKANE: I think they shared almost a common ideal. They were all organisations, both
organisations were non-racial in nature and content. Both organisations wanted to overthrow the apartheid
and to remove it from the status quo of our country.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Were you aware of what the ANC was doing in Mamelodi during the middle
80's?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, we did come in contact with ANC people from time to time.
MR VAN DEN BERG: What was the nature and extent of your contact?
MR CHIKANE: Well, some of them would come to do political work, some of them would come for,
what we used to call, underground work. Bringing literature, various other things.
MR VAN DEN BERG: If Dr Ribeiro had been involved in ANC politics, would you have known about?
MR CHIKANE: I think I would have known.
MR VAN DEN BERG: How?
MR CHIKANE: Because I was part of that underground machinery, political underground machinery, so
more-or-less
I had an idea of all activists who were involved in the ANC structures there.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VAN DEN BERG
JUDGE MALL: Mr Du Plessis.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 461 M CHIKANE
You say you met Dr Ribeiro in the 1960's, is that correct?
MR CHIKANE: '67.
ADV DU PLESSIS: '67. Now, Mr Chikane, did you have contact with Mr Ribeiro on a regular basis?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: What would you term a regular basis?
MR CHIKANE: Well, regular is that, as I told you, that we used to attend the same church in Mamelodi.
We were both Catholics and, secondly, during the commemorations we would always invite Ribeiro to
come and be a speaker in some of those commemoration meetings and I did visit him several times at home
or in his business, the butchery then, which was run by his wife from time to time.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, we are talking of a long period of time now since you met him. Could you give
us an indication how frequently you visited him?
MR CHIKANE: I cannot count days, months, but sometimes I saw him thrice or four times a day, if that is
what you mean.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Were there other times that you did not see him for a few months?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, when I was detained I would not see him except when I was, the last time when I
was on trial in '85, Dr Ribeiro and other doctors came to see us in prison to attend to us.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Can you perhaps remember when you were on
trial there exactly?
MR CHIKANE: It was from April 1985 until December 15, 1988, but the last time I saw him was, I think,
it must have been '85 when he came to see us here in Pretoria Prison.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Were you in prison the whole time?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 461 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And you say you were detained a few times, can you remember when?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, I was detained in 1976. I was detained in 1977. I was detained in 1980. I was
detained in 1983, the shortest was 1983. I was also detained in 1985 and that is when I ultimately ended up
in trial, on the trial.
ADV DU PLESSIS: You say the shortest period was in 1983. Can you remember how long that was?
MR CHIKANE: I think it was a month.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And the other periods?
MR CHIKANE: The other periods ranged from three months, six months.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And, Mr Chikane, what was the view in, amongst the supporters of the liberation
movements at that time about people who were detained?
JUDGE MALL: About?
ADV DU PLESSIS: People who were detained?
MR CHIKANE: The view amongst what?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Amongst supporters of the liberation movements about people who were detained?
What did they think of people who were detained? Did they think well of them, did they think they were
criminals, did they think they were heroes?
MR CHIKANE: I think the majority of them would have seen them as heroes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So, would you agree with me that the system of detention also worked against the
South African Government at that time making the leaders of the people heroes when they come out of
detention? Would you agree with me?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 462 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: You could, I could say so, yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, when you, you say you visited Dr Ribeiro frequently, did you
discuss politics at all?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, sometimes if he had any political questions that he wanted to raise, he would raise it
with me and when he had a doubt about individuals, he would discuss that individual with me, such
individuals with me because we knew that amongst the people who were active there were also informers.
We attempted to establish a network of our own of informers so people will always inform those informers
about those who were seen in the company of police, those who were seen coming out of police houses or
frequenting with police. So whilst there was this information we always checked with each other.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So Dr Ribeiro would from time to time give you information about people he might
have seen with the police or people he might have thought were informers?
MR CHIKANE: No, normally it will be people who have either gone to his surgery asking for a
controversial, he was not profile, high profile, as I said, because otherwise, you know, he would say so and
so came to see me, maybe he wanted money for this or money for that, is he an activist? Do you know
him? That is what I mean.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right. Mr Chikane, but you had, you say you had frequent discussions with him
...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... about politics?
MR CHIKANE: No, please do not say, about everything. Do not say ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: But you say about everything.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 463 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: ... about politics. We had social discussions also. We had various other discussions.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chikane, I wanted to say something, but I am ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Please say it, you are free.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I wanted to say, but you must not take it too seriously. I want to say that you have
adapted to Parliament as it used to be in the old days very well, I must say. (General laughter)
MR CHIKANE: I do not know. I do not think that is a compliment. That is why I will not take kindly to
it.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I am saying that was a politician's answer, Mr Chikane. (General laughter).
...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: No, we are only ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: I meant that as a joke, Mr Chikane.
MR CHIKANE: Okay, we are only trained to listen very carefully.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Now, Mr Chikane, when you discussed politics with Dr Ribeiro, forget about
the other things ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... just politics, did you find him a person with a lot of insight into the ideologies of
the liberation movements, the objects of the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: Not at all.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Why not?
MR CHIKANE: You know, as I told you, that he was like a sympathiser as a socially concerned person.
He would not be a person who discuss with you a policy position of any particular organisation. He was
not a person who would be
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 464 M CHIKANE
able to come with a decisive position on anything.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, did he sympathise with the National Party?
MR CHIKANE: He sympathised with the Liberation because at the time the National Party was a clear
category of people whom we have all identified and, I am sure you agree also, that actually they were
responsible and running, in running the oppressive State. So he, certainly, did not sympathise with the
National Party position.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So in that regard he took a stronger view? Am I right?
MR CHIKANE: I am saying, yes, in that regard, maybe, you can say so.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, you also testified that the doctor would be invited to speak?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: At what occasions would he be required to speak?
MR CHIKANE: We had June commemorations, June 16th commemorations after the National Party has
killed, mowed down a lot of our youth, as you know. I am sure you were around the country then.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes I was.
MR CHIKANE: And, you know, from time to time we would organise commemorations. We would
invite people who would be able to help in, assist in mobilising the masses, and I will tell you when I say
mobilising, he was a doctor, he had treated a lot of people who were injured on that particular day and
many other days and we thought we, as people who were taking political decisions, we thought it will be
very important to have someone else who is seen not as a fire
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 464 M CHIKANE
brand, a fire-eater to speak in such commemorations. We got even mothers also, sometimes, to come and
speak depending on the issue that we put on the agenda for the commemoration.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now this, as I recall it, Mr Chikane, the June 16 commemorations were one of the
most, if not the most important commemoration at that time.
MR CHIKANE: Commemoration.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Commemoration ...
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... at that time. One other one that I can recall was the death, the date of the death of
Mark Skosana. Is that not right? Was that not also a date that was highly regarded?
MR CHIKANE: I am sure you must have read a lot of Afrikaans papers. There were many such incidents.
We had January the 8th which was the day that you commemorated the ANC's birth. We had other,
Sharpeville commemorations. So it was just one of them. I do not think it was the day, it was one of those
days where you would be able to come together.
ADV DU PLESSIS: It was one of the most important days, is that not so?
MR CHIKANE: I do not know how you are rating of most?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I am asking ...
MR CHIKANE: What is ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... asking a general ...
MR CHIKANE: It was one of the days that we use to come
together.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, let us say it was the most, the ten most, it was one of the ten most important
days of the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: Look, if I wanted to use ...
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 465 M CHIKANE
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that not right?
MR CHIKANE: ... the word "most", I would not have forgotten. I am saying it was one of the days that
we used to commemorate.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now, Mr Chikane, and on those days where would these commemorations
have taken place?
MR CHIKANE: We use to organise venues in churches. Mainly churches and mainly churches that time
because we not be able to get the community halls. They were controlled by community councillors who
were, some of them were sympathetic to the National Party.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And what did the speakers speak about on those days?
MR CHIKANE: Well, we will speak about the oppression and how it affected us. We will speak about the
Land Acts, we will speak about the Pass Laws, we will speak about the education problems that we are
facing at that particular time and we will speak about anything, policies of the National Party as at that
time.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Operations of the South African Police?
MR CHIKANE: No, we would not. They will be sitting outside listening. You would not be able to speak
about that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, now, Mr Chikane, and the people who were invited to speak at these
commemorations, what kind of people were those?
MR CHIKANE: It will be people who are, have got some
community credibility. We have invited, on several occasions, people like Mrs Mahlangu. We have
invited priests, we have invited various other people. We have invited, sometimes, teachers, trade union
people, you name it.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 466 M CHIKANE
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: But it will be people who have got some kind of credibility, you understand, or a bit of
history. Some people would have been part of those who were there during the 1961 massacre and so
forth. We will invite such kind of people to come and give ....
ADV DU PLESSIS: So ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: To come and speak.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So would I be right in saying that you would, in general, invite the leaders of the
community?
MR CHIKANE: No, I would not agree with you because I do not know what exactly do you mean by
leaders of the community. You know, we did not have structures like we have now where you can actually
elect. I just want to get, if I get clarity on you, what do you mean by the leader of the community?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, you ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: If you say respectable people in the ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes.
MR CHIKANE: ... community I will agree with you ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: That is what I am ...
MR CHIKANE: ... totally.
ADV DU PLESSIS: That is what I am - people whom the Comrades and the young people looked up to?
MR CHIKANE: Yes. And all the people, not only young.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And the people looked up to Dr Ribeiro, is
that not so?
MR CHIKANE: He was peoples' doctor, as I have already said.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And did the people look up to his wife as well? Did they respect her?
MR CHIKANE: She was a very good mother, but she was never,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 467 M CHIKANE
never active.
ADV DU PLESSIS: She was never?
MR CHIKANE: She was not an, she has never come to any of the commemorations that I can remember.
She was just a loving mother who supported her husband both in the surgery, but she was not a political
activist at all.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right now, Mr Chikane, would it be fair to say that Dr Ribeiro supported the, as his
son said this morning, the struggle for freedom waged by all the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: That could, yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: All the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: I said he was sympathiser, yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And his wife as well?
MR CHIKANE: I am not sure about it, I say his wife was not active. I had no close contact with his wife
politically.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but you knew them well?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, I knew her well.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did his wife support what he was doing?
MR CHIKANE: We have never discussed that with his wife, ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: If you let me rephrase the question, Mr Chikane. If Dr Ribeiro, for instance, was
invited to make a speech at one of these commemoration days or if he had a political discussion, did his
wife support him politically?
MR CHIKANE: I do not know about that. I have never checked that with doctor, neither with Dr Ribeiro
nor with his wife.
JUDGE MALL: (...indistinct) is meant by supporting.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, in general terms, did his wife support the liberation movements? Was she a
supporter of the liberation movements or did she not support the whole idea
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 468 M CHIKANE
of the struggle for ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Let me tell you, all the oppressed people, you know, were definitely supporters of the
change in this particular country and the liberation movements, if that is what you mean.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, you also testified that he would, Dr Ribeiro would financially
assist people to go into exile. Is that right?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: What, do you know what that would have entailed?
MR CHIKANE: I remember an incident where I went to his surgery and he was saying somebody came to
ask for money to go to KwaNdebele, you know, and it turned out, it was just before his arrest, it turned out
that Dr Ribeiro has given this person a cheque and I said to Dr Ribeiro how can you be so naive as to give
somebody a cheque, you know, when, you know, why did you not give him hard cash then because even if
he is going to KwaNdebele, the chances are that he, there is no banks in KwaNdebele. There were no
banks then, there may be now because, you know, this democratic Government, you know, some banks
may well have gone to KwaNdebele, but then there were no banks in KwaNdebele, you know, but by the
time when he told me this story, it is because somebody had been arrested and this was the allegation,
amongst the allegations that came later into his trial.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right.
MR CHIKANE: So then I knew about that incident.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, do you know of other instances in which he gave money to people to go into
exile because that was your evidence?
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MR CHIKANE: No, no.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Was that the only ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... instance of which you ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: The only incidence that we discussed because of this cheque problem and I was saying
you do not do that with young people.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, now why did you - I just want to understand your evidence, Mr Chikane. You
testified that he assisted people with money going for exile. That accords with Chris Ribeiro's evidence,
but you do not have any personal knowledge of that? Is that what you are saying?
MR CHIKANE: I have told you just an incident I know.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, apart from this incident?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Apart from that incident?
MR CHIKANE: No, apart from this because some of the people will approach him. Some of the people
were actually sent by our structures, our own people to go if we had a problem, to say, no, tell him that you
are going to Hammanskraal, ask him for this much and then he will do that. So that he gave money, that
much I knew.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And the people who went into exile, Mr Chikane, is it fair to say that some of them
underwent, I am talking in general, some of them underwent military training?
MR CHIKANE: That is true.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And would it be fair to say that it can be possible that in some instances Dr Ribeiro
assisted people to go into exile to eventually be military trained?
MR CHIKANE: No, you know, if you put a sentence like that,
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you assume that if you give me money now, you would know whether, I have not gone to Attridgeville or
Mamelodi. It is very difficult for you to know. I would agree that Dr Ribeiro did assist people with
money. Whether he knew that ultimately those people will go to military training or some of them will go
to school, I do not think I would be able to testify.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, clearly, you would not be able. I am just asking you if you would agree with me
that there is a possibility that people who were sent out with the money that was provided by Dr Ribeiro
were military trained. Do you agree with me that there is a possibility?
MR CHIKANE: A possibility, yes, that is correct.
ADV DE JAGER: Sorry, Mr Chikane, you said sometimes people were sent by your own structures to
him ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: ... to ask for money.
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: In order to do what?
MR CHIKANE: For whatever problems that we have. Sometimes you wanted to send someone else to go
and organise in any portion of this country, you know, then we will ask him to do so and some of our
structures that were working in terms of removal, they will tell him that, no, Dr Ribeiro assist this person,
he is going to Nelspruit, for arguments sake. Why - because he was not a politician at all.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chikane, the, you say he was the peoples' doctor?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, he was the peoples' doctor.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, I suppose he treated people in the normal sense of the word in Mamelodi, but if
you say he was
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the peoples' doctor would he also have treated comrades and other supporters of the liberation movements
who got injured in liberation actions such as marches, etc?
MR CHIKANE: You know, he treated people without money. That is why I said he is the peoples' doctor.
There were people who would get injured, some of them, people who were not injured, who were sick, but
they did not even have a cent to pay. Dr Ribeiro would be one of those people who would be prepared to
attend to those people even at the risk of not being able to recover his own money. That he did, that is why
I call him the peoples' doctor.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I understand that.
MR CHIKANE: And he did treat people, yes, who were in the marches, who were injured in the marches.
That much I know. I do not know whether he treated people of, I cannot testify of anybody that I can
remember who came from, who were injured in, from exile or something like that, but inasfar as people
who were injured in the marches. I personally took some of the people, they did not have money to pay for
all those people. For all those kids who had inhaled teargas in their shacks, in their garages, in their houses
and their parents maybe would be at work at that particular time, we will take them to Dr Ribeiro and Dr
Ribeiro will be able to treat them.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did he do this to further the cause of the liberation movements ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: I think ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... as well?
MR CHIKANE: He did this as a professional. I think the ethics of doctors later was flouted by the
National Party, where a doctor does not treat a person in, even when that
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person is ill or injured because of either colour or race.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, well that is very general, Mr Chikane, but what I want to know is could there
have been a possibility that Dr Ribeiro, if you say he treated everybody ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... would you concede that there may have been a possibility that he also treated
people who had military training, people who, from the Whites' point of view, would have been called
terrorists? That he would have also treated people like that? Would you concede that possibility?
MR CHIKANE: I will concede the possibility that he really saw himself as a doctor who has got to treat
patients who come to him regardless of where they come from. I have taken one of my colleague, we had a
student exchange programme and there was this student who was staying, who came to stay with us in
Mamelodi. He was white and then this student fell ill. I took him to Dr Ribeiro, he was white, and Dr
Ribeiro treated that person.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, Dr Ribeiro's son also testified that his father acted in an advisory
capacity. He testified further, if my memory serves me correct, that he advised young people pertaining to
various issues, also political. Do you know anything about that? Can you say to this Committee or testify
to any advice that he gave to
young people in a political sense?
MR CHIKANE: No, I cannot. I was not living with him in his house, so, I cannot.
ADV DU PLESSIS: There was also evidence given that he assisted in transport of comrades. Do you
know anything
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about that?
MR CHIKANE: To where? He did carry me to my home one day. He used to transport me from home, if
that is what you mean, yes, he did.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I do not know if that is what he meant, but he testified that he assisted comrades with
transport.
MR CHIKANE: Yes, he did take me from church several times, because I did not have a car then, home.
Is that what you mean?
ADV DU PLESSIS: No, that is not what I am referring to.
MR CHIKANE: What do you mean?
ADV DU PLESSIS: I did not know that. He testified that he assisted comrades with transport. I want to
know if you know anything about that?
MR CHIKANE: I said he, yes, he did, I did, he did transport me several times to meetings. If that is what
you mean, I think that is my answer.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did he transport you to meetings?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, to meetings.
ADV DU PLESSIS: What kind of meetings?
MR CHIKANE: To commemoration rallies. Sometimes I would not have transport, from church
...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did he provide ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: ... meetings.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... did he provide other people with transport?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, I know that, you know, by then, I think, there were two of us who were regarded as
prominent activists in Mamelodi. One of them was Mr Kanakana, Sammy Matsela. On several occasions
he would transport, you know, Sammy was staying in Mamelodi East and we will either have
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ADV DU PLESSIS 473 M CHIKANE
meetings in Mamelodi West and there will be no transport for Sammy to go home and Dr Ribeiro would
gladly take him and drop him home.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Why did he do that? Do you know?
MR CHIKANE: Yes. I have told you that he was very sympathetic to the liberation of our people.
ADV DU PLESSIS: He was sympathetic to?
MR CHIKANE: To the liberation.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: He knew that we were poor.
ADV DU PLESSIS: He did that because he was sympathetic to the liberation?
MR CHIKANE: He did that because he was, he knew that people had no transport and he was, he would
have come from a meeting where we have discussed all these things together and he will take you home.
He did not take us out, he took us home.
ADV DU PLESSIS: That was after you committed the speeches, if I can put it like that?
MR CHIKANE: Committed the speeches, what is that?
ADV DU PLESSIS: You say he took you home, he did not take you out.
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, it was after you were politically active he took you home. Is that what you are
saying?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Now, Mr Chikane, you say that you were a founder member of the UDF. Is
that correct?
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And you regard the UDF also as part of the liberation movements?
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ADV DU PLESSIS 474 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that correct. Now, have you ever heard of the counter-revolutionary strategy of the
South African Government at that time against the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, we read about total strategy and total onslaught. It was in the papers and I think
Loots is somewhere here. Is that him? He can tell you better.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Who is that?
MR CHIKANE: Captain Loots. I do not know if he is still Captain or General now.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Sorry.
MR CHIKANE: There he is, yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Now, Mr Chikane, how, can you explain to the Committee, how did you,
yourself, experience the counter-revolutionary strategy waged against the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: How did I experience it?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: Well, you know, you will get detained, they will come and harass and search your
houses. They have never missed searching my house. I knew if ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: Set your house alight, you mean?
MR CHIKANE: Search.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Search, sorry, sorry.
MR CHIKANE: Search, search.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I misunderstood you. I beg your pardon.
MR CHIKANE: Search the houses. I remember at one stage, it must have been 1980, when there was an
upheavals in Laudium. I did not even know where Laudium was and then they said, you know, they came
to search my house so I wanted to know
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ADV DU PLESSIS 474 M CHIKANE
exactly why did they come and search my house. They say, you know, because they, "opstookers, jy is een
van die opstookers", I think that is the correct Afrikaans and there is a commotion in Laudium. So I asked
where is Laudium. You know, they said you know, do not pretend you do not know, but they have never
failed to search houses, that is amongst other things. Detention was one of the ways that they did that.
Sometimes, you know, in some cases they would spread lies, disinformation about people. I remember at
one stage when I was detained, while my interrogator was saying Sammy Matsela was an informer, you
know. As I was working very closely with Sammy Matsela, but because I was matured enough at the time,
you know, I knew what Sammy knew and he did not know, but amongst other things that is what they did
at that time. They would stop at nothing.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, if we could go to more serious acts apart from detention. Do you have any
personal knowledge of, for instance, the bombing of houses of people who sympathised with the liberation
movements?
MR CHIKANE: Who sympathised with the liberation movements, no, I do not have any.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, did you experience any sort of intimidation by the South African Police?
MR CHIKANE: Yes. I told you I was detained several times.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, apart from what you have told us, are there any other ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: My ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... situations which you can sketch to us.
MR CHIKANE: Yes, two cars, one I had given to a friend and they burnt it to ashes. Up to now, you
know, they have not actually admitted that it was them. At one instance, one,
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ADV DU PLESSIS 475 M CHIKANE
when my car was burnt right in my yard there and, you know, I had parked it between the four roomed
house and, what you would call a store room, but in the township we call a garage and, you know, I had
filled it with petrol, full tank, because I was driving somewhere else that following morning and suddenly
that car was burnt during the course of the night. I had to literally push it out of the yard because we did
not have fire extinguishers in the township, naked. So I did experience those kind of things.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And when that happened did you experience that as intimidation against you because
you were a leader in the liberation movements?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, yes that is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And I am sure you know of various other instances. I do not want to bore the
Committee with examples, but you know of various other instances in which ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: If you have the whole day, really, I can give you a catalogue of that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: And Captain Loots will support me. He is nodding his head there.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, well, Mr Chikane, evidence to this effect has been led already. Would you,
would it also be fair to say that from the South African Police point of view, actions against trained,
military, I do not want to use the word terrorists when I ask you the question, military trained operatives,
freedom fighters, can I use that word, actions of the police against military trained freedom fighters
especially actions in which certain freedom fighters would have been eliminated. Would you also regard
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ADV DU PLESSIS 476 M CHIKANE
that as part of the South African Government's counter revolutionary strategy?
MR CHIKANE: No, I, in fact then and even now, I saw it as abuse of, you know, position of power
because, you know, the policemen were supposed to protect the law and all the citizens regardless of colour
and race. I am not seeing it then or I am not referring to that incident only. Even up to now I still think that
no person must be able to abuse others and no police must be able, in his or her own right, abuse power
because a policeman was not actually supposed to be a killer.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that what happened according to your experience, that the police abused their
power to assist the National Party to uphold apartheid at that time? Am I right in saying that?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, by then I used to think that it was only the police, but then later with the evidence
that has been led through other incidents, sittings of this nature, it is clear that there were other people
actually who have abused the police to abuse their offices of trust and power.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Would it be fair to say that the South African Police, at that time, took sides in the, if
I can call it that, the struggle between the apartheid National Party, on the one hand, one party Government
on the one hand, and the liberation movement on the other hand. Would it be fair to say that the South
African Police took sides? MR CHIKANE: You know, there was no unanimous position. Let me tell
you, we also infiltrated the police, we had police that were working for us then.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Could you name them?
MR CHIKANE: No, not at this stage.
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ADV DU PLESSIS 476 M CHIKANE
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, these actions of the police which we have gone now through.
MR CHIKANE: Yes, let me go back to that one.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: The reason I would not name them is that because I do not remember their names, but
should you want their names I can compile that list and give it to you. Some of them are working for us
now.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, we can talk about that afterwards.
MR CHIKANE: Okay.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chikane ...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: I think actually they should be named.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr, yes, well, Mr Chikane, these actions that we have been talking about now that,
where the police acted in such a way, can you recall from more or less what period did this start to happen?
MR CHIKANE: What?
ADV DU PLESSIS: When, more or less, did these actions of the police start where they would act pro-
actively, where they would search houses, where they would detain people more, where the would spread
disinformation, everything that we have spoken about now?
MR CHIKANE: You know, I, you know, we have, as I have told you, that we invited people to speak in
our meetings and some of them would, you know, really report about incidents that happened even far
beyond the, Nelson, President Nelson Mandela now, treason trials, far beyond the police were searching
people's houses, they were detaining them and, you know, it also happened in the times just prior to the
treason trial of President Mandela and the others.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but what I am actually trying to get
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ADV DU PLESSIS 477 M CHIKANE
at, let me rephrase it more specific. Let me rephrase it more specific. Would you say that there was an
escalation of police action pro-actively against the liberation movements from the early 1980's?
MR CHIKANE: I am unable to assess as I was not actually part of the 1961 ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: ... so I cannot be able to say there was more or there was less.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And you also cannot say, Mr Chairman, if you will just bear with me, please. There
is a purpose in this cross-examination. It ...(intervention)
JUDGE MALL: I am waiting for it.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman. It relates specifically to evidence I will place before
this Committee by Captain van Jaarsveld and it does accord with the evidence that Captain van Jaarsveld
will give. Mr Chikane, all I am trying to ascertain or let me put it to you this way. Captain van Jaarsveld
will provide this Committee with evidence that the counter-revolutionary strategy of the South African
Government, and I am going to phrase it broadly because I have not spoken to him in detail about that, was
devised in the early 1980's and implemented round about 1984, 1985 and that is when policemen started
acting more pro-actively against the liberation movements instead of just arresting people.
MR CHIKANE: No, but that would include, in my recollection, what happened in Sharpeville in 1961.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, those are instances, ...
MR CHIKANE: And the police ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... but I am talking ...
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ADV DU PLESSIS 478 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: ... were involved at that time.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I am talking generally.
MR CHIKANE: And actually they were not, they did shoot they did not arrest.
JUDGE MALL: No, I think that he is not talking about specific instances, he is talking about ...
INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.
MR CHIKANE: I would not know because I was not a policeman nor informer.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but what I want to know, Mr Chikane, it is an easy question. Did you
experience any heightening of in the intensity of actions of police from 1984, in the periods 1984 to 1988,
let us say, from what it was previously in the 1970's?
MR CHIKANE: You know it, you know, it is very difficult. As I say, you know, I began to be active and
I was, I have been detained from 1976, that is the first time I got detained and from there on every time I
got detained so I do not know whether I can be able to give a fair general judgement because if I was to
give it on the basis of my own experience, I will say from '76, '77, as I have already told you. You know, I
got detained almost every year.
JUDGE WILSON: He has told us he was in prison from 1985 to the end ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: ... of 1988. I do not think ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: ... you can.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. The question is unfair relating to up till 1988. Now, I, thank you Mr Chairman.
Now, Mr Chikane, let me just put to you what the evidence will be and has
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ADV DU PLESSIS 479 M CHIKANE
been up to now and that is that the more successful the liberation movements became in respect of their
struggle, the more difficult they made it for the South African Government, the more the South African
Government became convinced that it had to devise what they called a counter- revolutionary strategy.
They did so and they implemented it and it meant proactive action against the liberation movements. That
included, for instance, what you testified about such as, things such as disinformation campaign against
leaders, it included proactive action and it also, at the end of the day, included the elimination of high
profile activists. I am putting that to you. Would you agree with me?
MR CHIKANE: Was that the evidence led by South African Government because I sit in Parliament there.
De Klerk has, Mr de Klerk has actually denied any direct knowledge of what the police did.
ADV DU PLESSIS: We know, we know he denied it.
MR CHIKANE: But are you saying that is his brief to you?
ADV DU PLESSIS: No, no.
MR CHIKANE: If that is so I will be glad to know. I will use it in Parliament.
ADV DU PLESSIS: No. Mr Chikane, I am ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Well, you are putting the South African Government to him ...
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: ... which he was the leader.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, well I ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Are you doing that with information?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, he was not the leader in 1983, 1984, with respect, Mr Chairman.
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ADV DU PLESSIS 479 M CHIKANE
JUDGE WILSON: Well, are you saying the then leader was responsible?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: (Indistinct).
ADV DU PLESSIS: The then, the then leader and the then Government. The then leader and the then
Government.
JUDGE WILSON: Was responsible for the elimination by the police ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well.
JUDGE WILSON: ... in the manner described of activists?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, what I ...(intervention)
JUDGE WILSON: Is that what you are putting?
ADV DU PLESSIS: What I am putting is that the evidence will be that the elimination of activists was
part of the counter-revolutionary strategy. That is what I am putting.
MR CHIKANE: That they actually, they were, they denied that they were ever part, to date, that is how I
am talking to you. You know I came to Parliament, I came from Parliament Friday a week ago, you know.
There has never been any admission that actually the killing of activists was an instruction from the South
African Government. Now I just want to know, before I give my opinion, whether you have that kind of
brief.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, Mr Chikane, I am going to place such evidence before this Committee about
...(intervention)
MR CHIKANE: That they had, that they had.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, let me just finish. About the way in which the counter-revolutionary strategy
was developed, about the way it was implemented and evidence has already been led before this
Committee about certain orders which were given to the applicants by their superiors.
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ADV DU PLESSIS 480 M CHIKANE
MR CHIKANE: South African Government.
ADV DU PLESSIS: No, well, to the applicants by their superiors, that is what I am saying, to take action.
JUDGE WILSON: That is not what you are saying. You are continually saying South African
Government.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I am trying to put the evidence which I will place before this
Committee to the witness in as short a fashion as possible otherwise it is going to take me two hours to do
that.
JUDGE MALL: See if you draw a distinction in your own mind between what the South African
Government authorised ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: But Mr Chairman ...
JUDGE MALL: ... as a Government or what the top echelon of the police decided. That distinction is not
clear in my mind, but I think if you want to bring out that distinction, perhaps, then you should do so.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Well, Mr Chairman, I am not saying and I am not putting anything further than
what was already testified before this Committee pertaining to the representatives of the Government's
involvement in the counter-revolutionary strategy and that includes, for instance, an excerpt from a video
where it was shown that President Botha said that activists will be eliminated. It includes, for instance,
evidence about an order which was given in respect of the Zero hand grenade incident which was
authorised by President P W Botha at the time. It also includes evidence of General van der Merwe about
...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: Mr du Plessis.
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... Minister Adriaan Vlok's involvement.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr du Plessis. I think you should rather
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ADV DU PLESSIS 481 M CHIKANE
carefully phrase some of your ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: It was stated that he authorised it. It is ...(intervention)
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: ... that is another thing whether ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: ... he in fact authorised it. That is something we will have to ascertain at some stage or
other, but at present the evidence was not that he authorised, well, he did not admit it. It was stated that he
authorised it. So, be careful about what ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: ... you are putting to the witness. It should be the exact facts.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but Mr Chairman, the evidence of General van der Merwe, as I recall it, was
that, as he recalled it, it was authorised.
ADV DE JAGER: He was told that it has been authorised by, he was told that it has been authorised by
Minister le Grange I believe.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, you are right.
ADV DE JAGER: So, Mr Botha ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: ... did not, in fact, tell him himself.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Yes, there is not direct evidence from President himself. That is true.
JUDGE WILSON: Well then ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: And now ...
JUDGE WILSON: ... there is no direct evidence of contact with him and that you must be very careful
about.
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ADV DU PLESSIS 482 M CHIKANE
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes. Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chikane, I do not know if you have followed
what was said now about the evidence that was led before this Committee. All I am trying to do, and I am
finding it difficult to do that, is to give you an explanation of the evidence that was presented to this
Committee about the implementation of the counter-revolutionary strategy devised by the South African
Police and the Government of the time.
MR CHIKANE: So you are putting it that that was the case. That the Government of the time and the
South African Police actually took a decision that some people must be eliminated?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, I am saying that a counter- revolutionary strategy was devised.
MR CHIKANE: By them to eliminate people?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, I am saying that evidence will be that part of the counter-revolutionary strategy
entailed the elimination of high profile activists.
MR CHIKANE: Is that, that is your position, that is your submission, okay. I am glad to know that we
have been struggling in Parliament to try to find out whether the ... ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: ... South African Government was actually involved in taking decisions. Now we know.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Chikane, what I want to know from you, after having put that to you, what I
want to know from you is from your recollection, and I am trying to obtain your evidence from the, from
the side of the liberation movements, did you experience the actions that you have given evidence now
about, of the police actions?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 483 M CHIKANE
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did you experience that?
MR CHIKANE: I did not die, I am still here.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.
MR CHIKANE: All that I have mentioned, I have experienced.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did you experience that as a difference in the attitude of the South African Police at
that time?
MR CHIKANE: I told you I have a problem because I was continuously detained from 1976.
JUDGE MALL: His experiences as an individual differs.
MR CHIKANE: So, you know ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: But you cannot dispute what I put to you that there was a difference in the attitude
and that there, that a counter-revolutionary strategy was implemented at that time?
MR CHIKANE: I cannot dispute that.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right, thank you very much. Mr Chairman, if you will just bear with me.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, certainly.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chikane.
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: According to your recollection, was the youth at all involved in the liberation
struggle?
MR CHIKANE: When you say the youth, you mean young people?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Young people, let us say ...
MR CHIKANE: There were young and old people ...
ADV DU PLESSIS: ... school children.
MR CHIKANE: ... involved, yes, they were young.
ADV DU PLESSIS: School children as well.
MR CHIKANE: Young, yes, school children, some of them were involved.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And do you have, perhaps, knowledge of
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 484 M CHIKANE
incidents where school children were involved in acts, things that happened during that period such as
stone throwing, burning of vehicles, etc, necklaces? Do you have any knowledge of school children being
involved in it?
MR CHIKANE: Yes, I did see some of them actually in, when there has been a confrontation because of,
between them and the police and ultimately there will be an upset. The situation will get out of control and
cars would be burnt, there would be stone throwing. Yes, that I saw in my own eyes. That did happen.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Right and now, Mr Chikane, a last question. I want to ask your honest opinion. In
the light of the fact that you are a high profile politician in South African politics today. Your opinion on
the applicants' participation in the process of truth and reconciliation and their participation in this process
before this Committee.
MR CHIKANE: You know, you know I believe that we have arrived at this period, it is, it has been a very
difficult process, lives are lost, other people are maimed forever, we have got widows and widowers, but I
believe that we can only arrive at a position where we can reconcile when the whole truth is known, when
no shred of evidence is left from the public's eye, when no one will feel protected even from himself
because if we do not have full disclosures, then I think this whole process is completely futile. It is my
honest opinion that, therefore, informers need to be known so that they must also be able to be reconciled
because I can assure you, they are sitting with a guilty feeling wherever they are because there is this much
that is not known of them and they will be set free, they will be better people. And I believe that that would
be a very good
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 484 M CHIKANE
stepping stone towards building a new South Africa that will be able to have full trust of its own citizens.
So that is my opinion, full disclosure of every evidence and, of course, I believe in reconciliation and
forgiveness. I have got no personal problem. We do greet each other with Captain Loots. He knows he
detained me several times himself. Now one day we meet I say, hi, how are you, Captain, but it is not a
question of person, it is not a personal vendetta here. We are trying to build a country and we are serious
about it. So, full disclosure of everything including informers. Everything, including those members that I
have seen in the papers that are supposed to be serving in high Government offices, there must be full
disclosure.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe, are there any questions you would ...(intervention)
NO EXAMINATION BY ADV MPSHE
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin, any re-examination? I am sorry.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DEN BERG
JUDGE MALL: Yes, sorry.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr Chikane, with regard to the naming of informers, would there be no possible
backlash against people who may, quite possibly, falsely be named as having been informers and does the,
do, are the existing capacities of the, of societies, are they able to handle that kind of possible backlash?
MR CHIKANE: I guess they have handled it in the case of Captain Coetzee who is quite a high profile
...(tape ends) evidence. He went into exile, he was not killed, he is back. They have been able to handle it
in cases of Mamasela PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 485 M CHIKANE
now. I am sure a lot of people have come in contact with him and many others actually who were not only
informers, but who were actually, you know, involved, who have made total disclosure, but the society has
not taken action against them and I have got no doubt that even in this case, you know, we would be
helping those people to set them free from their own guilt conscious. I do not see any, feel any backlash, it
could have happened. Let me tell you as if you were to go to statements that we made under duress,
sometimes we lied, but, you know, we would want the public to know exactly what we said when we were
there. That is what I mean by full disclosure.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Chikane, you said that he drove you back home from meetings where, my note is,
all this was discussed. Could you kindly tell us, did he attend meetings and what was it discussed, what did
you mean by all this was discussed?
MR CHIKANE: I meant after we had had a commemorations, sometimes we will have a prior meetings
before the commemoration. We will invite him to be with us to discuss what we would want him to speak
about, you know, because other speakers would be covering other topics. That is what I mean. Sometimes
after the commemoration itself, not preparatory meetings, you know, some people would, like the most
common name that I can name is the late Comrade Sammy Matsela who would not have transport. Then
he will take Sammy back. That is what I meant.
ADV DE JAGER: And did he attend the meetings of the after discussion, after the commemoration, for
instance, by the Committee coming together and discussing things?
MR CHIKANE: No, we would only call him when we are
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 486 M CHIKANE
discussing something that is pertaining to him like when he is, we know that he is going to be speaking on
a particular, maybe we would want him to speak about Sharpeville history 1961. Then we will invite him
to come and, to tell him that you can speak about that because the next speaker is going to be speaking
about a different topic. So that there is no repetition.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes.
MS KHAMPEPE: Mr Chikane, did your structures send people to Dr Ribeiro for financial assistance?
MR CHIKANE: Yes.
MS KHAMPEPE: And only to him only or was he one of the respectable members of the community on
whom you could place reliance with regard to financial assistance?
MR CHIKANE: He was one of them. He was not the only one.
MS KHAMPEPE: Thank you.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Chikane, thank you very much.
MR CHIKANE: Thank you, Sir
JUDGE MALL: You may be excused.
WITNESS EXCUSED
ADV DU PLESSIS: May I proceed with the evidence, Mr Chairman. May I call Warrant Officer van
Vuuren please?
MR CURRIN: Mr Chairman, can I just mention that we went through the bundle to try and deal with all
the confusion and the bundle as you had it was, in fact, in the intended order. The numbers that you need
to look at are the numbers on the top right-hand corner in black coki and the reason why they do not
follow, why it goes, for example, one, two three, four, I mean, why certain numbers are left out because the
original bundle was much larger and in order to assist we took out pages which we felt were irrelevant. So
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 487 ADDRESS
the order in which you have the document with the numbers as on the top right-hand corner, is quite correct
and they have been left exactly as they were except one additional page was inserted which was the second
page of a letter which Motasi wrote to, inter alia, the State President. Page 26 immediately after page 25
was inserted. That is the only change to the document otherwise it remains exactly as it was and when we
refer to the number of the page, we are referring to that which is written in coki on the right, top right-hand
corner.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
MR CURRIN: Thank you, Sir.
JUDGE MALL: (Speaker not speaking into microphone) Now you have (indistinct) after page 26, the
next (indistinct) is page 35?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, may I suggest ...
MR CURRIN: Correct.
ADV MPSHE: ... since we are going to use it as a bundle that they be re-numbered one up till the end to
avoid further confusion since they are a bundle.
JUDGE MALL: (Indistinct) talking about (indistinct).
ADV MPSHE: Sure.
JUDGE MALL: (Indistinct).
MR CURRIN: Thank you.
JUDGE MALL: We have said that this will be now Exhibit "U".
ADV MPSHE: That is correct.
JUDGE MALL: And if any reference is made to documents in Exhibit "U", you will find it.
ADV MPSHE: I am indebted to you, Sir.
JUDGE MALL: Thank you Mr Currin.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 487 W/O VAN VUUREN
PAUL VAN VUUREN: (s.u.o.).
EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Warrant Officer van Vuuren, you
heard the testimony after Captain Hechter.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Do you confirm the correctness of it?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, I do.
ADV DU PLESSIS: In your application details of the incident as you recall are set out. You will find that
on page 201 of van Vuuren's application, Mr Chairman. What you have set out from page 201 to 203, do
you confirm it as correct?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well. Could I just refer you to page 203, second paragraph. Captain Hechter
testified that he gave you instruction to go and fetch Mamasela after Mr Motasi had already been shot.
Could you just read the second and third paragraphs to us.
W/O VAN VUUREN: Captain Hechter instructed me to go and fetch Mamasela. I went to the room
where Mamasela was and instructed him to come. I heard shots, but did not see who shot or who was shot.
I was informed by Mamasela that Mamasela had shot the woman because she had seen him. Captain Loots
never gave instruction and we did not foresee that Mamasela would shoot the woman.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, did he give you such an instruction?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did he give Mamasela such an instruction?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Not as far as I know.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well. Could you please page to page 205. Political objectives are set out there
from page 205
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 488 W/O VAN VUUREN
to page 211. Do you confirm the correctness thereof?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, I do.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Page 212 says, you say that you were acting under instruction of Colonel Ras. Do
you confirm that?
JUDGE MALL: What page is that?
ADV DU PLESSIS: Page 212, Mr Chairman.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well. Lastly I would like to ask you when was the first time you heard about
the allegation which was made that Mr Motasi had been eliminated by you because he was in trouble with
the South African Police, he was in trouble because he had instituted a civil claim against the South African
Police?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That was when Captain de Jongh from the Attorney General's special investigative
unit asked me if I was aware of the fact and I informed him that I was not.
ADV DU PLESSIS: When was that?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Basically at the end of last year. I cannot remember the date. I would just like to
say something. At that stage Captain Hechter's wife had left him and he was extremely emotional and he
testified that he accepted responsibility for all these deeds and he and I worked together as a team and there
was no superior and subordinate relationship between us, we were more friends. So we decided jointly
about things which were to be done so he cannot take the blame for this all by himself. And with regard to
this specific incident, Captain Hechter and I after two years of basically being the hit squad had plenty of
experience with this type of thing and Captain Loots cannot accept responsibility for it alone. The three of
us all decided about what was to be done. That is all I would
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 489 W/O VAN VUUREN
like to say.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr van Vuuren, when was the
decision taken that you would be the person that would actually pull the trigger and kill Richard Motasi?
W/O VAN VUUREN: It was not decided before the time. We at each incident where we were involved,
we dealt with it as the circumstances prevailed. I would just like to mention that Mr Motasi resisted and we
wrestled with him, Colonel Loots and I, and especially Captain Hechter and I wrestled with him and, if I
remember correctly, Captain Hechter and I are fairly stout men and Motasi was a slightly built man, but he
kept us fairly busy. Captain Loots assaulted him with the butt of the AK47 rifle where he assaulted, where
he struck Captain Hechter several times. It was not decided beforehand who was to eliminate him. It just
happened that way because, as you know, by that stage, if you remember correctly, there was the Defence
Force in the black townships and I cannot remember at that specific stage if it
was there or not and he made a lot of noise, he screamed and Captain Hechter and I worked together
without actually saying much. We each knew what to do.
MR CURRIN: Some of these questions I have already put to Captain Hechter, but each application is
considered on its own merit and I need to put certain questions to you which were put to Captain Hechter
as well. When you got this instruction from Colonel Ras to go out and to murder one of your colleagues,
did you not think of questioning that instruction?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 490 W/O VAN VUUREN
W/O VAN VUUREN: I would just like to say that when we got to Colonel Ras's office that morning, Flip
Loots got to the office early that morning, and said to me Colonel Ras wants to see us, that there is a
request that some of the Divisional Commissioners, Stemmet, and apparently an ANC agent is to be
eliminated and that we should please accompany him to his office. Captain Loots and I, Captain, and
Captain Hechter went to General, he was a Colonel at the time, Colonel Ras's office and he said to Captain
Loots, listen, there is someone who is an ANC agent who needs to be eliminated, but you are going to
receive further instructions from Brigadier Stemmet, the Divisional Commissioner. Captain Hechter and I,
if I remember correctly, went back to our offices and approximately an hour, possibly two hours, I cannot
remember the exact time, thereafter Captain Loots returned with the address of this policeman. He briefly
informed us what was said there and what the Divisional Commissioner's instruction was. I did not have
any reason to question the instruction of the Divisional Commissioner especially due to the fact that
Captain Hechter and I, at that stage, had been dealing with
this type of work for approximately two years. We were actually withdrawn from all other normal security
police duties. So to Captain Hechter and I, at that stage, it was not strange that such a request be put to us
or we should be given such an instruction to eliminate a policeman since he was an ANC agent. I did not
know this policeman before the time, I did not even, I was not even aware of his existence and to me that
was basically that.
MR CURRIN: Had you ever eliminated another colleague or was this the first time?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 490 W/O VAN VUUREN
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, at a previous occasion we killed an informant, but this was the very first time.
MR CURRIN: I am asking whether you have ever before eliminated a colleague, a fellow policeman?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No.
MR CURRIN: So, this is not just another assassination. Surely in your own mind there was a difference
between being asked to go and kill a colleague and being asked to go and kill an ANC activist?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, Mr Chairperson, in my mind there was no doubt. We were told that he was an,
he was an ANC agent. Whether he was a policeman or not he remained an enemy to the State and for that
reason we eliminated him and that is why I believed I eliminated him.
MR CURRIN: Why are you now saying that he was an ANC agent whereas in your application you said
that he gave information, according to Ras, he gave information to the Zimbabwe Security Services?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct, that is what was said to me at the time.
MR CURRIN: Why does that lead you to believe that he is an ANC agent if he was giving information to
the Zimbabwe Security Services?
W/O VAN VUUREN: I cannot remember Colonel Ras's precise words, it is too long ago, but he said that
the person was an ANC agent and that he was giving information to the Zimbabwe Security Service.
MR CURRIN: And nothing about giving information to the ANC in exile?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Not as far as I can recall.
MR CURRIN: Have you discussed this instruction with General PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 491 W/O VAN VUUREN
Ras in a more - more recently. I mean, General Ras, I believe, is here and is willing to testify.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: And from what you can gather, does he confirm this instruction?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: And what about the Divisional Commissioner, Stemmet, is he going to testify?
W/O VAN VUUREN: I do not know. You will have to ask my advocate.
MR CURRIN: Do you, have you had any discussions with him?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Not whether he was going to subpoena the Divisional Commissioner to testify, he
said he would decide about that.
MR CURRIN: Do you know whether he confirms that he gave the instruction to you?
W/O VAN VUUREN: As far as I know he denies that.
MR CURRIN: As far as you know he denies that the instruction was given. Is that what you are saying?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: You heard the evidence of Captain Hechter in
regard to what happened when you arrived at the house, when you arrived at ...
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, that is correct.
MR CURRIN: ... the house of Sergeant Motasi and Irene Motasi.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: And I take it that you confirm his evidence in that regard?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes.
MR CURRIN: So, you would agree then that when you decided
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 492 W/O VAN VUUREN
to proceed with the assassination after Irene Motasi had seen, what is his name, after Irene Motasi had seen
Mamasela, that the killing of Irene Motasi was an inevitable consequence?
W/O VAN VUUREN: It was not discussed there, but it is possible. I would just like to explain to you at
that time an operation was being executed, time was of the essence, one just, you know, you just do what
you have to do. You do not still deliberate there and then.
MR CURRIN: But look, let us be realistic. You are talking about your own identification as a murderer?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: We have heard so often that if Mamasela were to be identified by any person it would have
been a major, major "terugslag", problem for the Security Forces in that he was so, of such a valuable, such
an asset to the Security Forces.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: So we have that as a fact. Then we have your own identification, possibly, if he were to be
identified.
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: Are you saying that glibly you did not really take that into consideration?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is what I am saying. At that specific, on that specific evening it, we did not
deliberate or discuss the fact that Mamasela, the woman would see Mamasela. We probably just did not
pay any attention to it and, with hindsight, I would say that we probably should have.
ADV DE JAGER: And if you had taken it into account would you have decided that she should be killed?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 493 W/O VAN VUUREN
W/O VAN VUUREN: I believe so, Mr Chairperson.
MR CURRIN: You would agree with me that if you were not going to place her at risk at all, once
Mamasela had knocked at the door the first time, she had seen him and she would have been advised that
he had gone off to go and buy supper, you would not have gone back. You would have packed your bags
and come back to Pretoria.
W/O VAN VUUREN: Could you please repeat the question?
MR CURRIN: I want to put it to you that if you had considered her safety at all, once she had seen
Mamasela, when he went to the door the first time and Mamasela had been told that Richard Motasi is not
at home, in order not to put her at risk at all, you would have packed your bags and come back to Pretoria
and decided to eliminate Sergeant Motasi in some other way. Is that not correct?
W/O VAN VUUREN: I would say that that is correct.
MR CURRIN: Would the Committee bear with me for a moment please. In your application you also do
not mention the fact that, whether or not you knew that there was a child in the house. Did you know
whether there was a child in the house?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, no, I was not aware of that fact. I never saw the child.
MR CURRIN: Could you repeat your version of how you understood the killing of Irene Motasi?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Must I read it to you?
MR CURRIN: No, tell me in your own words.
JUDGE MALL: Do you want to know from him why?
MR CURRIN: No, not, I just want to know the sequence of events from this witness. From your
perspective.
W/O VAN VUUREN: After we had struggled with Richard Motasi
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 493 W/O VAN VUUREN
and Captain Hechter had placed the pillow over his head and I had shot him four times with an AK47 rifle,
Captain Hechter and Captain Loots went out of the door. I cannot remember, I think Captain Hechter then
said, go and call Mamasela, I went to the room and, if I recall correctly, the woman's face was hidden by a
blanket or a sheet, her face was covered. I told Mamasela, come on, we are finished. I then turned round
and I started running. I heard shots. When I arrived outside Mamasela was right next to me. I said, what
did you do and he said that he had shot the woman as well because she had seen him. I would like to
mention that at that stage it was not strange to me that somebody would have recognised Mamasela
because Mamasela and I were good friends and he had told me that he would undergo plastic surgery at the
expense of the State. So Mamasela told me a lot about his personal affairs and things like that. So as far as
I was concerned Mamasela's face would have been reconstructed, changed later on. That is how, that was
what my personal understanding and experience of Mamasela was. I do not know whether Captain
Hechter was aware of that, but as far as I was concerned, he
would later change his face and he discussed it with me and he said he would apply to head office for
paying for surgery, for plastic surgery.
MR CURRIN: Had Captain Hechter left the house before you?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct, yes.
MR CURRIN: So you, when you went back, you went back on your own, you did not go back with
Captain Hechter?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, Captain Hechter, I left him and Loots in the lounge. They left by the door and
I went to the bedroom.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 494 W/O VAN VUUREN
MR CURRIN: I just wanted to get clarity on that. Have you, behind me is not only sitting Richard and
Irene Motasi's son, but also Irene Motasi's mother. Have you had any opportunity to speak to her and, in
any way, about this incident?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, I have not spoken to them yet.
MR CURRIN: I see.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CURRIN
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe, any questions.
EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE MPSHE: Yes, Mr Chairman. Warrant Officer, are you still in the
police force?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, I am no longer in the force.
ADV MPSHE: When did you leave the force?
W/O VAN VUUREN: In '89, February '89.
ADV MPSHE: When did this incident take place?
W/O VAN VUUREN: In '87.
ADV MPSHE: When you were still in the police force did Brigadier Basie Smit take over your section?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
ADV MPSHE: And I want to believe he was told of what you people did to Motasi and wife.
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, that is not true. He was never aware of what had happened. He had an idea.
Everybody at that stage, most of the senior officers in the security branch like Ras had an idea of what we
were doing and I believe he would have informed General Smit about our activities.
ADV MPSHE: Now, what made you leave the police force?
W/O VAN VUUREN: General Smit was transferred to head office and some other Brigadier took over, I
think his surname was van Rensburg, I think so, I cannot remember exactly because that was after
Brigadier Smit. I just could no longer be
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 495 W/O VAN VUUREN
a policeman in the true sense of the word as a result of my past activities. I simply could not continue as a
security policeman.
ADV MPSHE: Okay. I am going to read to you the statement, the, part of the transcript that I read this
morning as made by Joe Mamasela, Section 29. Just a short portion I will just read out to you and I want
your comment on that. It is on page three, it reads thus.
"After a couple of days Basie Smit took over command of our section. A Captain
Hechter told Smit what we had done. Brigadier Smit was furious and Captain Hechter
was transferred to Soweto and he then resigned later. I was transferred to C Section, van
Vuuren also resigned and Captain Loots was transferred somewhere else. The whole B
Section was dissolved".
Is that correct?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, that is not true. Captain Hechter would never have discussed this with
Brigadier Smit because at that stage Brigadier Smit was very new in the force. He had just taken over and
we were rather wary of him because the rumours did the rounds that he was especially
transferred or he had been specially transferred there to cause problems for Hechter and myself and to
expose us. So Captain Hechter would never have discussed the matter with him. What actually happened
was that Brigadier Smit immediately took us into his confidence and on many occasions ...(tape ends)... in
KwaNdebele and so forth and Captain Hechter had never been transferred to Soweto. That is a lie.
Colonel Loots took a transfer or applied for a transfer to the Intelligence Unit. I assume that is the
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 496 W/O VAN VUUREN
Kudu Arcade and, as for myself, it was only a year and two months later that I resigned. General Smit was
not even in the branch anymore when I left the police force.
ADV MPSHE: Why were you wary of Basie Smit?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Because, if you will recall, I cannot remember the exact date, but there had been a
case in which one Sergeant van der Merwe and I think a Captain le Grange, they had shot a person, I think
it was a person who was dealing in mandrax, and they were prosecuted and they went to jail because
Brigadier Smit was the Chief Investigating Officer in that particular case.
ADV MPSHE: Now, are you saying to us, if I am correct, that you were careful about him because he may
also find out about what you did and to what he has done to le Grange?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Initially, yes, we were rather cautious around him, but after a while, well, it
happened often that I went with Brigadier Smit, just the two of us, we would drive somewhere and we
talked about police matters. So, I am sure he would not have asked somebody whom he did not like, he did
not trust to accompany him.
ADV MPSHE: No, no, I am not talking of any confidence. I am saying because of what he did to le
Grange, putting them
in jail, you were afraid that if he learns about this incident you may also follow suit. That is why you were
careful with him?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Initially, yes, when Brigadier Smit took that was the position. We were wary of
him, correct.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV MPSHE
JUDGE MALL: As I understand your evidence you opened fire without being instructed by anybody to do
so. That is correct, is it?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MALL 496 W/O VAN VUUREN
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct. Yes, I knew we were there to eliminate that person. Nobody told
me to fire, I decided that by myself.
JUDGE MALL: Any questions, Chris?
ADV DE JAGER: It seems to me as if it was normally the task, also at Vlakplaas Unit, that the task of the
most junior member to actually carry out the deed?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, that is not correct, Chairperson. At that stage Captain Hechter and I had
worked together for quite a long time and as, between the two of us there was no difference as to who
would do the actual elimination. It was simply the way it happened, but at that stage I did not wait for an
instruction, I knew what we were there to do. I knew what the purpose of our visit there was and I was
simply the person who first got hold of my AK47 and shot him.
MS KHAMPEPE: But then, Sir, are you saying that prior to going there you had not sat down to discuss
the planning of how the operation was going to be executed?
W/O VAN VUUREN: We never planned these operations like the Defence Force planned their
operations. That, for instance, person A would shoot and person B would wait outside and guard and
person C would remain at the vehicle. We were led by circumstances as they happened.
MS KHAMPEPE: What factors did you consider in this case because you did not seem to have conducted
any investigation to find out whether Mr Motasi was staying with anyone at his home?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, Mamasela had gone to the house and he had determined that Mr Motasi lived
there.
MS KHAMPEPE: Had you also determined on whether Mrs Motasi, PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MS KHAMPEPE 497 W/O VAN VUUREN
on whether there were other people other than Mrs Motasi, had he determined that kind of information?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, not as far as I can remember.
MS KHAMPEPE: So you actually planned in the dark. You did not know whether, in fact, there could be
other people who were ANC or probably related to the Zimbabwe Security Force who were staying with
Mr Motasi?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Not beforehand, no.
MS KHAMPEPE: If I can proceed then, Warrant Officer van Vuuren. You waited for about ten minutes
before Mr Motasi's arrival?
W/O VAN VUUREN: I think it was about ten minutes, yes.
MS KHAMPEPE: Now, you are a seasoned policeman and your curiosity must have been aroused to find
out more about the place where Mr Motasi was. Did you probably search the house other than switching
on the television set?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, we did not search the house. We simply waited for him to return.
MS KHAMPEPE: Was your curiosity not aroused, did you not feel, probably, the urge to look around the
house, to search for documentation?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, we were never instructed to collect documents as proof of his activities. I
never even thought about it. The thought never even occurred to me to look for documents.
MS KHAMPEPE: Not as a seasoned security policeman, I mean it was the nature of your job to find out
such information?
W/O VAN VUUREN: May I say that Captain Hechter and I were not really tasked with the normal,
ordinary functions. We did not collect papers and documents at that stage of our lives.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 498 W/O VAN VUUREN
JUDGE WILSON: You said during the course of your evidence that time was of the essence in killing this
man. When you got to the house you said time was of the essence. Did you mean that?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Could you repeat the question please?
JUDGE WILSON: You said during the course of your evidence that time was of the essence when asked
why you went ahead as you did that night.
W/O VAN VUUREN: When you carry out an operation you then try to do it as quickly as possible
without arousing suspicion. That is why we had to act as fast as possible, do the elimination and then go
away.
JUDGE WILSON: This was a policeman, was it not, a Sergeant?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Correct.
JUDGE WILSON: I take it that the police station he was attached to would have had his address.
W/O VAN VUUREN: I assume so, yes.
JUDGE WILSON: And would have had details as to his family?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes.
JUDGE WILSON: But you people made no enquiries of any sort?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, we did not. As I have already said Mamasela was told to go and verify the
address.
JUDGE WILSON: Which he could have done by telephone?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, yes, I cannot deny that.
JUDGE WILSON: Because are you not, we have heard a lot of evidence about how you people went into
houses and you saw some person there you did not know so you killed them, have we not? A man
wrapped up in a blanket runs into a bedroom and gets shot by Colonel Cronje.
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, we have heard evidence to that effect.
JUDGE WILSON: So was it not important to find out who was
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 499 W/O VAN VUUREN
in the house, how many people were there, whether there were innocent people there or did you intend to
kill everybody you found?
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, that was not our intention. As I said it was our intention to eliminate the
policeman.
JUDGE WILSON: Now you agreed, I think, that Joe Mamasela was extremely important to your unit?
His identity had to be preserved at all costs?
W/O VAN VUUREN: That is correct.
JUDGE WILSON: Why did you not send Danny Hletlhala to knock on the door?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Because he was not Joe Mamasela.
JUDGE WILSON: No, but all Joe Mamasela was doing was knocking on the door and saying is Richard
Motasi in.
W/O VAN VUUREN: Correct.
JUDGE WILSON: And are saying that Danny Hletlhala could not have done that?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes, because Slang was not Joe Mamasela. Mamasela was a completely different
type of operator, very different to Danny.
JUDGE WILSON: And what great talent did you need to knock on a door and ask if someone was in?
W/O VAN VUUREN: You do not need any talent to knock on a door, but for the events afterwards, I
suppose, you needed some kind of a talent.
JUDGE WILSON: Oh you wanted to use his talent to kill. Is that what you mean?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Correct.
JUDGE WILSON: So that is why you used Mamasela, because he had a talent to kill.
W/O VAN VUUREN: Correct.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 500 W/O VAN VUUREN
JUDGE WILSON: And that is why you sent him to talk to the wife?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Correct.
JUDGE WILSON: Thank you.
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination?
RE-EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE DU PLESSIS: Warrant Officer van Vuuren, when Mamasela was
sent to knock on the door did you have any idea what to expect?
W/O VAN VUUREN: The first time or the second time?
ADV DU PLESSIS: The first time.
W/O VAN VUUREN: No, we had no idea.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And would Mamasela have been able to deal with any unexpected movement, be
able to deal with it far better than Danny?
W/O VAN VUUREN: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And the question was put to you whether you have spoken to the family members.
Are you prepared to do so?
W/O VAN VUUREN: I am prepared to speak to them.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, if you will just bear with me. NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV
DU PLESSIS
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I intend to call General Ras and Colonel Loots in this incident. The
evidence will be very short in both instances. I see, however, it is just before four o' clock.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe, will it inconvenience you and Mr Currin if we adjourn now and resume at
nine o'clock?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, it will not inconvenience me, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin?
ADV MPSHE: Save that, Mr Chairman, I was going to make an
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV MPSHE 501 ADDRESS
appeal to the honourable Committee members that we round up this matter today, Mr Chairman, if
possible. I am appealing, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Alright.
ADV MPSHE: That we have a short adjournment now and then resume and continue with General Ras
and others evidence. I am way, way behind schedule now, with respect.
JUDGE MALL: (Judge Mall discusses with Committee members)
MS KHAMPEPE: Mr Mpshe, would there be any particular reason why you would like us to adjourn
instead of proceeding until four thirty?
ADV MPSHE: Yes, Ma'am, I have to answer nature's call.
MS KHAMPEPE: I cannot argue with that, Mr Mpshe.
MR CURRIN: Mr Chairman, could I also just indicate that Mrs Hlabangane, Irene Motasi's mother is here,
she is sitting behind me. Richard Motasi's son is here, at least Mrs Hlabangane will be testifying. I am not
sure whether there will be time for her to testify today. She sat in this, in these proceedings the entire day, I
know that it has been a very emotional and exhausting experience for her and we would prefer to lead her
evidence tomorrow than at five o'clock this afternoon or quarter to five this afternoon after another two
witnesses. So, I am not sure whether there is a prospect of actually finishing it today.
There is also a police officer here that was subpoenaed by Mr Mpshe who was involved in the
inquiry into this whole incident which has been referred to and he too will be testifying. So it seems as if
there are at least four witnesses. We are quite happy to stay here until six o'clock this evening, I am sure
that is how long it is going to take. I just indicate that it is not just a matter of
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 501 ADDRESS
two witnesses.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe, the pace at which we have been working, is it a realistic assumption to make
that we will finish this afternoon?
ADV MPSHE: Mr Chairman, my assumption is not realistic, Mr Chairman, but at least we shall have
moved a particular distance, Mr Chairman. Even if we do not sit up till all witnesses testify, but at least if
we hear one or two up till half past four, Mr Chairman, we shall have moved a
particular distance. That is my request.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, your request if for a short adjournment first.
ADV MPSHE: Yes, Mr Chairman, for a five minutes adjournment.
ADV DE JAGER: Could I just request in future when you foresee that we will sit late, kindly inform us
beforehand so that we could advise our families and tell them, listen, we will not be there at a certain time,
but make our arrangements too.
ADV MPSHE: That will be done. Thank you and I apologise.
JUDGE MALL: We will take a short adjournment.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 502 COL LOOTS
ON RESUMPTION
ADV MPSHE: Chairman, I leave this in the hands of my learned friend to call the witness, Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, Mr du Plessis.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. I beg leave to call Colonel Flip Loots.
PHILLIPUS JOHANNES CORNELIUS LOOTS: (sworn states).
EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE DU PLESSIS: Colonel Loots, you have heard the evidence of
Captain Hechter before this Committee. Is that correct?
COL LOOTS: I was present, Chairperson.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Do you confirm the correctness thereof?
COL LOOTS: I confirm the correctness thereof.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Are there any aspects, Colonel, which you would like to shed more light on before
this Committee especially with regard to the instruction and where it came from?
COL LOOTS: Chairperson, perhaps just to make it clear to this Committee here how I ended up before
Colonel Ras and how he requested me to do this. We were sitting in the old Compol Building as the
Security Branch of the Northern Transvaal and, as you know, the second and third floors we occupied. I
was on the third floor with my unit while the Divisional Commanding Officer was on the second floor and
I had to walk past the office where Captain Hechter and van Vuuren sat. Joe Mamasela occupied the same
office as they did and that is how I ended up asking them to accompany me to the office of the Acting
Divisional Commanding Officer, the now, Colonel Ras. When we got to the office, as it was testified here,
Colonel Ras, who was now General Ras, requested that we should go and see Stemmet who was the
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 503 COL LOOTS
Divisional Commissioner and he informed me that there was an ANC agent who was a policeman from
Hammanskraal who was to be eliminated, that I was to receive details from Brigadier Stemmet.
I stood up at that stage and Colonel Ras, Captain Hechter and Paul van Vuuren remained behind
in the office when I left. So they could have deliberated about the incident further. When I got to the office
of the Divisional Commissioner, please do not ask me which floor he sat on, but it was on the corner of
Bosman Street and Pretorius or Schoeman Street, I am not sure, Pretorius Street. That is where the
Divisional Commissioner's office was situated. I was on my way to his office and close to his office I
encountered then Colonel, Brigadier Koos Klopper, who is now retired. He was either the Regional
Investigating Officer or the Divisional Investigating Officer, I do not know if one of the other officers
could correct me. Be that as it may, when I approached him he started talking about this policeman from
Hammanskraal and I then indicated, before he said much more, I indicated that I was on my way to the
office of the Divisional Commissioner to go and discuss this matter with him.
Colonel Klopper turned back and walked into the office with me, the office of Brigadier Stemmet.
Brigadier Stemmet, at that stage, when we entered he was, he stood up behind his desk. We did not go and
sit either, we stood in front of his desk. Brigadier Stemmet started talking immediately and said, told us
about a policeman in Hammanskraal who was an ANC agent and that this man had to be eliminated and, in
all honesty, I really cannot tell you whether the piece of paper was torn off then already or
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 504 COL LOOTS
whether it had been torn off already, but it was your normal A4 folio books where we made entries. He
gave me approximately a quarter of a page with, containing this man's name and address. I did not read it.
I folded it and kept it in my hand. It was clear to me that Brigadier Stemmet was in a hurry to go
somewhere. At least, it appeared to me to be that way because he did not say much thereafter and I
concluded that he saw this matter as being concluded.
I would also like to add that it was not said to me that it was a conclusion that this person was an
ANC agent. Brigadier Stemmet said to me that this man was an ANC agent and I made the logical
conclusion that he had to have had information that he was an ANC agent. I did not question him about
that, not at all. With this piece of paper, to which I referred earlier on, I returned to my office. I am not
sure at which stage I gave it to Hechter. I could have gone back to my own office, Chairperson. As we all
know those were turbulent times and one had to keep up with the times and I went to Captain Hechter with
this piece of paper and said to him, here are the details of the man about whom we spoke when we were in
Colonel Ras's office, please investigate the address of this man. Mamasela left there and in my application
I also mentioned that I suspected that Danny Hletlhala referred to, could have gone with him, I am not sure
about them.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well, Colonel, the rest of the evidence deals with the incidence which you have
just confirmed. I do not want us to waste too much time on that. You referred to an application, is that
your own amnesty application with regard to this incident?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 504 COL LOOTS
COL LOOTS: That is the amnesty application I referred to.
ADV DU PLESSIS: The amnesty application has not yet been submitted, but it has almost been
completed, the compilation thereof. Can you recall whether anything was said to you with regard to
information which this man was to have given to the Zimbabwe Intelligence Service?
COL LOOTS: That is what we discussed in the office of Colonel Ras before I went over to Brigadier
Stemmet where the same information or should I say the same context of the information was discussed.
That was before the piece of paper was handed over to me, either torn out and handed over to me.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Was the information also given to you with regards to contact which this man should
have had with other members of the liberation movements?
COL LOOTS: I would like to say that before I went out Colonel, of Colonel Ras's office I was told that he
was in contact with persons in Johannesburg, that the people in Johannesburg, who these people were in
Johannesburg or what they were all about was not specified.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Are you referring to the discussion with Ras or Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: No, I am referring to the discussion with Colonel Ras.
JUDGE MALL: You say that you were told ...(indistinct).
INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.
JUDGE MALL: Who are you talking about?
COL LOOTS: As I testified, no names were mentioned or even places mentioned in Johannesburg. I did
not stay, I left. ADV DU PLESSIS: Are you referring to this specific policeman?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 505 COL LOOTS
COL LOOTS: Yes.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I am not going to question you about political objectives and testimony about that
because you are going to mention that in your own application.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman.
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
EXAMINATION BY MR CURRIN: Was this not a most unusual instruction for you to go out and to kill
a person in cold blood?
COL LOOTS: Of course it was an unusual instruction.
MR CURRIN: I have not seen your amnesty application, but we know that both Warrant Officer van
Vuuren and Captain Hechter were for a long time involved in violent deeds of this nature and we heard
from Warrant Officer van Vuuren that this was just another killing. Did the same apply to you?
COL LOOTS: Chairperson, I would like to answer the question as follows. I am coming back to this in a
minute. If I could just take a few people back to the 80's and the circumstances under which we worked
and also probably just to say that you know that there was a time when over and above the administration
of the security emergency regulations because I said to you from the Northern Transvaal, the KwaNdebele
regions I had to take over as the Unit Commanding Officer of the black power movements. I had eight
persons under my command and at that time I dealt with the entire black power movement, black
consciousness movement. At the time it was such that our black members did not turn up at the office for
work anymore. They stayed PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 506 COL LOOTS
at home to watch their houses. We armed them with shotguns, automatic weapons, semi-automatic
weapons so that they could protect themselves. The persons who I worked with are the people who turned
up at the office. We were under immense pressure not just from the Commissioner, who I have just
mentioned, but from the riot squad, from the detectives, from the Defence Force wanting to know what do
the Security Force do. We were under immense pressure and it was also extraordinary circumstances apart
from the fact that it was extraordinary conduct.
Someone had asked me earlier if I would have done it or if somebody was to ask me today if I
would do it, I do not think that I would consider it favourably.
MR CURRIN: I do not want to ask you any details about your amnesty application. What I am trying to
establish, what I am trying to establish whether this particular incident is the only incident in which you
were involved in the killing of a person?
COL LOOTS: It is the only incident where I was involved and present where a person was killed,
Chairperson.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I just want to interrupt here. Colonel Loots has compiled amnesty
applications in respect of various matters. The evidence that he has given now is correct, but there will be
other amnesty applications in respect of matters where he was not personally involved, but where he was,
in some way or another, involved and I would beg the Committee not to preempt his evidence pertaining to
such applications, Mr Chairman. I have led him on the facts and if Mr Currin could cross-examine him on
the facts.
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin appreciates this, I think.
MR CURRIN: Of course.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 506 COL LOOTS
JUDGE MALL: Yes.
MR CURRIN: Absolutely. I am very mindful of it and I am, I think I am walking a very careful path to
only ask relevant questions to this particular matter. What I am getting at, you now get an instruction, first
of all, from ...(tape ends) Stemmet to go and kill one of your colleagues. Most unusual instruction for you,
you have said that. What investigations did you undertake to try and establish whether or not this killing
could be justified?
COL LOOTS: Chairperson, I would just like to repeat what I said earlier in my testimony, what I said a
few minutes ago in my testimony that when I turned up at Brigadier Stemmet's office he said to me the
man is an ANC agent and the only logical conclusion I could come to is that when somebody says
somebody is something, they should obviously have information or someone should have provided them
with information. I, myself, did not attempt to make any investigation into this.
MR CURRIN: So you made no effort to find out who these people were in Johannesburg, you made no
effort to find out precisely what sort of activities he was involved in, where the source of information came
from? You just took it on face value?
COL LOOTS: That is correct. I would, once again, like to say it was done by my Divisional Commanding
Officer under the instruction of, an investigating officer, under the command of the Divisional
Commissioner.
MR CURRIN: I see. Did you, by any chance, suggest to either Ras or Stemmet that the man should be
charged and prosecuted for his committing high treason?
COL LOOTS: No.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 507 COL LOOTS
MR CURRIN: Not. Why did you not suggest it?
COL LOOTS: I believed that they had good reason to say that this man should be eliminated, Chairperson.
JUDGE WILSON: The mere fact that he was an ANC agent, did you think that entitled them to eliminate
him?
COL LOOTS: Yes, Chairperson, because at the time I believed and I still believe today that a country can
survive many things, but not a traitor.
MR CURRIN: And on hearsay you will kill a so-called traitor?
COL LOOTS: If it comes from a Unit Detective Officer and a Commissioner and so forth, yes.
MR CURRIN: Have you had any discussions with Brigadier Stemmet in regard to his instructions to you?
COL LOOTS: I telephoned him from the office of Mr Britz, the attorney present here, to try and convince
him that we should get together and talk about this matter, Chairperson. I managed to get hold of him on
his cellphone and he indicated to me, through our cellphone communication, that he has nothing else to say
except what he has always told us, is that we should use all means available as long as we operate within
the framework of the law. He indicated to me that the week thereafter or so he was going to go to Cape
Town, but it was very clear from the discussion on the cellphone that he was not prepared to enter into a
discussion with me. Is that enough?
MR CURRIN: That is sufficient. You have heard the evidence in regard to what happened when you
arrived at the house?
COL LOOTS: Yes, Chairperson.
MR CURRIN: And you were also aware of the fact that Mrs Motasi had seen Mamasela?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 508 COL LOOTS
COL LOOTS: Yes, Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CURRIN
JUDGE MALL: Mr Mpshe?
EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE MPSHE: Thanks Chairman. Colonel, this Colonel Klopper, is it
Kobus Klopper?
COL LOOTS: I do not know if it is Kobus Klopper. It is a, I see General Ras is nodding that it was Kobus
Klopper. It could have been Kobus Klopper. I knew him as Koos Klopper, Chairperson.
ADV MPSHE: Okay. Could you provide the address of Brigadier Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: No, I cannot provide his address, but in my briefcase I do have a cellphone number of his
and I think I also have another telephone number. Unfortunately, I do not have his address, but I am quite
prepared to provide these two numbers.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV MPSHE
JUDGE MALL: Is that all Mr Mpshe?
ADV MPSHE: That is all Mr Chairman, thank you.
ADV DE JAGER: Were you aware that evening that Mrs Motasi was also shot dead?
COL LOOTS: I was aware of that. All of us heard the shot, Mr Chairperson.
ADV DE JAGER: Who reported back that this instruction had been executed?
COL LOOTS: I, myself, reported back, Chairperson.
ADV DE JAGER: To whom did you report?
COL LOOTS: To Colonel Ras. I could answer the Committee in this fashion. Early the morning I went
into the office specifically to go and report to Colonel Ras that this
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DE JAGER 509 COL LOOTS
action had been executed and it had been finalised. Before I could get to Colonel Ras, I am referring to the
following morning, my telephone rang and Colonel Ras asked me to come to him and at that stage it was
very early, I cannot say what time it was, it was very early, Colonel Kobus Klopper, as Mr Mpshe referred
to him, at that part of the morning was already in Colonel Ras' office and before I could speak to Colonel
Ras, Colonel Koos Klopper asked me how far is the matter with regard to the Hammanskraal policeman
and what you are asking me now, Mr Chairperson, illustrates to me the urgency with which they regarded
this and in the presence of Colonel Klopper I said to Colonel Ras the action has been executed, but
Mamasela also shot the wife. Not one of them said anything. I asked to be excused because there was
nothing more I could say to them, it was a busy day for me, a busy day lay ahead for me. I left the office of
Colonel Ras and I was not far from the office when I heard them talking and Colonel Klopper also left
immediately, Chairperson. That is how the report back went.
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination?
MS KHAMPEPE: I just want to pose one question, Captain. When you were with Brigadier Stemmet did
he indicate when he expected the operation to be executed?
COL LOOTS: No, nobody told me, not my Unit Commander, not the District Investigation Officer, not
the Commissioner. None of them indicated when this operation had to be executed.
MS KHAMPEPE: Thank you.
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination?
RE-EXAMINATION BY ADVOCATE DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Was there any reason
for you to question the
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 510 COL LOOTS
instruction of Brigadier Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: No, at that time, as I testified, I was a Captain, he was a very senior Brigadier and also the
Divisional Commander.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So would it have been normal procedure to question it?
COL LOOTS: No, not at all. A Captain does not question a Divisional Commissioner.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE WILSON: Even when told to commit murder. Is that your answer?
COL LOOTS: In this extraordinary case, as I say it was in an unusual incident in an unusual circumstance
where someone was labelled an ANC agent or a traitor, yes.
JUDGE MALL: Nothing else Andrew?
JUDGE WILSON: No.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Sorry, can I just clear this up with you. From whom exactly did you get instructions
to go and eliminate this person? Was it from Colonel Ras or from Stemmet or was it from both?
COL LOOTS: He asked me to go to Brigadier, to his office and Brigadier Stemmet informed me about the
elimination and the matter that we are now discussing.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did Colonel Ras simply say to you go and see Colonel Stemmet, he has got something
to tell you or did he, in fact, elaborate as to why you had to go and see Colonel Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: That the man should be eliminated, that he was an agent who was conveying information to
Zimbabwe.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, at that stage did you understand what,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 510 COL LOOTS
was it Brigadier, what Colonel Ras, did you regard it already as instructions or were you still expecting to
get instructions from Colonel Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: I would say that I regarded it to be an instruction because it was my Divisional Unit
Commander and he was sending me to take instruction from somebody else. He was instructing me to go
and see Brigadier Stemmet.
JUDGE MGOEPE: So as far as you are concerned you got instructions from two people?
COL LOOTS: Yes, Chairperson.
MS KHAMPEPE: Captain, would I be correct, therefore, to say that you got detailed instructions from
Brigadier Stemmet who was able to even give you details with regard to the address of Mr Motasi?
COL LOOTS: You are right, Chairperson.
JUDGE WILSON: Did he give you detailed instructions, I thought they were very brief?
COL LOOTS: As far as the name of the man and the address are concerned I thought those were
comprehensive instructions and that he was an ANC agent and that he was leaking information to
Zimbabwe. As far as I am concerned each person could differ in their opinion, but to me that was
comprehensive information.
JUDGE WILSON: Was that from Brigadier Stemmet?
COL LOOTS: That is correct, Chairperson.
JUDGE MALL: Anything else Andrew?
JUDGE WILSON: No.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, you are excused, thank you.
COL LOOTS: Thank you Chairperson.
WITNESS EXCUSED
ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 511 ADDRESS
General Ras is present here. However, the evidence that General Ras can give accords with the evidence
that Colonel Flip Loots has given now and will simply be the same evidence. I do not want to belabour the
Committee with hundreds of witnesses upon witnesses upon witnesses. I want to place on record that
General Ras is applying for amnesty and that in his amnesty application he will apply for this specific deed
and that he will, when he gives evidence, confirm the evidence that has been given now. I do not want to
call an unnecessary witness who will just confirm what has been placed in evidence before this Committee
now unless the Committee orders me to lead his evidence on the same issues.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr du Plessis, if he does not confirm it, it is not evidence.
ADV DU PLESSIS: I accept that it is not evidence before you, but the testimony which he can place
before the Committee is not really going to elaborate on the, on what we heard.
ADV DE JAGER: But if he can confirm it, let him confirm it.
ADV DU PLESSIS: As the Committee pleases. I will call him as a witness, Mr Chairman.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 512 GEN RAS
MARTHINUS DAWID RAS: (sworn states)
EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: May it please you. General Ras, you have heard the testimony
of Colonel Loots and also the testimony of Captain Hechter with regards to the instruction which was
issued by you to them. Do you confirm the correctness thereof?
GEN RAS: Yes, that is correct, Mr Chairperson.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well. Is there anything which you feel you would like to add with regard to this
testimony?
GEN RAS: Yes, there is. While Brigadier Jack Cronje was off sick in the last half of 1987 I was the
Acting Commanding Officer of the unit and it was my duty to have a crime conference every morning at
the Divisional Commissioner's office. At one of these crime conferences which I attended Colonel Kobus
Klopper, who was the Commanding Officer of the Investigative Unit in the Northern Transvaal, mentioned
to me that a policeman from Hammanskraal was an ANC agent and was active. According to Klopper he
was feeding sensitive information to the Zimbabwean Security Forces and this information led to the fact
that reporters and informants were exposed in Zimbabwe.
The discussion or the information which came from Koos Klopper ended there, but after the
meeting Brigadier Stemmet said to me that we, the Security Branch, were too soft on the enemy. He said
that we should put Hechter or van Vuuren on this job and also asked that I send Captain Loots to him. He
also said that such agents should be eliminated. The policemen he was referring to I did not know at all. I
never spoke to him or his Commanding Officers. Upon my return to the old Compol Building, where our
offices were situated, Captain Loots, who occupied the third floor of
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 513 GEN RAS
that building, I telephoned and asked him to come and see me and bring Hechter and van Vuuren with him
to my office.
They entered my office and while all three of them were present I said that Koos Klopper and
Brigadier Stemmet had information about an ANC agent that he wanted me to put Hechter and van Vuuren
on the job and that I should send Loots to him and Loots left for Brigadier Stemmet's office immediately. I
said to both Hechter and van Vuuren that things are getting bad because it seems as if it is an open secret
that they are being used for covert operations which entail violence. The discussion between Hechter, van
Vuuren and I did not last any longer than five minutes. They then left to their offices and I did not see
either of them or Loots that day, but the following morning, as usual, I got to the office between six and
quarter past six because I had to peruse information which had to come, which had come through and had
to be submitted to the crime conference and Colonel Koos Klopper also came to my office and from there
on it is exactly as Loots testified.
ADV DU PLESSIS: General, were you reported back to?
GEN RAS: Colonel Flip Loots came to me that morning while Colonel Koos Klopper was with me in my
office and Klopper asked him how far the investigation was, how far the matter had been taken and he said
the instruction has been executed, but the man's wife has also been slain.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE MALL: Mr Currin.
MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman. Do you know Colonel W P van Zyl who was at the SAP
Training College in Hammanskraal?
GEN RAS: I never met him, I do not know him at all.
MR CURRIN: Do you know Lieutenant-General Stevens from the
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 513 GEN RAS
Commissioner's office?
GEN RAS: B?
MR CURRIN: Pardon. J B, J B Stevens?
GEN RAS: No, I know the old General Stevens who was in charge of training, but I do not know this
gentleman.
MR CURRIN: I just put the question to you because at the time shortly before the killing of Sergeant
Motasi, there will be evidence that Sergeant Motasi's attorneys were in the process of negotiating and
holding constant discussions with the Office of the Commission of Police regarding his situation.
GEN RAS: It could have been General Stevens.
MR CURRIN: Okay, and you have no knowledge of that?
GEN RAS: No, not at all.
MR CURRIN: So, the first you heard about this particular incident was from Colonel Kobus Klopper?
GEN RAS: Yes, at the time where we were having a crime conference at the Commissioner's office.
MR CURRIN: And he was part of what division of the police?
GEN RAS: He was in charge of the entire Investigative Unit in the Northern Transvaal.
MR CURRIN: And where was he stationed?
GEN RAS: It was the central police complex in Pretoria on the corner of Bosman and Pretorius Streets.
MR CURRIN: That is not Wagthuis?
GEN RAS: No.
MR CURRIN: Not Wagthuis. Compol?
GEN RAS: No, the central police office. I think it is opposite the so-called HSRC.
MR CURRIN: Yes, I know where that is, and he was situated there at the time?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 514 GEN RAS
GEN RAS: That is correct.
MR CURRIN: So, you heard it from him and then subsequently you got the instruction from Brigadier
Stemmet?
GEN RAS: Yes, I saw that it was actually a double instruction. Firstly that I should assign Hechter and
van Vuuren with the task and secondly that I should send Loots to him.
MR CURRIN: Now, General Ras, at the time you were a relatively senior police officer?
GEN RAS: I cannot remember if I was a Lieutenant-Colonel or a full Colonel, but I was second-in-
command then.
MR CURRIN: Yes. I find it strange that you never contemplated other options in regard to Sergeant
Motasi?
GEN RAS: I did not know this Sergeant Motasi. His name was never mentioned to me. I only came to
hear afterwards that he was Sergeant Motasi.
MR CURRIN: So you did not ask who is this person that you want eliminated?
GEN RAS: The details were not readily available at the conference and I believe that is why it was asked
that Loots should go and see him and that is where he obtained the information, but it was not given to me
then.
MR CURRIN: What I find strange, though, is that a senior police officer, like you, would get information
about one of your colleagues, who is a policeman, it is hearsay, it has not been confirmed by anyone, it has
not been proved and you are quite happy to give an instruction to have him murdered
without considering other options, for example, the man could be brought in for questioning, charges could
be laid against him, he could be arrested, prosecuted. He is committing a very serious offence. Now, as a
senior police PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 515 GEN RAS
officer, I cannot understand why you did not consider those options.
GEN RAS: Let me explain it like this, Mr Chairperson. At the crime conferences many branches of the
police had sittings and also the information service of the Defence Force and also National Intelligence and
snippets of information would come to the Security Branch from time to time for investigation and that is
where we obtained pieces of information and we would give them to the Security Branch for further
attention. I was in charge of the administration in the office and I never did those investigations. They
were given to units to conduct.
ADV DE JAGER: The crime conference to which you refer is it the Sanhedrin to which you refer?
GEN RAS: No, every morning at quarter past seven we would have a meeting at the Divisional
Commissioners office where the previous days serious crimes, political unrest and also matters regarding
the Security Branch would be discussed. I believe that after that conference the Divisional Commissioner
attended the Sanhedrin. I am not sure how those things worked because we would discuss the information
at the crime conference and strategies would also be discussed as to how crime could be curtailed and how
unrest could be curtailed.
MR CURRIN: General Ras, what I am finding difficult to comprehend, we have heard and, in your own
mind, we know you seem to believe that Hechter and van Vuuren were killers in the sense that they had
this job to do and they went out and they committed murders. We have heard that. From what I
understand listening to you, you were not a killer?
GEN RAS: I was not involved in any incident.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 516 GEN RAS
MR CURRIN: Now, here we have a policeman, a senior police officer who is not a killer, who has not
been involved in running around assassinating people, eliminating people, but yet you get this information,
which is purely hearsay, and you are quite happy to give an instruction without any investigation
whatsoever to have one of your own colleagues eliminated. I find that difficult to understand.
GEN RAS: Mr Chairperson, once again, those were abnormal circumstances, it was abnormal information
which surfaced and amidst all the abnormality I believe that the actions were normal. If it was an agent and
I did not do the investigation, I was in no condition to do the investigation, I had my own work and
Brigadier Cronje's work to do, I had to attend meetings and there was no time for me to conduct such
investigations.
MR CURRIN: Is the tenure of your evidence that even although your whole training as a police officer,
which must have been extensive given your rank then and given your rank now, was that police are given
information, they follow it up, they investigate, people are then charged, they are taken to court and they
are prosecuted.
GEN RAS: It is normal procedure.
MR CURRIN: I understand that, but that is, was your involvement as a policeman, as I understand it. That
if in any situation at that stage, not even, forget, let us forget for a moment about Sergeant Motasi, but did
you, if you had been given that sort of information about anybody else, you would have been quite happy
to say, that is fine, eliminate.
GEN RAS: I would, but I, myself, believe that I would have made sure that it was an enemy to the State
and I would also have executed it.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MR CURRIN 517 GEN RAS
MR CURRIN: But you were a police officer, not a Judge and not an executioner?
GEN RAS: That is correct, but we were not living under normal circumstances, Mr Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CURRIN
JUDGE MALL: Andrew?
JUDGE WILSON: But you were a Colonel or Lieutenant-Colonel, it does not really matter at the time, in
charge of administration, you then get asked on a flimsy bit of information that is, you hear at a meeting, at
a conference to provide a hit squad to kill a man, no written instructions, no other information. How is it
that a policeman of your standing could act in this way, Colonel?
GEN RAS: Mr Chairperson, as I said, such snippets of information often came to the Security Branch and
I saw this in the same light. I did say to Hechter and van Vuuren that the Divisional Commissioner wants
this man eliminated, he wants you to do the job.
JUDGE WILSON: You said snippets of information came and they were passed on for investigation.
Here you did no investigation, you got this snippet of information, somebody says I want those people
taken out and you do it with no instructions in writing, none of the normal procedures. How can you do it?
GEN RAS: After it was given to them I never saw them again, Mr Chairperson. It was not discussed any
further. I believe that my action was also part of what they are now responsible for and what I am morally
obligated to take responsibility for.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, you gave the instructions to kill, we have been told. They say they got
instructions from two PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 517 GEN RAS
sources. So you are responsible for the death of this man and his wife.
GEN RAS: That is so, Chairperson, I am responsible because I said to them that there is a request from the
Divisional Commissioner that this man be killed and that they should do the job.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you, in fact, discuss this with Brigadier Stemmet?
GEN RAS: No, I did not.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, was it not ...(intervention)
GEN RAS: I only heard about this in November. I did not even know that I was involved.
JUDGE MGOEPE: No, I am sorry. You misunderstood. I mean at the time.
GEN RAS: No, no, after the meeting on the way out from the office.
JUDGE MGOEPE: What about that?
GEN RAS: When Brigadier Stemmet mentioned to me that I should send Loots to him and that I should
put Hechter and van Vuuren on the job the meeting was already drawing to a close and there was no longer
a discussion, it was whilst we were walking to the passage that it was mentioned to me.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And you in the absence of Brigadier Cronje, were you the Head of the Security
Section, Security Branch?
GEN RAS: Yes, I was the Commanding Officer of the Security
Branch, Northern Transvaal ... command, acting.
JUDGE MGOEPE: And Colonel Klopper was the Head of the CID.
GEN RAS: Correct.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, this information on which to go and act against the deceased comes from, not
the Security Branch, but somebody who is, in fact, not in the Security Branch, PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 518 GEN RAS
but who is the Head of the CID.
GEN RAS: Correct, yes.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did that not suggest to you that the Security Branch, themselves, should at least do
something and not just act on the strength of information coming from another section?
GEN RAS: Chairperson, now, with hindsight, that would have been the desirable option, but at the time
that is not the way it happened.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, given the nature and gravity of the implications of the instructions, well,
shouldn't you have?
GEN RAS: Chairperson, I have said that I should have done so, but there was not even an opportunity for
me to do any investigation.
JUDGE MGOEPE: As far as Security Branch Section is concerned, you had had no problems whatsoever
from this person?
GEN RAS: I had never heard about him before, of the deceased.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Is it not reasonable to expect that if he was a security risk or he was of interest to the
security, is it not reasonable to expect that, given your position where you were, either you or Brigadier
Cronje would have known about him?
GEN RAS: If he was such a big security risk and the
security police knew about him, I would have known about it too, but there were so many other security
services which also had contact with the Divisional Commissioner and Divisional Detective Branch that I
really could not tell you.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you have a file on him? I am referring PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 519 GEN RAS
to the security branch.
GEN RAS: A file on whom?
JUDGE MGOEPE: On the deceased.
GEN RAS: Not as far as I know.
JUDGE WILSON: Did you think of asking his Commanding Officer, of communicating with him?
GEN RAS: No, never thought of that.
JUDGE MGOEPE: The instructions, were they given on the one day and he was eliminated or you got a
report the very following day that he had already been killed?
GEN RAS: Correct.
JUDGE MALL: So that night he was killed.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you, when you gave instructions to Hechter and his colleagues, did you indicate to
them that the matter was urgent?
GEN RAS: No, no, I did not tell them that. I did not tell them it was that urgent or serious. I simply said
that the Divisional Commissioner said that he was an ANC agent and that he had to be eliminated. There
was no time frame laid down and I did not say how serious it was.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you think the matter was urgent?
GEN RAS: In my own mind, no.
JUDGE MGOEPE: So, why did you not say, well, let us look into it first?
GEN RAS: After Loots had been to the Commissioner I, since then, I have never seen him.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes, but you ...
GEN RAS: There was no time to have a joint conversation because I never saw the people again.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Why could there not have been time to discuss it if the matter was not urgent in your
view?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 520 GEN RAS
GEN RAS: Chairperson, I believe that if one could have foreseen events as we can now, as we now know
how they unfolded, we would have made time.
JUDGE MGOEPE: You did not feel the need to investigate, did you?
GEN RAS: I did not have the opportunity, Chairperson. I was doing the work of two people at the time.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Now, why do you say you did not have the opportunity to investigate?
GEN RAS: I was the officer dealing with staff matters when Brigadier Cronje left, I also took over his
activities.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Did you want to investigate it?
GEN RAS: No.
JUDGE MGOEPE: So, it is not a question of not having had the opportunity to investigate, it is simply
because you saw no need to investigate the truth of the allegations?
GEN RAS: No, because if I had to investigate all these snippets of information it would have occupied all
my time and I would never have been able to do my actual job.
JUDGE MGOEPE: I would have thought this was important because it was a question of, literally, life and
death with regard to a particular person.
GEN RAS: That is the way I understand it now.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Well, you may have seen it differently then. It was so even at that time that this was a
question of, literally, life and death. Your investigations might have thrown a different light altogether.
GEN RAS: It is possible. If I was the Investigating Officer or if I had the opportunity to do the
investigation, but I do not think there was the opportunity for me to do so.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE WILSON 520 GEN RAS
JUDGE WILSON: But the opportunity was only too easy. You simply did not give instructions to
Hechter and van Vuuren till you had done it. You had no trouble giving them instructions immediately, did
you?
GEN RAS: Chairperson, yes, that is so, but, once again, I received the instruction send this person and
give the job to these two people. I received instructions from a senior officer. I told them, called the two
people and told them what the story was. That is how it happened.
MS KHAMPEPE: In fact, Sir, you were not particularly eager to investigate the matter at all nor to find
out more about the details connecting Mr Motasi to the treacherous act which you were advised of by Mr
Klopper. When Mr Klopper approached you, you did not ask for more information, did you?
GEN RAS: Was that on the first or the second occasion or when he came to see me in my office?
MS KHAMPEPE: On the first occasion when you met at the crime prevention conference.
GEN RAS: No, it was not discussed any further at that stage because other, there were other people
present who did not need the information.
MS KHAMPEPE: But if you had wanted more information you could have been able to get in touch with
him to discuss the matter further?
GEN RAS: I believe I could, yes.
MS KHAMPEPE: And you were never given any timeframe within which to execute the operation, were
you, Sir?
GEN RAS: No.
MS KHAMPEPE: So when you say there was no time to conduct investigation to establish more details
about Mr Motasi,
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MS KHAMPEPE 521 GEN RAS
that is not, in fact, true. You could have made that kind of investigation to be conducted if you were eager
to have it conducted?
GEN RAS: That morning I spoke to Loots, van Vuuren and Hechter and I never saw them again until the
next morning. Then the murder had already been committed and at that stage it was too late to do any
further investigation to find out whether it would be justifiable or not.
ADV DE JAGER: General, did your unit in the police force at that stage, did you ever check the
investigations done by any other unit of the police force?
GEN RAS: No, that was not the case.
ADV DE JAGER: Well, how did it work at the time?
GEN RAS: At the crime conferences there were various branches, riot squad, uniformed branch, detective
branch and when information was given to the detectives or were meant for the detectives, perhaps,
sometimes it was transferred to them. Information was passed on that so and so was busy stealing cars or
so and so was busy with ANC activities and then channelled to the correct people.
ADV DE JAGER: You said that it was transferred and channelled to the relevant branch for further
investigation. Now, what would the Regional Commissioner, Divisional Commissioner, what did he tell
you? Did he tell you to investigate the matter or not?
GEN RAS: No, the only thing that he did say was that we were too soft on the enemy and that here was
this ANC agent, he had to be eliminated, put Hechter and van Vuuren on the job.
MS KHAMPEPE: Colonel Ras was it in fact precisely that statement that might have pushed you to act
the way in which PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
MS KHAMPEPE 522 GEN RAS
you did by not causing any investigation to be conducted because you would be considered too soft?
GEN RAS: That is possible, Chairperson.
JUDGE MALL: On serious matters, serious matters such as life and death ...
INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.
JUDGE MALL: On serious matters such as life and death, decision to eliminate people is taken as lightly
as you indicate. Is that so?
GEN RAS: It is shocking, Chairperson.
JUDGE MALL: And when it is reported that instead of just one person, two persons were killed, nobody
bats an eye, everybody takes it for granted.
GEN RAS: Correct, yes, but, once again, if the matter had been further investigated and been made public
then the activities of the people involved and the police force, in general, would have been discredited and
that would have been to the prejudice of the State, the State for whom we worked.
JUDGE WILSON: Did you make any enquiries as to how the wife came to be killed?
GEN RAS: No, I did not.
JUDGE WILSON: These were people under your command acting on your orders. They had committed a
killing that you had not ordered and you made no enquiries. That has got nothing to do with the interests of
the State. It is to cover up for yourself, is it not?
GEN RAS: That is true.
JUDGE MALL: Any re-examination.
RE-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, thank you, Mr Chairman. General, when Brigadier
Stemmet at the crime
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 523 GEN RAS
prevention conference told you that action had to be taken against this ANC agent did you assume that
Brigadier Stemmet's information which he had about this person and his ANC connections, did you accept
that it was correct?
GEN RAS: Yes, Brigadier Stemmet was a very serious person and at that stage he was entirely serious.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Was there any reason for you to doubt his instructions?
GEN RAS: No, there was no such reason.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Did you also accept that some other investigation by another department of the police
had, perhaps, already been done?
GEN RAS: Not only by the police, but there were also other intelligence units with which he had regular
contact.
ADV DU PLESSIS: So, would he perhaps have been able to obtain the information from these agencies?
GEN RAS: That is possible.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Could you be more specific?
GEN RAS: Military Intelligence, National Intelligence or the Intelligence Unit of the police itself which
did not form part of our unit.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Would it have been normal practice for you to launch your own investigation after
receiving such an instruction?
GEN RAS: No, it would not have been normal in all cases.
JUDGE WILSON: Can you talk about normal practice when we are talking about policeman murdering
people?
GEN RAS: Actually, no, Chairperson.
ADV DU PLESSIS: The evidence which you offered relating to the abnormal circumstances reigning at
the time, now what exactly do you mean by that, what abnormal circumstances PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 524 GEN RAS
were these?
GEN RAS: We were a limited number of people dealing with a lot of different matters. Black power
matters were dealt with by Loots, trade union matters, I think that was Hendrik Britz who dealt with those,
terrorist investigations by Hendrik Prinsloo. Then the white affairs investigated by yet another person. So
there was a small complement of staff and we were absolutely inundated by work. Our black staff
members found that their homes were attacked so they often had to stand guard at their homes so there
were not often, they did not often report for duty. So the couple of white people present at the office had to
do their own jobs as well so that most of them also had to work in Mamelodi and Attridgeville, etc, and
almost never went home to their own homes. What was further abnormal, Brigadier Jack Cronje was
absent as a result of ill health. So I had to take over his responsibilities as well and there was nobody to
appoint in my place.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Brigadier, and the situation in the country at the time, what was that like?
GEN RAS: There was total unrest.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Were there many instances of violence?
GEN RAS: Yes.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Can you remember any instances of necklace
murders?
GEN RAS: Yes, I cannot remember the specific incidents because it all happened quite a long time ago.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Can you remember incidents of violence perpetrated by the liberation movements
against the police?
GEN RAS: Yes, very few of our police vehicles had not been damaged in some way as a result of stone
throwing.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 524 GEN RAS
ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that an abnormal situation?
GEN RAS: It was an abnormal situation.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Would you have been able to receive instructions from Stemmet?
GEN RAS: He was in charge overall of Northern Transvaal police. Apart from the head office
component, Northern Transvaal also dealt with Britz and Bronkhorstspruit areas and all policemen attached
to the police stations and their respective branches fell under his command.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Why did Loots have to go and see Brigadier Stemmet?
GEN RAS: I am convinced that it was to obtain this information as a result of which Motasi was killed.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Was it to give an instruction to Flip Loots?
GEN RAS: That is what I believe.
ADV DU PLESSIS: Would that have been the final instruction relating to this operation?
GEN RAS: That is exactly so.
ADV DU PLESSIS: And what did you think at the time? Did you think action was being taken against an
enemy of the State?
GEN RAS: When ANC agent was mentioned I always regarded it as an enemy of the State.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV DU PLESSIS
JUDGE WILSON: There had been an enormous decrease in violent crimes in 1987, had there not?
GEN RAS: I did not ever see the relevant statistics.
JUDGE WILSON: Well, we have been told that there were 306 necklacings in 1986 and 16 in 1987.
Would you agree with that?
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
ADV DU PLESSIS 525 GEN RAS
GEN RAS: Yes, I would agree, but 16 is also still 16 too many.
JUDGE WILSON: But, I am disputing that there was this enormous pressure that you could not even
make enquiries into anything?
GEN RAS: Circumstances now are very different. At the time things were very, very different and quite
rough.
JUDGE WILSON: Thank you.
JUDGE MGOEPE: Colonel, I know we have not yet dealt with your personal application for amnesty, but,
in all fairness, I should perhaps ask you the instruction to Loots and others, this instruction given to them
on the strength of what Captain Klopper had told you, just a moment please, or did you give them
instructions based on the strength of what you had seen as an instruction from General Stemmet?
GEN RAS: Chairperson, the order which I gave to them was as a direct result of the order by Brigadier
Stemmet and the information from Colonel Klopper.
JUDGE MGOEPE: But if General Stemmet had not given you this instruction, as you had told us, would
you have given this instruction to Loots and Captain Hechter?
GEN RAS: I had known Brigadier Stemmet for a long time and although he was a very serious man, he
was also able to be quite humorous and he often said that the Security Police were too soft on the enemy
because he would often say to me what handkerchief are you carrying today. I often wore these khaki
handkerchiefs or carried it in my pocket. I was very, very conservative in that way. He sometimes also
said, look, if you cannot cope with the work, then tell me and I will give it to the uniformed branch. I saw
this as a sort of a mockery, as a way of teasing me.
PRETORIA HEARING AMNESTY/GAUTENG
JUDGE MGOEPE 526 GEN RAS
JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes, but the General had given you an instruction?
GEN RAS: Yes, he gave me the instruction put these two people on the job and send Loots to me.
JUDGE MGOEPE: That is what I mean. Thank you.
JUDGE MALL: Yes, thank you very much.
WITNESS EXCUSED
JUDGE MALL: Next witness?
MR CURRIN: Mr Chairman, I indicated earlier that we would want to call the grandmother or the mother
of Irene Motasi. As I have indicated she has been sitting here all day today and it has been a very, I know,
a traumatic experience for her and we would rather call her tomorrow morning than call her now, but if you
indicate that we must call her now, then we would want to just talk to her for five minutes and then we will
put her in the witness box, but we would rather she testifies tomorrow.
JUDGE MALL: Well, the Committee will adjourn now and resume at nine o' clock tomorrow morning.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
