JOE MAMASELA: (still under oath)

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ADV BOOYENS: (continued) Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Mamasela, my recollection is that you told us yesterday that you were uncertain whether the Head of Security of Port Elizabeth, was present the second and the third day. You said he was definitely present on the evening when you arrived there, do you recall that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I can (indistinct) that.

ADV BOOYENS: So you agree with me that you said that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: I just couldn't hear your answer Mr Mamasela, it was just unclear. Did you say you agree with that?

MR MAMASELA: I said yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Thanks. Would you mind turning to page 16 of volume 2 please, that is an excerpt from your Section 29 interrogation. Page 16, the thick letters page 16. Opposite marginal letter 35, you are questioned by Mr Potgieter - I am referring to the passage that says you said that in that brown vehicle there was the Head of Security Police in Port Elizabeth, at that stage it is Du Plessis, have you got that passage?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I've got that passage.

ADV DE JAGER: Sorry, Mr Booyens, you are now referring to volume 2, the extracts there on page 16?

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, I do. Yes, that is Herman du Plessis, yes, that is your answer. He was in the vehicle, and some other people is the question, you answer, and some other white policemen unknown to me, yes. Mr Potgieter, and that vehicle went with you so there were three vehicles that went to Cradock, Mr Mamasela, to Cradock. Mr Potgieter, so Du Plessis was present when the deceased were transported from Port Elizabeth to the old police station in Cradock and he saw that they were locked up in the garage and all of that.

Mr Mamasela, yes, he was part of the whole, the word was indistinct, that assaulted also the people. Adv Potgieter, was he present only on the occasion when you transported them to Cradock, answer, he was present on the first occasion, he was present also the Sunday when they, when Sipho Hashe was assaulted because he is the one who said no, he knows Sipho Hashe's sister very well, because Sipho Hashe said he hid the 17 AK's on the floor of the den room. He says there was a carpet, but it was a wooden floor.

The rest is not important. Opposite line 20, but the point was that Du Plessis was present on the first and second day, Mr Mamasela, yes, he was present and he was part of that group that was involved in the interrogation and assaults and so on, yes, he would come and go, and also go.

You have heard that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I've heard that very well.

ADV BOOYENS: Now, Mr Mamasela, yesterday you were uncertain whether he was there on the other days. Why did you give this evidence?

MR MAMASELA: Let me refer you to the same document that we are reading, page 9 of the same document.

ADV BOOYENS: Very well.

MR MAMASELA: Where I say we were called there and we were told by the Station Commander of Port Elizabeth, then Security Police, I think, I think it was Colonel Herman du Plessis, but I am not sure. It must be - what you have just read for this Commission now, must be taken into cognisance with what I said initially.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: I said I think it was him, but I am not sure.

ADV BOOYENS: No.

MR MAMASELA: This is what I said.

ADV BOOYENS: You are missing the whole point of the question. I think we did the exercise yesterday morning already where you conceded that you are not sure that the Head of the Security Police was Herman du Plessis.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: That is not the point of the question. The point of the question is that you yesterday said, I asked you whether the Head of the Security Police, and I didn't say Herman du Plessis, whether the Head of the Security Police was present on the second and third day and you said you were not certain.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: But according to what you answered to Adv Potgieter, not only couldn't you be uncertain, because in fact you say that the Head of the Security Police, which you think was Herman du Plessis, but obviously was somebody else, said that he knew the sister very well.

MR MAMASELA: No, I must have made a mistaken then, because the man who knew the sister well who was interrogating, was Lieutenant Niewoudt as I said it in my evidence in chief.

ADV BOOYENS: Oh, so you made a mistake in your answers under oath?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: In terms of Section 29?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, it is a mistake yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Oh, I see Mr Mamasela.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: I want to - oh yes, there is something else. You say - I want to just clear up what happened in Pretoria. Roelf Venter called you and Koole and Mogoai?

MR MAMASELA: That is correct.

ADV BOOYENS: Only the three of you?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is correct.

ADV BOOYENS: And he gave you the instructions about coming down to Port Elizabeth?

MR MAMASELA: I will not say it was instructions, he debriefed us, he was briefing us about what we are going to do there.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, briefing, instructions, it doesn't really matter, let's not play with words unnecessary.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And so Roelf Venter told you that there was some activists making trouble in the townships and so on, you must go and sort the thing out, it was rather urgent, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: That is correct.

ADV BOOYENS: And it was as a direct result of what Venter told you, that you came down to Port Elizabeth?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV BOOYENS: You don't know where Venter got his instructions from?

MR MAMASELA: No.

ADV BOOYENS: And he was the only one that briefed you about this beforehand?

MR MAMASELA: To a certain extent there was also Colonel Eugene de Kock. I think he came in at a later stage also.

ADV BOOYENS: But did De Kock have anything to do with the briefing?

MR MAMASELA: He also participated briefly.

ADV BOOYENS: But your briefing in fact was ...

MR MAMASELA: Mainly done by Colonel Venter.

ADV BOOYENS: It was Venter and not De Kock?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You are obviously fully aware that at the hearing you said that De Kock called you in, at the Section 29 hearing? You are obviously fully aware of that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I said De Kock was also in, but we were briefed by Venter. It was Venter and De Kock.

ADV BOOYENS: It wasn't the case of De Kock briefing you, Venter Koole and Mogoai? It was Venter briefing the three of you and De Kock was present?

MR MAMASELA: He was also there, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Turn to page 9, the first paragraph. Let's not waste time, read it for yourself.

MR MAMASELA: Must I start from the beginning?

ADV BOOYENS: Start with "and then".

MR MAMASELA: And then ...

ADV BOOYENS: No, you can just read it, it is not necessary to read it into the record, we've got it.

MR MAMASELA: Okay. Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You say it is no different from what you've told us before?

MR MAMASELA: No, in my opinion there is no difference.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, I thought you would say so.

MR MAMASELA: Because De Kock was then, I explained here, De Kock was then just about to take over Vlakplaas but the man who was doing the talking and all that, it was also De Kock and Venter, Venter is also here. I say myself and Koole and Piet Mogoai.

ADV BOOYENS: That is not really what is written here. What is written here is that De Kock briefed the four of you and he then told us that there was a big operation in Cape Town, in the Eastern Cape. They needed us to go and help. That was Venter, myself, Koole and Piet Mogoai.

But you say it is no different from what you said earlier on?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, no, they were talking but De Kock, like I say De Kock was just about to take over Vlakplaas and he also was telling us about these things, and Venter also was briefing us.

That is why we left with Venter, we did not leave with De Kock. We left with Venter, even at Port Elizabeth it was Venter playing the leading role all the time. De Kock was left at Vlakplaas.

ADV BOOYENS: The whites that went with you was that Beeslaar and Venter only?

MR MAMASELA: No, I think I've said it even Sergeant Coetzee was also there.

ADV BOOYENS: I see. I just want to return very briefly to your loyalties. I still can't make out exactly where your loyalties are situated Mr Mamasela.

You were forced into the Security Police, but did you - your loyalty always lay with the ANC, not so? If you were not forced into the Security Police, you would have stayed an ANC operative, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: That is correct.

ADV BOOYENS: And so all these years that you were connected to the Security Branch, if I talk about the Security Branch I talk broadly, I include Vlakplaas and the whole story in it, it was because of the duress exercised upon you? Is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Mainly, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: But your real heart, your real loyalty was towards the ANC and what they stood for?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is until the ANC killed my brother in 1981, June.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay, and did you then completely turn against them?

MR MAMASELA: The ANC?

ADV BOOYENS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I told myself, I was convinced I had nothing to do with both black and white politics, politicians to me they were the same. I was disillusioned.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, you were disillusioned?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Would you then say that you turned against the ANC then completely?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And were you then going to fight the ANC with everything to your ability?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, just fight the ANC not the innocent people in this country.

ADV BOOYENS: No, I am talking about the ANC.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: So, did you have a hatred for the ANC in those days?

MR MAMASELA: Not the ANC as an organisation, those who killed my brother, and those who hunted me down like an animal, those are the people that I hated because it was one of them who sold me out to this Boers on a silver platter, and now they are accusing me of being an enemy agent. So I hated them for that, not the ANC as an organisation per se.

ADV BOOYENS: But your, I am trying to make out, your loyalties are now completely with the Security Police?

MR MAMASELA: No, that is what you are saying.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay.

MR MAMASELA: You are putting those words into my mouth.

ADV BOOYENS: No, I am asking.

MR MAMASELA: I was never loyal to both this, the ANC and to the Security Forces, because I perceived myself at that stage as a victim of both the Security Forces and the ANC. So I thought the loyalties then lay within myself, I was loyal to myself and I was loyal to my own cause.

ADV BOOYENS: And what was that cause, your own cause?

MR MAMASELA: My own cause was to expose, if I get the opportunity, I must expose the (indistinct) nefarious nocturnal acts of both the ANC and the Nationalist Party, and I did precisely that.

That is where my loyalty lay and that is where my loyalty is still laying today.

ADV BOOYENS: And but you say you didn't want to have anything to do with the killing of innocents, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: I said what?

ADV BOOYENS: You didn't want to, you were not happy with the killing of innocent people, you had no fight with innocent people?

MR MAMASELA: I don't understand your question.

ADV BOOYENS: I think you said a while back, that you had a fight with some elements in the ANC, but you had no fight or quarrel with the innocent people?

MR MAMASELA: I said my hatred, not fight.

ADV BOOYENS: Hatred, okay.

MR MAMASELA: Yes. So we were talking about the hatred, I said I hated a pocket of those ANC people who had a hand in the killing of my own brother, and who had a hand in hunting me down like a wild animal, those are the people that I hated and I even elaborated that I did not hate the whole ANC as an organisation per se.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, in other words you didn't hate all the members of the ANC, is that really what you are saying?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV BOOYENS: Because you cannot hate an organisation, that is not ...

MR MAMASELA: No, you can hate the organisation. The Security Forces of which are your clients, they had a passion for hating the ANC.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay.

MR MAMASELA: And everything that the ANC stood for.

ADV BOOYENS: Very well, let's not play with words, the bottom line is you didn't hate everybody that was in the ANC, only certain people that belonged to the ANC?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay. Now through the years when you were involved in all these operations, there were a number of occasions Mr Mamasela, when you were involved in people being killed, not so?

MR MAMASELA: Absolutely correct.

ADV BOOYENS: People, did you regard them as innocent on some occasions?

MR MAMASELA: In most cases, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: In most cases?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, in most cases not some.

ADV BOOYENS: And for example, let's take Mr Griffiths Mxenge. Did you regard him as an innocent?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, very much innocent.

ADV BOOYENS: Very much innocent?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Griffiths Mxenge was an Attorney in Durban?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You people operated for quite a while in Durban before Mr Mxenge was killed, is that right? You were checking his house out, poisoning the dogs, we all remember the story not so?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And tell me, Mr Mamasela, if Mr Mxenge - if you regarded Mr Mxenge as an innocent person, why did you take part in his killing?

MR MAMASELA: If you remember the facts well, I was not in the initial group that went to Durban. I was fetched at a later stage to reinforce that group.

I was just a mere ascari, an ascari is a prisoner of war. I was just told to do things. Ascaris were expected to carry out those things, not to question them. If you question the instructions, you were killed. So I had no alternative but to do as I was told.

ADV BOOYENS: What I would like to know is, this man that regarded Mr Griffiths Mxenge as a complete innocent, the man is an Attorney, he is well known in Durban, why didn't you warn him that people are plotting to kill him?

MR MAMASELA: Oh, my God, there we go again. I couldn't warn Mr Mxenge, I didn't even know of his existence prior to my getting to Durban. I didn't even know him. I was just whisked to Durban, I was given the photo's, I was shown the photo's and said kill the man and then we killed him. There was nothing I could do.

ADV BOOYENS: No, it didn't work like that, you were also involved in poisoning his dogs which was done a few days before?

MR MAMASELA: It was done, the dogs were killed today, he was killed the following day, not a few days before as you put it.

ADV BOOYENS: You also attended the, as you testified, the meeting with Mr Taylor and Mr Van der Hoven so it was not a question of there was no time to do it, you could pick up a telephone and warn the man?

MR MAMASELA: A telephone where, from the police station?

ADV BOOYENS: In the big city of Durban there are no public telephones?

MR MAMASELA: No, no Mr Booyens, don't talk like a foreigner. You are a South African and a white South African for that matter, and you know for a fact that during those days black people were at the mercy of white people.

There was nothing I could do. Even the police standing order was clear, that the white member by virtue of his pigmentation, was my boss. I couldn't question his instructions.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, I am not interested in your political speeches, what I want to know is why didn't you pick up a public telephone and warn Griffiths Mxenge?

MR MAMASELA: We are talking on terms of a political commission here, of enquiry, so we are talking about black victims that were killed by the white oppressive system, so this is politics.

ADV BOOYENS: Why didn't you pick up a public telephone and warn Griffiths Mxenge?

MR MAMASELA: I didn't have time to do that, I was with other members of the Security Forces. They were the lap dogs of the Security Forces guarding us also because we were ascaris, we couldn't walk alone, even when we patrolled. We didn't patrol as ascaris, there was always two, three, four honest and loyal dedicated black policemen who were watching us, because the security system, the white Commanders did not even trust us as ascaris.

ADV BOOYENS: You were also involved in incidents that involved certain doctored hand grenades not so, in which some youths were killed?

MR MAMASELA: Oh, the rigged, the rigged hand grenades. You called them doctored, yes, I was involved there.

ADV BOOYENS: These youths, did you regard them as innocent young men?

MR MAMASELA: One hundred percent, extremely innocent.

ADV BOOYENS: Did you hand them the hand grenades yourself?

MR MAMASELA: I was ordered to hand them the hand grenades.

ADV BOOYENS: Were you alone?

MR MAMASELA: I was not alone.

ADV BOOYENS: Who was with you?

MR MAMASELA: I was with another ascari.

ADV BOOYENS: What is his name?

MR MAMASELA: Daniel Ngala.

ADV BOOYENS: But you traced these youths, not so, you knew who you had to hand the hand grenades to.

MR MAMASELA: I didn't trace them, we infiltrated them, we were ordered to infiltrate them, we were given a list of these people by the Springs Security Police.

ADV BOOYENS: But you infiltrated this group?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And it was - you had contact with them over a lengthy period to win their confidence?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: The whole purpose right from the word go, was that you were going to give them this rigged hand grenades, to use your word?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: That was the whole purpose of the infiltration?

MR MAMASELA: No, no.

ADV BOOYENS: Not?

MR MAMASELA: It did not start that way. We were ordered, we were instructed to infiltrate this people, to (indistinct) enough information as to which of the group was involved in attacking policemen's houses and stuff like that and we infiltrated them, after two weeks I wrote my SAP5 report, which is the investigation diary of the Police.

And then the Spring Security Forces were happy about that report. It is then that Brigadier Cronje said that he cannot take the decision my himself, because De Kock was supposed to take over. De Kock was in Durban, he was phoned. When De Kock came in, he said no, no, no, these people cannot be left alone. Let us make some history, something that had never happened in the world, let's give them military training and we must arm them with rigged hand grenades, so that they must blow themselves up.

He called that a one arm bandit operation.

MR NYOKA: Sorry Mr Chairman, I wish to be corrected if I am wrong. Are we about the historical background of Mr Mamasela or about the Pebco inquiry?

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, this witness have testified that he had a lot of sympathy. This is all about credibility, that he had a lot of sympathy with the innocent victims.

I would say with respect, I am not busy dealing with the details of those operations, one can supply a lot more detail. But surely his credibility in this whole matter goes right to the root of things because he seems to be claiming that he was running neither hot nor cold, but he had sympathy for the innocent. So I would submit that the question is relevant, the question I want to ask him, I am driving at, is relevant.

The question will be why didn't he warn these other innocent young people?

CHAIRPERSON: I appreciate the line of cross-examination, but it is just that I have a bit of problems about the way it is being done.

I am just worried that the way that it is being done, we may get bogged down in details of incidents and what worries even more is whether we are going to go through every detail that Mr Mamasela was involved in.

ADV BOOYENS: No, certainly not Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that the line of cross-examination is correct, but without sounding to prescriptive, I would have thought that one would ask him simply, well, you did give people some zero rated hand grenades, and why didn't you warn them if you were not that loyal, and that is it?

Maybe you know, we see things differently and then we approach them differently, but I accept that the line of cross-examination is right, I understand it, I have no problems with it.

But maybe if we could do it without getting into finer details of the incident.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, Mr Chairman. I agree with you, I am trying to keep this as short of possible, of course if one gets lengthy answers, it is not always easy.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, perhaps Mr Mamasela, you heard what Mr Booyens is saying. He is saying that if you could try to in your answer, to be brief and direct to the point it could help us finish your evidence very quickly.

MR MAMASELA: I appreciate that Mr Chairman, but it must be borne in mind that some of the questions is not easy for you to say yes or no, you have to elaborate so that the Commission could understand at what background did this thing take place.

But I will try to be short with my answers.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: Thank you Mr Chairman.

ADV SANDI: I am sorry Mr Booyens, maybe before you proceed. Just to ensure that we are all on the same page, concerning the question of sympathy, I think I understood him differently yesterday.

I didn't understand him to say that he had a lot of sympathy for all these victims, he specifically said as I remember he thinks his feeling at the stage he was taking some water and giving them to Mr Hashe, perhaps it was a combination of compassion and sympathy? That is the way I understood him, I don't think he explicitly said he had sympathy for these victims?

I stand to be corrected by the record any way, but that was my understanding of him.

ADV BOOYENS: Well, as far as the water was concerned, I think that was just done to revive him. It was the food perhaps that you are referring to sir. That he said that he wanted to take food to him, but that is not the point that we are dealing with this morning.

I am talking about the innocent victims that he said he had sympathy for them, this all started off on cross-examination about his loyalties and so on. He said he had sympathy for the innocent people in a nut shell.

ADV SANDI: Was that your evidence Mr Mamasela, did you have sympathy for the victims?

MR MAMASELA: I said I had sympathy for other innocent victims, that is why I compiled my dossier and my diary in 1985, and when the Police gave me a package, I compiled a dossier.

I am the whole policeman in the whole country who has a dossier that has even pictures of his victims. I am the only policeman that came out long before the inception of the Truth Commission in 1995, I came out in 1994 under the (indistinct) of Sergeant X, because these things were troubling me, that I was used to kill my own people.

I had sympathy for the innocent victims. I was driven by that sympathy to have come out.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I don't understand. Did you have sympathy already as at the time when you were killing them, or are you saying that subsequent to killing them, later, maybe years later, you regretted it and you felt bad about what you had done?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, Mr Chairman, when you are forced to do things against your own will, against your political conviction, you do them with some residue of resentment and that is what - precisely what happened to me because I started compiling my diary in 1985. I had no inkling of an image that one day there would be a black government, I had nothing.

I had no hope that one day I will be a free person, but I did write my diary which was accepted by the Supreme Court of Pretoria, and when I was given the package, I did not spend the money, squander the money for myself. I used the bulk of that money to investigate these people who are sitting here today as applicants of the Truth Commission.

I investigated them, and after investigating them, I went to, I went public with some of the information, and I went to the Attorney General. The Attorney General wanted to arrest them. They only ran to the TRC for protection, not to tell the truth. That is how I understand the situation.

That I had sympathy because I was forced to do these things I was doing, and my conscience was troubled, that is why even today I keep on having flashes of all these incidents that I was involved in. And that troubles me, and talking about these things and telling ...

CHAIRPERSON: I am going to stop you now.

MR MAMASELA: Okay, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And ask you this question, as I understand this is what Mr Booyens wants to know. Without going into every detail, well he may do so if he wishes if he feels there is point in it, why if you had sympathy, why did you then go along and do these things in particular, why did you not warn them, the victims?

MR MAMASELA: I think Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: The first leg of my question you probably answered earlier on to say that you did these things because you were ordered to do that.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But why did you not warn them?

MR MAMASELA: Let me answer this way Mr Chairman. It was not possible for me to could have warned each and every would be victim of the system without being caught in the act myself, and being killed and being sacrificed.

But I am on record, even the TRC is on record in the Johannesburg hearings, that one of the victims, Mr Scheepers Morudi said that his life was saved by Mamasela, when he was detained and he was tortured and he was left to die. I saved his life by recruiting him as an informer in (indistinct), I saved his life.

I saved about 50 COSAS students that I was given the poisoned vests to give them so that they could die. But I gave them, I switched them the COSAS vests in stead of the UDF vests that were poisoned, and I destroyed the poisoned ones.

I did try to save, salvage the lives of those that I could save, but unfortunately under those circumstances, I couldn't help them, all of them Mr Chairman. It was impossible.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, there we are Mr Booyens.

ADV BOOYENS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Mamasela, let us deal with your - we have to some extent dealt with it - but your joining and becoming first a police informer and then a Vlakplaas ascari.

At the stage when you agreed to become an informer, that was before you had problems with the ANC, not so or not?

MR MAMASELA: I don't understand that question, joining and becoming an informer, I don't understand it, it is complicated.

ADV BOOYENS: You told us that there was duress exercised upon you?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You were beaten up?

MR MAMASELA: I was assaulted by the Police yes, tortured, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And you then agreed to work with them?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: So that was before you had a problem with the ANC?

MR MAMASELA: No, the man - the reason I was sold out was precisely because I was sold out by internal Commander, Sipho Makopo. I even explained that he is the younger brother of Isaac Makopo who was then the Chief Representative of the ANC in Botswana. I explained it in the Commission.

ADV BOOYENS: So, are you saying that you thought you were sold out by the ANC, even before the Police arrested you that first time?

MR MAMASELA: I never thought, I knew I was sold out.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay. But, so by then you already were fed up with your so-called comrades in Botswana?

MR MAMASELA: I was fed up with Sipho Makopo for selling me out, being my Commander, I didn't expect it from him as a Commander to do that.

ADV BOOYENS: Fed up with an individual, not with the ANC?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Right. So the reason why you agreed to work with them, was because they assaulted and tortured you?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And that spectre of that torture, hung over you throughout your career in the Police Force?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: That was the duress that you were subjected to?

MR MAMASELA: I will never forget that. No victim can ever forget the torture that he has received from the Police. If you were black, you will understand what I mean.

ADV BOOYENS: So, that was the reason while throughout this period you stayed with the Police Force, the torture really?

MR MAMASELA: The torture and the constant fear of being killed by the Police if I don't work with them.

ADV BOOYENS: If you don't tow the line?

MR MAMASELA: Because this is what they said, yes, if I don't tow the line, they will kill me like they killed my uncle. They were boasting about it.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, I remember that you told that story that they said to you that they killed your uncle?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: But that I understand, you are not even certain that those were Security Police that tortured you, it could have been Murder and Robbery policemen?

MR MAMASELA: I was not certain, even until this day I don't know them, that is how they used to operate.

That is how we used to operate too.

ADV BOOYENS: So you were tortured by a group of policemen and you agreed to cooperate with them. Cooperate with them about what?

MR MAMASELA: About what they wanted, they wanted me to go and work with the Security Forces. I said okay, it is fine.

ADV BOOYENS: Work with the Security Forces doing what?

MR MAMASELA: No, they didn't specify. They said you must work with the Security Forces and you must inform against your comrades or whatever. I said anything that you want from me, it is fine, trying to salvage my life.

ADV BOOYENS: So you immediately agreed to work with them, but it was only after you returned from Botswana that you phoned Major Kruger and said to him, you will work with him?

MR MAMASELA: When I returned to?

ADV BOOYENS: From Botswana. When did you phone Kruger? Remember you phoned Kruger, the Kruger that visited you in jail, gave you his telephone number?

MR MAMASELA: Oh, yes, no, I remember that one.

ADV BOOYENS: Asked you whether you would cooperate with him?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You got out of the country, you got to Botswana?

MR MAMASELA: Yes. The reason why I got out of the country to Botswana was to go and inform the ANC that my internal Commander that they said I must work with, has already sold me out to the Police, what must I do.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, you informed your internal Commander that you were now going to work with the Police, but you conveyed - and he said to you that is fine, you can work with the Police?

MR MAMASELA: No, not my internal, my external Commander.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay.

MR MAMASELA: My internal Commander sold me out, I cannot go to him and say ...

ADV BOOYENS: Okay, the external Commander.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You told the external Commander you were now going to work with the Police and he was quite happy about that?

MR MAMASELA: No, I didn't say I was now going to work with the Police. I told him that Sipho Makopo sold me out, and the Police are forcing me to work with them, and they threatened that if I don't work with them, they are going to kill me.

Then he said no, no, comrade, we are going to train you in Intelligence so that at a later stage, after the training, you can go back to those people and work with them, so that we can syphon enough data for us, that was the agreement between me and my external Commander.

ADV BOOYENS: So your external Commander actually instructed you to become a double agent?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV BOOYENS: And then you had problems in Botswana with certain individuals in the ANC, not so?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, my external Commander had to leave, I don't know for whatever reason. Then the new Commanders came in, and I could not trust them with my life. I couldn't tell them about the agreement with the other Commander.

ADV BOOYENS: But here was a potential very, very valuable Intelligence agent who was going to infiltrate the very South African Security Police that you people had problems with and you couldn't tell your new Commanders about it, why not?

MR MAMASELA: No, you don't understand the structures of the African National Congress.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, you are right there.

MR MAMASELA: I am an ANC guy myself, I am trained by the ANC, I am a soldier of the ANC. Once the ANC suspects even for the slightest mistake, that you work, even if it can be a perception, you get killed in the ANC itself. It is my organisation, I know it and I respect them, they know that too.

So in the ANC you don't go about telling every new face about your life. We work on the need to know basis, there is a chain of command.

ADV BOOYENS: But Mr Mamasela, I still don't understand. Your Commander who has instructed you to become a double agent, and is going to arrange for you to go on an Intelligence course, leaves and somebody else takes over.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Now, logic tells me that you would immediately go and say so and so, I mean the man has just left, he is contactable, he is in the organisation that itself has a sophisticated Intelligence apparatus, go to my new Commander and say to him, look what is happening about this Intelligence course, I am suppose to go and infiltrate the South African Police Force as a double agent?

CHAIRPERSON: I think he has answered that question, he has told you that he didn't trust these new people.

ADV BOOYENS: The point is I would like to know why not Mr Chairman, that is what I want to know.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, he said immediately they would suspect and you would be killed.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: He has said that upon the slightest suspicion they will kill you, that is what he has just been saying Mr Booyens. You may not like his answer, but that is his answer.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Very well. You were not afraid of saying that to the first person, you didn't think he would have you killed?

MR MAMASELA: No, I was complaining to him. I did not say I am an informer already, I was complaining to him that the internal Commander that he sent me to work with, sold me out, so what must I do.

I wanted an alternative from him, what must I do, then he said, no, if they recruit you, then you must join them, and then we will give you Intelligence training, that is why they gave me Intelligence training in 1980. They did give me Intelligence training in the 1980's, it was specifically for that reason that I complained to them that these people are harassing me, they are recruiting me and they threatened that they killed my uncle, they will kill me if I don't work with them.

Knowing this fitted the way I knew them, I knew that they would do it, because they have already boasted about killing my uncle and he was dead, and I knew that they would kill me after that severe torture that I received from them.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, let us deal with something else, and that is the number of occasions that you have told lies about your activities.

Since 1985, you were compiling a so-called dossier against these policemen, and compiling a dossier of all the dirty deeds that happened, and so on, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: That is a lie, because first and foremost I did not compile a dossier in 1985, I compiled a diary and I only started to compile a dossier after receiving my package in April 1993.

ADV BOOYENS: Okay, but the diary, let's then put it correctly, you recorded the details of all the dirty deeds in the diary since 1985?

MR MAMASELA: I also wish to correct you, that is not true, not all of them, other wise it wouldn't be a diary, it will be a Bible. Only specific information was recorded there, that is how I even explained to Court in Pretoria.

ADV BOOYENS: Well, so you were selective about the information?

MR MAMASELA: Very much so. The things that I know, it was possible for me to forget the names, I will put into that diary, but the names of the people that I infiltrated and stayed with for two, three weeks, I couldn't forget them, so it was safe in my head.

So putting every individual's name in there, would have enhanced the risk of me being caught by these vicious policemen that I worked with, they would have killed me.

ADV BOOYENS: But Mr Mamasela, whether you put two or three names of victims in your diary of detail or what you did, or fifty, what difference would that have made?

MR MAMASELA: That would have done the world of difference.

ADV BOOYENS: About them killing you?

MR MAMASELA: No, about them killing me, because most of the cases that I was reporting about, are the cases that the very same clients of yours, briefed me about that I must go and work, it was the job that they gave me.

So putting an address or a little name there, I would have said, it is that time that you gave me the instruction to investigate that man, that I put the name here, I mustn't forget. I would have said that.

But if there is 50 or 60, then they would say no, no, something was fishy, they would kill me just like they killed Brian, he was compiling the same thing that I was compiling.

ADV BOOYENS: You say, which one of my clients gave you all that instructions?

MR MAMASELA: I said some of the clients that you are representing, the Police, you are representing the Police, I said some of them were giving me instructions.

You are representing the Police and as you stand there, I see a symbol of a police representative, not individuals.

ADV BOOYENS: No, I thought you were suggesting that - I actually don't represent the Police, I represent certain individuals. You are not suggesting that you received instructions from the individuals that I represent?

MR MAMASELA: Not individuals, those individuals were the Police, they were members of the Police. The very same unique click that went about killing people.

ADV BOOYENS: So you are actually talking about instructions that you received from people like De Kock and so on?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Oh, I understand.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, the Police.

CHAIRPERSON: In a view minutes' time I am going to insist that we come back to Pebco matters and stick to it.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman.

ADV BOOYENS: Since 1985 you were making notes in a diary, for what purpose?

MR MAMASELA: For the simple purpose of being loyal to myself like I told you. I wanted to compile those names so that one day when I die, when I die I had the duty to my family and to my children to emancipate their names, to exonerate them from all the dirty acts that I was involved in.

That my wife and my child one day could take all those pieces and say this is what my father did, he did those things under duress. He was tortured, he was whatever, he was threatened with death and this is why he did it. I did not do it for a specific reason because I did not know that one day I will be liberated as I am today.

ADV BOOYENS: Let's deal very briefly with those occasions that you told lies to various people.

There was what was called the McNally Commission that was established, do you remember that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: You told lies to that Commission?

MR MAMASELA: Some of your Police applicants told me to lie, like Herman du Plessis, Van Rensburg and others, they told me to lie and I lied.

Your clients told me to lie, and I lied.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, you also lied to the Harms Commission, you can just say yes ...

MR MAMASELA: Your clients again told me to lie, I lied.

ADV BOOYENS: You also as we dealt with yesterday, told lies to the IBI, Independent Board of Inquiry?

MR MAMASELA: Dirk Coetzee told them lies and then I merely confirmed what Dirk Coetzee said.

ADV BOOYENS: But Dirk Coetzee wasn't a policeman at that stage any more?

MR MAMASELA: He was a former policeman just like some of your clients are former policemen.

ADV BOOYENS: Are you seriously suggesting that just because a former policeman told you to lie, you lied Mr Mamasela?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I lied. It was a norm in the Police Force to tell black people to lie, and we had to lie. If you don't lie, you get killed.

ADV BOOYENS: But this IBI meeting was a meeting held after 1994?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Joe Mhlanhla was Deputy Chief of the National Intelligence Service, Dirk Coetzee had just returned from exile, you have retired from the Police Force, now can I just - you have just explained to me why against that background you still had to lie when Dirk Coetzee told you to lie?

MR MAMASELA: Let me tell you something. Dirk Coetzee came to me, pleading with me that the ANC is leaving him in the large because he went in exile for four years, he suffered under the yoke of the ANC and now that he is back, the ANC left him in the large because everybody in the ANC was now involved in the government structures.

He was the only one left at this time. I felt pitiful for the poor man, he wanted to go and earn a living, an honest living. Then he said I am going to Joe Mhlanhla that is a stumbling block, I am going to say he is an informer, can you collaborate that? I said no Dirk, because I also want to use the IBI to inform the President that I am ready to stand up to tell the truth, then we can go together.

When he was there, he talked his lies, his whatever, he talked to the people there. They asked my briefly as to whether I know about this, I said no, I think I know about incidents where Engelbrecht was working hand in hand with Joe Mhlanhla, but I don't know whether he was an informer or not.

And if that makes me a liar, I am proud to have been a liar, to have save Dirk Coetzee's plight.

ADV BOOYENS: My Lord, I am going to refer to - this appears at page 60 of that portion of the record you've got - I am sorry that is just the part of the trial in Durban. It is typed written 360, but it won't, I've only selected certain pages.

What appeared in the Durban trial about this, is that you were not really worried what harm you could do to Mr Mhlanhla by telling the story, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: No, not telling the story. I was not telling the story, I confirmed what Dirk Coetzee was saying. It is Dirk Coetzee who was telling the story, not Mamasela. Now you shifted the whole thing to Mamasela, because you wanted to get your clients free at all cost.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, the point is that if I tell a lie and you say yes, that is correct.

MR MAMASELA: I am a liar, and you are not a liar.

ADV BOOYENS: Then both of us are liars, not so?

MR MAMASELA: No, in that case it was Mamasela who was a liar, not Dirk Coetzee, in Durban.

ADV BOOYENS: No, I am not talking about Durban. I am talking about Joe Mhlanhla. You say Dirk Coetzee told the story that Joe Mhlanhla was an informer?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And you confirmed it?

MR MAMASELA: No, he told me to confirm it and then I said, I think I didn't confirm it fully, I said I think I saw him working with General Krappies Engelbrecht. I don't know whether he is an informer or not, because I could not prove it. If the IBS had proved it, I couldn't prove it.

I said I think so. Dirk Coetzee was the one making the allegation, I said I think so. I did not commit myself, and if that makes me a liar, then I am a proud liar then.

ADV BOOYENS: Because you see one of the questions they asked you and that is about page 60, line 26 about, My Lord, it didn't bother you to make a completely false allegation about a man that was completely innocent?

To save a friend's life I will do that, and that was in context of the story of Mhlanhla?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I said, like now, I am repeating. I said Dirk formulated these lies for himself. He is the founder, he is the architect of those lies, and then I said I think, I am not sure, but I think I saw him with General Engelbrecht, and indeed I did see Mhlanhla with General Engelbrecht.

If that is a lie, I don't know. But I did not know whether they were working together as informers, that is what I told the IBA. I didn't say Mhlanhla is an informer.

You changed the whole thing and you threw it back to me, and you said Mr Mamasela, you lied and you didn't say Dirk Coetzee was lying, and I was confined by the Judge who say Mr Mamasela, please confine yourself to yes or no.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, I think I am not going to go through the entire record here, but if one looks at what transpired at page 360, 361, 362 and 363 I think you went a lot further there than what you are prepared to go now, but let's leave that.

CHAIRPERSON: Before you leave it, where is that for what it is worth IBI thing, IBI document? Is there something on the IBI minutes, I know the accuracy of the minutes are being disputed by Mr Mamasela, but I just want to know whether there is reference to this?

ADV BOOYENS: Can my Attorney just look for it in the mean time Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: ... because yesterday the Commission indicated it wasn't too interested in it, because it was ... I can tell you off hand what it basically, there is a reference to the allegation by Mr Mamasela that mr Mhlanhla was a Police informer, but we will find it, it will be somewhere.

Be that as it may Mr Mamasela. Do you remember where we did an exercise in Durban where you identified a number of lies in that IBI document, and you didn't say those were lies told by Coetzee. You in fact said no, that was a lie, that was a lie, do you remember that? It appears from the record?

MR MAMASELA: No, I initially told you that that is Dirk Coetzee's statement and I merely confirmed some of the things. You are the one that gave me the document and said select what is lies and what is not lies, and I said - I didn't select it, I didn't point it out what I think was irrelevant and what I think was relevant. That is all I said.

But the dispute was, I even, it is on record in that court case that I said that this was Dirk Coetzee's story and I even said it was Dirk Coetzee talking, it was not a formal meeting, it was an informal sort of a meeting, that is what I said.

And you insisted that it was me who said that.

ADV BOOYENS: You also said in Durban that the things you sometimes said, contained exaggeration, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: I said the statement that (indistinct) said I must do the documentary, there are some little bit exaggerations there, because he wanted to captivate the minds of his audience, that is why he returned the initial visual material and he wanted us to make the new ones, that is what I said, yes.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes. Now, you also said in Durban that you've got no compunction about lying if you are not under oath, do you remember that?

MR MAMASELA: No, not compunction about lies. I didn't use that word.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, I am not suggesting I am using your exact words. Did you say that or didn't you?

MR MAMASELA: No, compunction I didn't use it.

ADV BOOYENS: I didn't say you used compunction.

MR MAMASELA: No, wait a minute. I said if you discuss, if you talk generally you are not under oath, you are discussing. It is human nature that sometimes we talk little lies. I even said that sometimes we will tell our own children little lies, to make them happy and if that makes me a liar, a compulsive liar, so be it. To me it is true, we all do it sometimes.

ADV BOOYENS: Page 352, the question was, line 24, so if you are not under oath, you would lie and your answer was I will lie, because I have nothing to lose.

MR MAMASELA: No, yes, but in that light I actually elaborated. I said, I even explained to the Court why I say so. I said normally when we just talk and there is nothing like taking an oath or a serious matter, we normally lie. You cannot tell me all your life, you never told a lie, because you whites believe white people don't lie, they only tell a white lie. White people don't steal, they only do white collar crime, and that is a myth, that is a lie.

ADV BOOYENS: In fact you went further, and you also said at page 352 that you also told, I was referring to Exhibit R which was this document, and you said that it contained half truths and half lies?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is propaganda.

ADV BOOYENS: I beg your pardon?

MR MAMASELA: That is propaganda, half truths, half lies, that is propaganda.

ADV BOOYENS: Very well, let's carry on. You also didn't quite trust this independent Board of Inquiry you told us yesterday?

MR MAMASELA: No definitely, it was an ANC selected committee to investigate violation of human rights and whilst, because I had already fallen favour with the ANC, I could not trust again their organ, but I could still use it if possible, to get protection from the government so that I could tell my truth, that is the purpose why I wanted to use it.

ADV BOOYENS: You said yesterday that the reason why Coetzee wanted you to tell a lie, was because Coetzee wanted the job of Commissioner of Police?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is what he told me. He was targeting that post.

ADV BOOYENS: So it wasn't, the intention wasn't that Coetzee could get Mhlanhla's job, not so?

MR MAMASELA: To the best of my knowledge, no. He even sent a telegram to Jacob Zuma asking him about that post. Jacob Zuma must use his muscle, so that Dirk Coetzee could get that high post.

ADV BOOYENS: I just want to read to you, My Lord, I am sorry, this is one of the pages which I see has not been duplicated from the original record. I will make it available, it is from page 379.

You said the following: Yes, so what you are saying is Coetzee, you won't have that Mamasela, I apologise, I've got the original record here.

MR MAMASELA: No, I didn't say I have it.

ADV BOOYENS: No, you haven't got page 379.

MR MAMASELA: No, I haven't got it.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, so what you are saying is Coetzee told you, accused 1, because remember Coetzee was accused 1, told you that Joe Mhlanhla hated him, you answer yes, My Lord. And that is why he couldn't get a job in the ANC, yes My Lord.

And you had to tell the ANC that Mhlanhla was actually an informer, your answer, yes, and that is why - yes, we just want the reason. No, that is true My Lord. Logically in other words, get Mhlanhla out of the way and Coetzee can get a job, that is what the accused said, that is a perception.

So the whole purpose was to get Mhlanhla out of the way, that Coetzee can get a job?

MR MAMASELA: No, like I am explaining here. Coetzee saw Mhlanhla as a stumbling block for him to get a Police job, a Commissioner of Police job, not Mhlanhla's job. Coetzee never underwent any Intelligence training to the best of my knowledge, he is just a bobby on the foot type of a policeman.

ADV BOOYENS: Let me just read to you one of the further questions. You never thought that it could prejudice Mhlanhla, now you tell me the whole idea was to get Mhlanhla out of the way? Your answer, not to prejudice, just to remove him so that Dirk Coetzee could get the job, not actually put him out of work. What did that answer mean?

MR MAMASELA: That confirms what I am telling you now.

ADV BOOYENS: That is at page 380 My Lord.

MR MAMASELA: Because you have a perception that Dirk Coetzee wanted Joe Mhlanhla out of his position so that Dirk could be the Chief of Intelligence and that confirms what I am telling you, that Dirk Coetzee saw Mhlanhla as a stumbling block for him to get a Commissioner's job, so he wanted to pave the way for himself so that he can get a job, by labelling Mhlanhla as an informer, because that will give the ANC a feeling that Mhlanhla is not good, then he can directly work with the ANC, through the ANC to get the job, because Mhlanhla was his immediate handler.

In the ANC, in the government we work according to the structures. If one structure is a stumbling block, the only way to remove it according to the ANC, is to make propaganda about him. You know, you label him an informer or anything, and then the other people will take you, and jump him and give you the particular job, that was Dirk Coetzee's strategy, it is not Mamasela's strategy.

I never looked for a job in the ANC government.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Booyens, we've got that evidence under oath. It was given under oath in a trial, it has been handed in except that page and you proposed to hand it in. Isn't that matters for argument? You have got two affidavits, or two sets of evidence that you could ... I don't think we will get any further by arguing it across the floor here.

ADV BOOYENS: If the Commission is happy to accept that this is a genuine excerpt of the evidence the witness has given in the Supreme Court in Durban, I can deal with the ...

ADV DE JAGER: Surely that can be certified or it could be put to the witness whether he agrees that this is a copy of the record?

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, let's just get one thing clear. You have been given some pages I think, have you got the document that starts at page 188?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: And it goes to the last of this, there are two of this, the last one will go to 412? There is a transcript of you and Pauw and then you've got up to, there are various pages, the last one is 412?

ADV DE JAGER: Not referring to Exhibit S.

ADV BOOYENS: I think the documents you've got, Exhibit R and Exhibit S are stapled together, Exhibit R at the back.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I can see it.

ADV BOOYENS: I couldn't hear you sorry.

MR MAMASELA: I said yes, I can see the statements.

ADV BOOYENS: Do you accept that this is an excerpt of the record of the evidence you gave in the Durban Supreme Court?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, but the contents here some of them must be clarified, like I am clarifying them with you now. Because in a court of law, you don't deal with things in detail like we are doing now. In a court of law they just say confine yourself to yes or no, yes or no.

I was oppressed.

ADV BOOYENS: I think we can argue that one as well Mr Mamasela, whether you were oppressed by the Presiding Judge not to speak.

MR MAMASELA: Yes. The court record speaks for themselves, because on several occasions he kept on saying Mr Mamasela, confine yourself to yes or no, confine yourself to yes or no.

ADV BOOYENS: Then, just broadly I want to put it to you Mr Mamasela that as you have exaggerated and lied on so many other occasions, you are exaggerating and lying once again about what happened at Post Chalmers. That is not what happened there.

MR MAMASELA: That is absolutely ridiculous and preposterous to say I have lied and exaggerated. I have told you that I have lied under duress, it is your clients, the Police who told me to lie. If I did not lie, they would kill me.

It was not out of my own volition to do that, so you cannot put the Police's blame back to me, I was their victim.

ADV BOOYENS: I have said to you yesterday that the reason for that is that you have got to make yourself a valuable witness to the Attorney General to stay out of jail?

MR MAMASELA: No, that is a lie, you talked about Section 204. You said I am lying so that I can get Section 205 in a court of law, and I told you that it is not so. You are en example, you can testify for me, you can be here for it.

I said in Durban the Judge said I must come back for Section 204, and I instructed my Attorney to tell him let justice take its course. If justice demands that Mamasela must go to jail for the rest of his life for Apartheid crimes against humanity, of which Mamasela was a victim of, I said so be it.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, that is not putting it exactly correct. What the Judge notified you of is that if the Court considers not to give you indemnity in Section 204, because it is not satisfied with your evidence, you've got an opportunity to place argument before the Court. The Court certainly didn't convey to you that you must come and beg for a 204, but in essence, the bottom line is, yes, that is true, you didn't get Section 204?

MR MAMASELA: And I didn't ask for it, I didn't beg for it. I said let's justice take its course and I am still waiting for the justice to take its course.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, today, as you sit there, do you think or where is your loyalty today? Are you loyal to the ANC, are you loyal to the government, what is the position?

MR MAMASELA: I have completely made up my mind in 1992 after the result of the so-called Harms Commission of Inquiry, that I am sick and tired of being loyal to man. I have decided to be loyal to the Almighty God, to give me a chance.

I am not loyal to any politician, let alone any human being. I am loyal to my God. That is where my loyalty lies at the moment.

ADV BOOYENS: And notwithstanding your Christianity, a few years later you were prepared to lie at the IBA?

MR MAMASELA: That was long before I became a Christian.

ADV BOOYENS: I thought you became a Christian in 1992?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: This IBI meeting, this Board meeting was when Joe Mhlanhla was already Chief of the National Intelligence, the Deputy Chief of the National Intelligence. Are you suggesting the National Party appointed Joe Mhlanhla as Deputy Chief of the National Intelligence Service?

MR MAMASELA: No. You are going back to the IBA now. I thought you are asking me about my loyalty now, where does it lie. Not yesterday, not when, but now. I am telling you now, my loyalty lies with my God. Now, you go back to the IBA.

ADV BOOYENS: No, Mr Mamasela, you are the one who told me how you became a Christian in 1992. I want to know how was it compatible with your Christian principles to lie to the Board, the IBI Board meeting after 1994?

MR MAMASELA: No.

ADV BOOYENS: Do you want to answer that?

MR MAMASELA: Let us not throw smoke screens around, and try to confuse the Commission. Your question was very clear, Mr Mamasela, now, where does your loyalty lie? Mr Mamasela took a stand and said my loyalty lies with my God. I was deceived, I was used like a condom and thrown out by both the white and black politicians, I don't owe them anything.

ADV BOOYENS: Do you understand my question Mr Mamasela, is that your answer to it?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV BOOYENS: If the Commission would just bear with me. Mr Mamasela, just one aspect. When you left the Police Force, you were given a golden handshake of some R400 000-00 is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: One hundred percent correct, R400 000-00 plus.

ADV BOOYENS: And that was a large amount of money, not so?

MR MAMASELA: Very huge amount of money.

ADV BOOYENS: Did you think you were being compensated for all the dirty deeds you did for the Apartheid government?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I think it was money to shut my big mouth up, I mustn't talk about those evil deeds.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Mamasela, just one further aspect, you have been holding forth a lot about how badly you feel about black people being oppressed and so on. In Jacques Pauw's latest book he quotes you what you say about the ANC. Where you speak and that is a verbal quotation where you use the most possibly insulting word about black people, a word that I myself shudder to use. What do you say, do you know what I am talking about?

MR MAMASELA: I have heard this comic of Jacques Pauw, I have read it. It is just a comic, nothing else.

ADV BOOYENS: That is the part appearing at page 180, just look there.

MR MAMASELA: You can quote, I know it by my head. I have read this book, I don't want to go back to it. Read yours.

ADV BOOYENS: Do you say that quote by Jacques Pauw is untrue?

MR MAMASELA: Read it for the Commission and for the people, then I will comment.

ADV BOOYENS: No.

MR MAMASELA: If you don't read it, how can I comment about it.

ADV BOOYENS: You've got the book in front of you.

MR MAMASELA: Why are you afraid to read your book.

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, very well, if the ...

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Booyens, the choice is yours, if you want to read the book, you can read the book. If you want to ask the witness to read the book, you can put the question to the witness and ask him to read the book if he has a copy.

ADV BOOYENS: You have a copy in front of you, that third paragraph, what are you quoted by Jacques Pauw as allegedly saying? Read it.

MR MAMASELA: Read it yourself.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mamasela, you've got a copy of the book.

MR MAMASELA: No, I have a copy.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you are a witness and the counsel is asking you to read that book. Just read it please so that we can make progress.

MR MAMASELA: Read it loud?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes please.

MR MAMASELA: Where he says I have spent many hours with Joe Mamasela, he is lying, he didn't spend many hours with me and never have I detected a shred of remorse for anything he has done. That is Jacques Pauw's feeling, I cannot answer for him on this point.

ADV BOOYENS: Read the paragraph.

MR MAMASELA: He spoke of ways of making money and will talk about the ANC as stupid kaffirs. This is what he says, who don't have a chance in hell of ever getting at him, that is pure rubbish and Jacques Pauw knows it. The reason why he is writing this is to try like you are trying to do now, to put a wedge between me and my people.

He is trying to do exactly that. And it was after I have testified in a court of law in Durban when I said he is just a cheap journalist, so he is hitting back at me by using again black people against me, and tomorrow as a white media he is going to write that when we start killing each other as black people, and saying it is black on black violence, it is typical of whites through unscrupulous people like Jacques Pauw.

ADV BOOYENS: So in essence your answer is you never said that to Jacques Pauw?

MR MAMASELA: That is rubbish, that is what I say.

ADV BOOYENS: Did you, just to clear up one further thing, did you ever go back to Post Chalmers to do pointings out?

MR MAMASELA: When?

ADV BOOYENS: To the place, that is the place where the people were killed, did you ever go back there?

MR MAMASELA: I went with the Special Investigation team of the Attorney General, that was the first and the last time I ever went there, I never went there again.

ADV BOOYENS: Can you remember when?

MR MAMASELA: I think it is probably on the 21st of the 10th month of 1995, if I am not mistaken.

ADV BOOYENS: Can you remember who you went with?

MR MAMASELA: I went with a guy called Warrant Officer Ellis and Captain, the one who wrote my statement, the one who said he is here, he is available.

ADV BOOYENS: I think you said you think it is De Lange.

MR MAMASELA: De Lange, you said he is available. I went with him and there was another Port Elizabeth chap who is now working, a Security chap, who is now working with the Attorney General, we were three. I don't know his name, but he is somewhere around, I saw him some time yesterday.

ADV BOOYENS: Thank you Mr Chairman, I've got no further questions.

NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV BOOYENS.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Du Plessis.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman and Mr Mamasela, just for the record, I appear in this matter on behalf of Warrant Officer Beeslaar, whose application is before this Committee. I have also appeared in a previous hearing on behalf of Colonel Roelf Venter and I also appear on behalf of Brigadier Jack Cronje who was the Commanding Officer at Vlakplaas when the Pebco 3 matter happened.

Mr Mamasela, where does your loyalty lie today? With whom?

MR MAMASELA: With my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And these people down there, are they your people?

MR MAMASELA: I don't own any human being.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking ...

MR MAMASELA: It is only God who owns us here, not me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You said just now your people, do you regard these people as your people?

MR MAMASELA: As my folks yes, like in your folks with AWB.

ADV DU PLESSIS: So these people are your people?

MR MAMASELA: They are my folks, they are black people.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And you think they like you?

MR MAMASELA: I don't think so, I know they like me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, you can hear they say yes, yes, yes.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, they can stand up, those who like Mamasela, stand up. They can stand up.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mamasela, you must not address yourself to the public.

MR MAMASELA: I am sorry Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I am the Chairman of these proceedings, if you have requests to make, if you want that exercise to be part of the proceedings, you must direct your request to the Chair and the Chair will deal with it and if necessary, ask the people to do that.

MR MAMASELA: Thanks Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Please don't do that.

MR MAMASELA: No, thanks Mr Chairman.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Now, Mr Mamasela, are you loyal to any political organisation today?

MR MAMASELA: I think we are repeating this thing as a broken gramophone record. I have told you I am not loyal to any politician black and white. They abused me, I am loyal to my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Are you loyal to South Africa?

MR MAMASELA: I am loyal to my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Are you loyal to the new South Africa?

MR MAMASELA: Loyal to my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, then I accept that you are not loyal to the new South Africa. Are you loyal to the open democracy that we have?

MR MAMASELA: I don't know what you mean by that, I am loyal to my God. I can abide by the rules of the government, I can abide by it, that doesn't make me loyal. I just abide by the rules, I've got to respect those rules.

But I am loyal, loyal is something more than abiding. Loyal, your loyalty is something very sacred, I am loyal to my God. I cannot be loyal to you or to any politician.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, let me ask you this. Are you in favour of an open democracy with an open constitution as we have in South Africa today?

MR MAMASELA: It depends on what you call open democracy.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, just answer my question. You know what South Africa is today, we have a constitution we're a democracy, are you in favour of that or not?

MR MAMASELA: No, let us not play with words. I don't want to commit myself with something I don't know. Democracy is just a wide word, it can mean a lot of things for a lot of people.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, I understand you correctly, you don't have any political views today, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: I don't have any political loyalty.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking you do you have any political views today or not, Mr Mamasela, yes or no?

MR MAMASELA: I don't care about politics any more.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right. So today you are not interested in politics?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: At the beginning you were interested in liberation politics, ANC politics, in 1977 is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that stems largely from my own personal experience as a black person in this country who was oppressed by the people answering to description.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, and then from 1981 to 1993, twelve years Mr Mamasela, you were part of the Security Police in South Africa, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: I was made part of, I was not part of, I was made part of against my will, against my political conviction.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, we will get to that.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: We will get to that.

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Against your political conviction?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: What was your political conviction then at that time?

MR MAMASELA: My political conviction at that time lay entirely with my organisation, the African National Congress.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Your organisation the African National Congress?

MR MAMASELA: My organisation full stop.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Is that still today your organisation?

MR MAMASELA: No, it is no longer my organisation because they sold me out on the Boers on a silver platter, and then they left me out to wallow in the filth of my own dung like a pig.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Mamasela, they sold you out before you became part of the Security Police. Was the ANC your organisation between 1981 and 1993?

MR MAMASELA: No, that is when they sold me out. They sold me out in 1979 in June. How can they be part of my organisation when they sold me out?

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, so you weren't part of the ANC, you weren't supportive of the ANC during that period, am I right?

MR MAMASELA: No, I was not.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You were not?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And then in 1993 you became a Christian?

MR MAMASELA: No, in 1992.

ADV DU PLESSIS: 1992?

MR MAMASELA: I became a born again Christian, not just a Christian.

ADV DU PLESSIS: A born again Christian?

MR MAMASELA: Born again, yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Before that you were not a Christian at all?

MR MAMASELA: I don't know what you are driving at, because I have been a Catholic when I was a small baby, up to the time that I realised what Catholism is all about.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Then you changed?

MR MAMASELA: Then I left Christianity because I knew this country of ours was taken through the Bible, the missionaries, they robbed us of our land through the Bible. They said we must close our eyes and pray and they robbed us blind.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Mamasela, we are not interested in political statements, I want to know from you, you were a Catholic and then you changed, is that right, then you were not a Christian any more, you didn't have any faith?

MR MAMASELA: This Commission is about politics.

ADV DU PLESSIS: No, no, Mr Mamasela, just answer my question.

MR MAMASELA: It is about gross human rights' abuses, about politics. Politics are part and parcel of this Commission.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Just answer my question Mr Mamasela, you were a Catholic and then you changed and you were no more a Catholic, is that correct?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And then you changed in 1992 and you became a Christian, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I became a born again.

ADV DU PLESSIS: A born again Christian?

MR MAMASELA: A born again Christian.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And first in the 1970's you were part of the ANC, then you changed and you became disillusioned with the ANC and you became part of the Security Police, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: No, I did not become part of the Security Police, I was coerced forcefully by the Security Police to be part of them.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I know you said that. And then in 1993, you came forward with your story?

MR MAMASELA: Which story?

ADV DU PLESSIS: You left the South African Police and when did you come forward, 1993, 1994, you came forward with your story, you went to the press, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: No, I came out with the truth, not my story.

Everything that I came out with, became true.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And why did you do that Mr Mamasela?

MR MAMASELA: I did it because I owed it to the victims, not the ANC, not the Nationalist Party, but the victims. I owe it to this people to tell the truth, and I am proud of what I have done.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, all right you waited from 1985 to 1994 to come out with that, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: There was no way I could have come out in 1985, because you know as a white person of this country, what would have happened to me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And as I understand you correctly now Mr Mamasela, you were disillusioned with the ANC during the time you were in the Security Police and then when did you change and become totally apolitical? When did that happen?

MR MAMASELA: That happened the very same time that the ANC sold me out on a silver platter and when I went to them to inform them they grabbed my brother and they murdered him in the most cruellest fashion. My brother is the first necklace victim of the African National Congress in 1981, in June in Botswana.

I had to identify his charred, semi-decomposed remains.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, we are not going into that detail Mr Mamasela.

MR MAMASELA: I am going into that because it is very important to me. You asked me what changed my mind, my heart, I am telling you what changed my heart, now you are saying you are not going there any more.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You've gone into that detail Mr Mamasela, please just answer my questions. I am asking you about the change of heart you are having throughout your whole life.

MR MAMASELA: I am telling you about the change, that is when the change came.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: So why do you say we can't go into that again?

ADV DU PLESSIS: And then suddenly you had this urge to come forward with everything that you wanted, when you saw that the political dispensation in this country was going to change, isn't that so?

MR MAMASELA: Don't put words into my mouth.

ADV DU PLESSIS: No, no, come explain that to us.

MR MAMASELA: No, wait a moment, let me explain. Don't try to throw smoke screens here and confuse the Commission.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Du Plessis, just repeat that question again, I didn't follow it.

ADV DU PLESSIS: As it pleases you Mr Chairman. Mr Mamasela, so you decided to come out with the truth in 1993, 1994 just when you saw that the political dispensation is going to change again, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: That is absolutely incorrect and stupid.

ADV DU PLESSIS: So why did you come out then?

MR MAMASELA: Let me tell you something. I started in 1985 with the process of self-cleansing, I started with that process in 1985, it is about almost 14 years ago because I started compiling a diary in 1985.

1985 there was no thinking whatsoever, even in your mind that South Africa will be run by a black government, that is when I started in earnest.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I think the question refers not so much to the compilation of the record of events, but to the disclosure.

MR MAMASELA: To the disclosures?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I compiled my diary in 1985 and when this flicker of hope started to come about, this is now Mandela being released from jail and whatever, my wish and my hope as a black person in this country, was enhanced, and when in 1993, when they gave me the package to leave the Police Force, I was blessed, I was happy because I had already embarked on a noble course that will expose this rot once and for all.

But the process started in 1985, not the way he says as if I was a political opportunist when the ANC comes into power, then I jumped up and said I want to tell the truth, no it is not the way he puts it.

It is not like the way he put it.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, must we accept that it is then simply coincidental that you came out with it just before the political dispensation changed, is that just coincidental?

MR MAMASELA: It is not coincidental, the process started in 1985 in earnest. It was completed in 1993 when I got my package from the Police.

ADV DU PLESSIS: But Mr Mamasela, the Harms Commission started to probe hit squads in 1990, there was the Goldstone Commission thereafter, there was plenty of time to come out with that at that time. You only came out just before you saw the political dispensation was going to change, Mr Mamasela, I am putting that to you.

MR MAMASELA: Your statement is laughable and ridiculous and it is something that you suck from your own thumb, because the truth of the matter is Brian Mlunga tried to come out taking advantage of the Harms Commission and what happened to him? He was my fellow witness, he was my fellow ascari, he was murdered just shortly after the Harms Commission, after he gave evidence there he was murdered by the same policemen.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You say he also compiled a dossier like you and he also wanted to discredit the South African Police, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Can I call you as a witness Mr Mamasela?

MR MAMASELA: Call me as a witness, I will refuse.

ADV DU PLESSIS: When we testify about Brian Mlunga before the TRC.

MR MAMASELA: I will refuse, if you call me as a witness I will refuse.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Why?

MR MAMASELA: I don't testify for policemen, for lawyers representing a corrupt and murderous policemen. I don't want to be part and parcel of you.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You only want to speak the truth Mr Mamasela, is that right.

MR MAMASELA: I don't want to be part and parcel of your entourage. You specialise in police cases. You never represent a single political black leader and (indistinct), always you, I know you Mr Du Plessis, you always represent policemen, corrupt policemen and you make money out of that.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mamasela, we do not allow that kind of language and I am going to ask you to withdraw that last sentence you made that Mr Du Plessis is an unscrupulous lawyer, will you please withdraw that.

MR MAMASELA: With due respect Mr Chairman, I am sorry, I was very much emotional because you can see he is provoking me, but I wish to withdraw that unconditionally.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Mamasela, you have just illustrated a point I am going to make which I will argue, and that is that out of your own self interest you will change your opinion every time, easily.

MR MAMASELA: Not out of my own interest, but I have been asked by the Chairman, and I respect him, it is not my opinion.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes.

MR MAMASELA: If he want to get my opinion, I wouldn't have changed that.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, I accept your apology. Mr Mamasela ...

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Du Plessis, could this be a convenient time to adjourn, you know we started nine o'clock, maybe we should adjourn now at quarter to eleven, until eleven o'clock.

COMMISSION ADJOURNS - ON RESUMPTION:

JOE MAMASELA: (still under oath)

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ADV DU PLESSIS: (continued) Mr Mamasela, how do you feel about Marques Skosana?

MR MAMASELA: Who is Marques Skosana?

ADV DU PLESSIS: You don't know who Marques Skosana is?

MR MAMASELA: And what is she to you?

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking how do you feel about Marques Skosana or don't you feel anything about her?

MR MAMASELA: No, you can't say how I feel about Marques Skosana out of the blue, who is Marques Skosana and what is her relationship to me in this case, at this Commission?

ADV DU PLESSIS: You know exactly who Marques Skosana is, why don't you tell the people down there, your people?

MR MAMASELA: What?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Who is Marques Skosana?

MR MAMASELA: I don't know, I don't know who is marques Skosana.

CHAIRPERSON: Tell him who she is.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, when you were involved in the zero hand grenade incident, do you remember that incident?

MR MAMASELA: I remember that incident very well.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And by the way let me very shortly tell your people down there, you haven't told them yet, and they probably don't know, that operation entailed that you went to certain activists, you gave them hand grenades, these activists, these hand grenades were booby trapped, they were to use the hand grenades against policemen's houses and all of them blew themselves up, except one who did not use his hand grenade. Not all of them were killed, but a lot of them were injured, some of them were killed, that is what you did Mr Mamasela, am I right?

MR MAMASELA: What does that have to do with Marques Skosana?

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking you.

MR MAMASELA: I am still waiting for Marques Skosana.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am coming to Marques Skosana.

MR MAMASELA: I have admitted to that a long time ago.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, do you agree with what I am saying, that is what you did, tell you people that that is what you did.

MR MAMASELA: Oh, shiver my timbers, goodness gracious me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: How many activists were you involved in that you gave booby trapped hand grenades who killed themselves in that incident?

MR MAMASELA: I did not count them.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: I did not count them.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but there were a few that were killed, is that not so?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, through the instructions of your applications, your clients.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, and for how long did you operate in that black area before the operation took place when you gathered information, for how long?

MR MAMASELA: Plus minus, two weeks.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Plus minus two weeks?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And which white policemen operated with you in that black area then?

MR MAMASELA: In that black area, there was no white policeman operating in that black area, sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Du Plessis, what is the relevance of this, what is the point that you are making?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, the point I am trying to make, I am coming to the question of him being forced to take certain actions, and I am coming to the point if you will just bear with me.

CHAIRPERSON: I am getting the impression that you are now dealing with that incident now?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, no, I am not going to go into the detail of that incident Mr Chairman, I promise you. Neither will I go into the detail of other incidents.

Mr Mamasela, so you operated alone in that township for two weeks?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, but every evening we had to go back to our white bosses to give them report backs.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And you had contact with all these major activists and ANC people in that area, isn't that so?

MR MAMASELA: Now, you are lying, the ANC was a banned organisation at that time.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but you had contact with people who were involved in liberation movements, who were involved, who were activists.

MR MAMASELA: They were not ANC, they were COSAS, they were students.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: We are talking about students here.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I am just trying to make the point you operated alone for two weeks, do you agree with me?

MR MAMASELA: Not alone, with other Security Forces and other ascaris.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Who were the other ascaris there?

MR MAMASELA: No, I told you Daniel Ngala was one of them, Thebigo, no, no.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You said just now Mr Mamasela, you operated alone for two weeks.

MR MAMASELA: No, you are lying.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You know as well as I do.

MR MAMASELA: How can I work alone infiltrating a massive organisation alone?

ADV SANDI: Sorry Mr Du Plessis, just for my clarity. Is it your contention that he was not coerced to be involved in that particular incident?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, my contention is that he freely and voluntarily operated in that, participated in that operation and I am coming to other operations as well in respect of which he freely and voluntarily participated. That is the point I am trying to make.

While we are dealing with that Mr Mamasela, let's deal with the KwaNdabele 9 matter.

MR MAMASELA: No, you are at Marques Skosana, now you are jumping to KwaNdabele 9, come to Marques Skosana, I am waiting.

ADV DU PLESSIS: We will come back to Marques Skosana.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, just tell the Commission that you had no facts about Marques Skosana.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right.

MR MAMASELA: You know nothing about Marques Skosana.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right.

MR MAMASELA: And let me tell you who this Marques Skosana ...

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, you know who the girl was who participated or who went with you when you gave the hand grenades to the activists, you know who she was?

MR MAMASELA: You see, I wanted you to come there because you know what you are saying is a blatant lie. And I am sorry to say it, because there was no girl that was operating with the Security Forces, we never operated with women other than ANC guerillas.

ADV DU PLESSIS: No, but Mr Mamasela, I never said she operated with the Security Forces, she went with you because she thought you were a revolutionary, she thought you were an activist. You were participating in this big plan.

MR MAMASELA: You are a liar. You are a liar. You are a blatant liar, there is nothing like that. We never went with Marques Skosana, I never even knew Marques Skosana unless other than what I have read in the press, other wise if I knew Marques Skosana I would have come out like I came out with 40 murders before this Commission and other Commissions, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mamasela, by the way, I say Mamasela but is it Mamasela or Mamasela?

MR MAMASELA: No, no, it is Mamasela, but normally it is Mamasela.

CHAIRPERSON: The correct way is Mamasela?

MR MAMASELA: The correct way is Mamasela.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, I am going to call it the correct way.

MR MAMASELA: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: You must guard against prefacing your answers, if you know what I mean, with some statements.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Like you are a liar, I have been waiting for that. You know, those sort of statements do not, they are not evidence at all and they do not assist us.

MR MAMASELA: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Just give you answers straight and say for example if the question is whether you had gone there with Marques Skosana you must say, no I did not go with her for instance, try to do that please.

MR MAMASELA: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And another thing is, we know, like I've said before, we know that we are dealing with incidents which when discussed or spoken about excite many people, and I think that you should try not to be unduly excited in your answers, you must exercise some restraint.

MR MAMASELA: I will try to contain myself Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: These are remote issues that we are dealing with here.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Now you see Mr Mamasela, except for Mr Sandi here, the two other members of this Committee has heard specific evidence in the amnesty applications of some of my clients in respect of the zero hand grenade incidents by one of the victims who testified specifically that Marques Skosana accompanied you when you gave the hand grenades to the youths and that eventually she was identified because these youths were blown up by the hand grenades, she was identified as being a police informer and she was necklaced by a crowd in a black area with a tyre and petrol poured over her and that was taken on video and that video was shown world wide.

Do you say that person lied before this Commission?

MR MAMASELA: That is absolutely untrue, to the best of my recollection we never operated with a single woman in that operation, and that is the truth.

ADV DU PLESSIS: So you deny that you had a relationship with Marques Skosana?

MR MAMASELA: What kind of relationship are you talking about now?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Any kind of relationship?

MR MAMASELA: No, I have told the Commission I had nothing, we had nothing to do with Marques Skosana. I've got witnesses who were with us there, Daniel Ngala was there, Thebigo was there, all of them ascaris. There was no Marques Skosana there.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And these people who were given the zero hand grenades, these booby trapped hand grenades, didn't you say to them before you gave them the hand grenades, listen don't use this hand grenade because you are going to be blown up?

MR MAMASELA: They were never trained by me, I was never, I never received explosive training from the African National Congress, I received Intelligence training, which had nothing to do wit hand grenades.

They were trained by, that is why Daniel Ngala was incorporated in my team, they were trained by Daniel Ngala, he is the one who gave them instructions.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, just listen to my question I am going to ask you the question again. When you gave the booby trapped hand grenades to these innocent young activists, to these innocent young activists, like the sons and daughters of your people who are sitting here, these booby trapped hand grenades, why didn't you warn these people and say to them, listen this thing is going to blow up in your face when you use it?

MR MAMASELA: Warning them, was a guarantee to my death at that stage, because there were other ascaris with me. There were other police operatives with me, I couldn't warn everybody, unfortunately. There are those that I warned, like Dr Ribeiro, I warned him, and he did not heed my warning, and he got killed. I've got evidence, I've got people in the ANC who can attest to this.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Did you warn Dr Ribeiro?

MR MAMASELA: I warned Dr Ribeiro, I warned the Commander of APLA, Tsoba, who was killed in Atteridgeville, and he never heeded my warnings, and they paid the ultimate penalty.

ADV DU PLESSIS: So you were involved in the planning of the Ribeiro incident?

MR MAMASELA: Obviously, yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: It is a fact, I was involved.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is why I warned him.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, thank you Mr Mamasela.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, thank you.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, the KwaNdabele 9 incident, do you remember that?

MR MAMASELA: Very well, vividly.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, let's tell your people down there quickly what happened there.

MR MAMASELA: My people had nothing to do with this.

CHAIRPERSON: Just a moment. What do you mean tell the people what happened, why should we tell this people about an incident which they are not involved?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I want to make the statement about the evidence that was led before yourself and Mr De Jager about that incident, so that I can set the factual basis to ask Mr Mamasela certain questions about that incident.

Maybe I should rephrase the question and do it differently.

CHAIRPERSON: I am just saying that we must not play to the audience.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, I am not trying to play to the audience Mr Chairman.

Mr Mamasela, in that incident you were sent to determine exactly which youths were willing to go outside the borders of the country to get military training, am I correct?

MR MAMASELA: You are not correct. You are not correct.

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, let me just carry on. Then you operated in Mamelodi and the surrounding areas and some youths volunteered to go for military training outside the borders of the country, to you, they volunteered to you?

MR MAMASELA: Are you no longer in KwaNdabele, are you now in Mamelodi?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mamelodi and KwaNdabele.

MR MAMASELA: Those are two separate incidents. If your clients misled you, then don't blame me, blame them.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Were you involved in the KwaNdabele 9 incident?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I was involved. And the KwaNdabele 9 has nothing to do with Mamelodi.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And did you operate alone when these youths contacted you to go outside the country to get military training?

MR MAMASELA: I was not alone, I was always with black policemen.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Who?

MR MAMASELA: Constable Mbata, he was an ascari like myself.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mbata, was he always with you?

MR MAMASELA: He was always with me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Because you see the evidence was led that you operated alone.

MR MAMASELA: That is false evidence.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. And Mr Mamasela, during that period when Mbata was with you, didn't you have a chance of leaving the country or disappearing?

MR MAMASELA: No, leaving the country to where?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Outside in exile.

MR MAMASELA: Where in exile?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Go to the ANC, you were forced now to be part of the Security Police?

MR MAMASELA: The ANC would kill me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Why?

MR MAMASELA: They killed my brother, the same way as they killed my brother they would kill me.

How can I go to the people who killed my brother and seek refuge from them?

ADV DU PLESSIS: All right, now explain to us how you were forced to stay in the Security Police, exactly how were you forced?

MR MAMASELA: Let me tell you something. The Security Police, they had their own devious ways of operating like all other Security Forces internationally.

We were not policemen, we were captured - we were captured and so-called turned ANC members and we were labelled because South Africa at that time was an Apartheid regime. There were no designatories of the Geneva protocol, they never recognised the prisoners of war as prisoners of war.

Then they called us ascaris, we were captured, I was a captured freedom fighter. So they had to make sure that I don't go back to the ANC, they used to call that the burning of the bridges. If they capture you, they use you as Mr X, Mr Y, Mr P in a political trial and they know that you send people, the ANC cadres to jail, your own Commanders to jail, they will smuggle letters and they will tell the ANC that you Mr X, Mr Y in jail.

In my case, Dirk Coetzee, on the 26th of November 1981 he took me to the ANC house in Botswana to conduct a raid. In that raid, whilst we were just about to shoot this women, he is the one who pushed me aside and emptied his automatic sub-machine gun on the walls and he left this woman to come Joyce (indistinct) to come and tell the story that they saw Mamasela and a white policeman attacking her.

So that is what I call the burning of the bridges. So Joyce survived and she told the ANC that Mamasela was here with the Boers to attack me. There was no way I could have gone back to the ANC, my bridges were burnt.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, I don't necessarily agree with you. I just want to put to you ...

MR MAMASELA: You don't have to agree with me, you have to listen to what I am telling you, because I was there, I am the wearer of the shoe, I know precisely where it pinches.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, if you will just answer my questions, we won't take so long.

What I want to put to you is you were involved in cross-border operations as well with Brigadier Jack Cronje?

MR MAMASELA: That is correct.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Do you agree?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I agree.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Zweli Nyanda?

MR MAMASELA: No, I was not in the murder of Zweli Nyanda.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Were you not in the matter of Zweli Nyanda?

MR MAMASELA: No, I was not in that one.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, did you receive any money after operations?

MR MAMASELA: Which operations are you talking about?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Any undercover operations as part of the Security Police?

MR MAMASELA: There was no guarantee that after every operation you receive money.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking you did you receive money after operations?

MR MAMASELA: No, some operations yes, some operations we received nothing. It was not a guaranteed thing that, a standing order, that you receive money for every operation, I would have been a multi-millionaire by now if that was the case.

ADV DU PLESSIS: But you admit that you in certain instances then, received money is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Like in Mxenge, after three months we were given R1 000-00 each and we never expected it, we were never promised money. We were never incited by money, we were never.

Your Commanders from time to time, they will decide whether they give us some incentives or not. It was not a standing order.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, you see on page 229 of Exhibit S, you testified before you do anything, the Police don't promise you money and you don't even know whether you do it for money, it is after the job is done, that sometimes you are given money.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, that is what I am saying.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Then you were asked, you knew there might be a chance of getting money, and you said yes, we knew.

MR MAMASELA: Yes, like I am saying now. It is precisely what I am saying, it confirms what I said. We did not know, sometimes we get, sometimes we did not get.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, I was informed that you could not wait after every operation, to get your money. Is that right?

MR MAMASELA: Oh, those who told you, they nicely informed you, and you are excelling with irrelevance.

ADV DU PLESSIS: What is further Mr Mamasela, in this book of Jacques Pauw, the book's name is Into the Heart of Darkness Confessions of Apartheid's Assassins, it is stated there that you testified every month I was earning between R30 000-00 and R40 000-00?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, from whom?

ADV DU PLESSIS: From the Security Police?

MR MAMASELA: That is a blatant lie, you must read well there.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes?

MR MAMASELA: Or you must go and ask Jacques Pauw.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Where did you get the money from?

MR MAMASELA: I invested the money, the package money I invested in the Sutherland Sugar Company, I was getting between R30 000-00 and R40 000-00 a month, that is what I sacrificed to be where I am today.

ADV DU PLESSIS: And Mr Mamasela, isn't it also true that you were paid money by the Security Police to keep your mouth shut?

MR MAMASELA: Which money, are you talking about the golden handshake? The golden package?

ADV DU PLESSIS: No, I am not talking of the golden handshake, I am talking of before that.

MR MAMASELA: Then you must specify which money we are talking about.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am asking if you were paid money to keep your mouth shut?

MR MAMASELA: No, except the golden handshake that I got.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You see Mr Mamasela, you did not stay in the Security Police for 12 years by force and involuntarily. Do you know why you stayed there, you stayed there for the money?

MR MAMASELA: That is a lie, it is not true. It cannot be true. I was earning at first R255-00 a month, can I stay in the Police Force for that peanuts, for that chicken feed?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, Mr Mamasela, you testified that you have now a loyalty to yourself?

MR MAMASELA: To my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, you testified to yourself?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, to myself and my God.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. And you have this moral obligation to disclose dastardly deeds of the ANC and the National Party?

MR MAMASELA: That is true.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Which dastardly deeds of the ANC did you disclose?

MR MAMASELA: The killing, the brutal killing of my brother whom I referred to as the first necklace victim, official necklace victim of the African National Congress. That is what I disclosed.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes. Now, Mr Mamasela, in this book of Jacques Pauw on page 179 it is stated there that you had to be paid excessive amounts to keep your mouth shut. You received amounts of R18 000-00, R23 000-00, R25 000-00, R27 000-00, he got a State vehicle, we had to pay his children's private school fees and install additional security at his house.

Do you deny that?

MR MAMASELA: No, let me tell you something. Like I have described Jacques Pauw here as a cheap sensationalist, even in the Durban court I have described him like that, he is trying to hit back at me, that is a blatant lie, he knows.

The money that I got there was R18 000-00 for the recovery of three AK47's in (indistinct) and the arrest of the people carrying it, that is R18 000-00.

That is the only true figure there, the rest, R25 000-00, R23 000-00, R27 000-00 is blatant lies. And then let's come back to the paying of the school fees of my children, that is a fact. During the Harms Commission of Inquiry my children received a threat that they were going to be kidnapped, I must tell the truth other wise they are going to kidnap my children, and the Police offered to take them to a place of safety.

At that time C-models were not in operation, they had to be taken to a private school and I did not have the capacity, nor the potential to can pay for their school fees and the Police opted to pay for the school fees for two years. A year later I received death threats from one of your so-called applicants there, Mr Herman du Plessis himself, who wanted to kill me when I demanded that school fees they promised me.

I have memos to that effect that I can give this Commission, original copies.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Mamasela, you have given a long answer. Page 330 of this book, footnote 7 and I haven't had a chance to check that, it states that this was - what I have put to you now about these amounts - was evidence in the case of the State versus Eugene de Kock?

MR MAMASELA: That is plain rubbish, we can go into those court records, you will hear I give the same explanation as I am giving this Commission. I've got nothing to hide. I cannot say I have got R400 million, and then I refuse to say I received R20 000-00 or R27 000-00 from the Police, that will be a foolhardy thing for me to do.

ADV DE JAGER: What is the reference?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, in this book it is referred to on page 179 and then page 330, footnote 7.

Now, Mr Chairman, I don't think it is necessary to do it here, but there is evidence that I can lead in respect of this, and in future, in future amnesty applications Mr Mamasela, be sure that I will bring you the evidence of people who will come and testify about this personally.

MR MAMASELA: I will appreciate it.

ADV DU PLESSIS: You see. Mr Mamasela, you also wanted to sell your story to Jacques Pauw for R100 000-00 is that correct? Do you deny that as well?

MR MAMASELA: It is laughable, I don't just deny it, I laugh at it. I just dismiss it with the contempt it deserves. Jacques Pauw is trying to get at me. He is trying to get at me and he is trying to divide me with the black community. It is typical strategy of divide and rule here.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Du Plessis, I don't want to curb your cross-examination, but reading from a book like Jacques Pauw's, it is denied. We can't use it as evidence against him, unless Jacques Pauw comes and give us the evidence, because Pauw's book is no evidence before us, so we are wasting time - unless you are going to call him.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, obviously I didn't know what this witness was going to say about that. If this witness was going to admit this, or admit part of it, it would have been evidence, so I am probing during the cross-examination, and if I get an admission, then obviously I can argue that it is evidence.

I am not presenting Jacques Pauw's book as evidence before this Committee Mr Chairman with respect.

Mr Mamasela, then my learned friend Mr Booyens asked you about all the different situations in which you lied under oath. I don't want to go through everything, let's sum it up quickly, you lied before the McNally Commission, is that right?

MR MAMASELA: I was told by your clients to lie. If I did not lie, they would have killed me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Du Plessis, just make the point you want to make, please let us not go back to those instances.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I am not going to go back to it, I am just summarising it Mr Chairman. It was the Harms Commission, the McNally Commission, the IBI Investigation, the Goldstone Commission, did you testify there?

MR MAMASELA: No, I did not.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Okay. And in the video of Jacques Pauw, that transcript that we have?

MR MAMASELA: I did not testify, I gave him the story.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, but did you speak the truth?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I spoke the truth.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, you see Mr Mamasela, and Mr Chairman, just for your benefit perhaps to find the specific places in the record of the Durban trial, Exhibit S, I am going to give the page references to you. It is page 194, 195. I don't want to refer you specifically necessarily to each page, Mr Chairman, it is going to take long - 194, 195, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 361, 364, 365, 366, 391, 394, 395. On all those pages you commented about giving of false evidence, exaggerating your evidence under oath, etc. Do you admit that you gave the evidence?

MR MAMASELA: Where?

ADV DU PLESSIS: In such a fashion, in this record or must I take you to each paragraph?

MR MAMASELA: I don't have the record with me.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Well, do you admit that you gave this evidence in this record?

MR MAMASELA: Of what?

ADV DU PLESSIS: This record is the Durban trial, the Mxenge trial?

MR MAMASELA: Yes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Do you admit that you gave the evidence that is transcribed there?

MR MAMASELA: Right, right.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, if you do that, and I state to you that on these pages you admitted that you gave false evidence or exaggerated your evidence under oath, do you admit that?

MR MAMASELA: Yes, I told the truth. I told the Commission the truth that I was forced to do so by the Police. If I did not do so, they would have killed me alive, just like they've killed Brian Mlunga and others.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Now, you see Mr Mamasela, what I tried to point out to the Committee now, is and that is what I am going to argue, that you are a