MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, the next witness will be Captain Hechter.
JACQUES HECHTER: (sworn states)
EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman, may I proceed?
Captain Hechter, for the purposes of this application and for your background and political motivation, you still believe in your previous evidence as in the previous hearings last week.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, do you have any independent recollection of this incident?
CAPT HECHTER: Unfortunately, no.
MR DU PLESSIS: Do you have any independent recollection of this person, May Ledwaba, whom Mr Goosen mentioned?
CAPT HECHTER: Unfortunately, no.
MR DU PLESSIS: And for the purposes of this amnesty application, do you stand by Mr Goosen's testimony?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR DU PLESSIS: Together with the testimony you're going to give now regarding broader aspects?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct.
MR DU PLESSIS: Is there any reason why you would doubt Mr Goosen's evidence regarding exactly what had happened that evening?
CAPT HECHTER: If I look at his statement and if I listen to his testimony, that coincides with my modus operandi of that time.
MR DU PLESSIS: And the application which you - sorry, Mr Chairman, that's page 62, bundle 1, I beg your pardon.
If you look at your application about the nature and details, was that information you took from Mr Goosen's application?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Captain Hechter, you are applying for a murder on Mr Ledwaba and attempted murder for other people being there and then also damage to property and arson, is that correct?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson.
MR DU PLESSIS: As well as offences regarding the Act on Weapons and Ammunition?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, various questions were posed this morning and amongst others directed at Mr Goosen, and just to clear up some of the aspects I want to ask you a few questions. These are aspects you've already testified about, but I think it's very important that we should make this clear for the purposes of these hearings. Can you for a start explain to the Committee why then in certain attacks petrol bombs were used and otherwise bombs with explosives.
CAPT HECHTER: Mr Chairman, that had to do with the seriousness of the offences by the activist. If the activist was very important and the offences serious, I would have decided to use explosives. The whole idea of the use of explosives and/or petrol was to intimidate these people because with their ways of intimidating of petrol and/or handgrenades, they intimidated the community and the only way was to fight them back in the same way.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, then certain questions were posed regarding the purpose of these operations such as. What did you want to achieve under these circumstances with such a bomb attack and those answers or part of those answers have already been provided in answers repeatedly during previous hearings, but I'm going to ask you to give us the general motivation which you and Brigadier Cronje and other applicants I represent regarding bomb attacks, to put it to the Committee because it provides answers to various questions posed here.
Mr Chairman, if I can just refer you to the place where this can be found, it is in Captain Hechter's original application, the first application, set of applications, page 229 - that is just one example, you will find it all over his first application, Schedule 17. Perhaps, if you would just give me a moment I may have some copies available. I'm sorry I don't have copies of that, Mr Chairman, I'm sorry.
Captain Hechter, will you just quickly read that, but not too quick so that the interpreters - or should I leave it, Mr Chairman?
MR MALAN: Speaking for myself, because I asked a number of the questions, so did Judge Pillay, I think we got the answers. I would rather us not waste time. If you want to submit anything to us that it's already on record, let's do so, but let's not read part of the record back into the record.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, the only reason why I wanted to deal with this - and perhaps I can give you an indication why I wanted to deal with it and you can give me an indication if it is necessary - there were certain questions asked about what effect this would have in respect of - by my learned friend, Mr Steenkamp, in respect of May Ledwaba, as he was living in this house and he kept on living in this house and nothing really changed and the fact of the matter is the one answer that didn't come out of Mr Goosen's evidence was the fact that this action - sorry, and Judge Wilson also asked the question; but in a day or two's time May Ledwaba could just have carried on with the operation that they were planning, so what effect would this have had, and the one answer that didn't come out, which is covered in this general motivation, is the fact that this bomb had a, to a large extent and similar operations, an intimidatory effect. That is the point I wanted to make.
If you're satisfied, then I'm not going to elaborate the point, but this kind of operation - and the evidence has been led over and over before, is that it had an intimidatory effect to the extent that it was very likely that May Ledwaba possibly got such a fright that he didn't carry on with the next operation, that the people living in the house with him would have been intimidate, people ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Or that he was so annoyed by this attack on his home that he made quite sure the operation the next day was successful.
MR DU PLESSIS: That could also have been the result. It's just about the motivation, Mr Chairman. The political ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: My problem is that there seems to have been no attempt made to stop him.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well we don't know, Mr Chairman, Captain Hechter doesn't remember anything about that, but that's just the reason why I wanted to present that evidence.
And then the second point which we dealt with in this motivation was the fact that from the black community's point of view the people would know that this was intimidation, from the white voter's point of view - Mr Malan made that point, the white voters would think that's it's another person who was incompetent and who blew himself up with a bomb. And that's just the motivation. If you accept it the way I put it now without the evidence, then I'm not going to let Captain Hechter repeat it. I'm in your hands, Mr Chairman.
MR MALAN: I would like - maybe I can clear this up with a question to Captain Hechter, and this is really, we understand the intimidation argument, we know that is so, but that intimidation argument is more against the general population than it is to the specific activist. I mean surely - Captain Hechter, if I can put this question to you - I'm sorry for jumping from Afrikaans to English.
CAPT HECHTER: No, that is totally acceptable, Chairperson.
MR MALAN: Let me pose the question to you directly. You've said that the decision whether it should be a petrol bomb or a mellow-yellow explosive bomb has to do with the degree of the offences of the activist - I'm paraphrasing, but that was your comment.
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR MALAN: In other words this "fire with fire" was a punishment and the people around this individual are intimidated because he did not have this appeal to all the people around him?
CAPT HECHTER: That's positive yes, Chairperson.
MR DU PLESSIS: But this was not geared at the activist himself.
CAPT HECHTER: They knew that if tonight they would attack a police residence, then the next evening or as soon as possible after he had been identified by the informers, as soon as possible afterwards we would attack him. They knew if he bombed a policeman's house the one evening the chances were good that my house will be bombed tonight, or we accepted that they knew that. Only they - the non-comrades, they were the only people who attacked the non-comrades. So if they were attacked, who could it have been, only the Security Police. The comrades knew that was the Security Police. Nobody else outside knew, but they knew we would attack them.
MR MALAN: Thank you.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, then a few other aspects. The question was posed why Goosen was involved in this operation, can you shed some light on this?
CAPT HECHTER: It's difficult for me to say now or to give certain answers, but I assume that because of the fact that Brigadier Cronje had already sent him out on operations with me, that's why I asked him to accompany me. I suppose that's a logical conclusion, I can't swear on to that though.
MR DU PLESSIS: He gave evidence that he did not have a specific instruction to execute a specific deed. Were there other operations where people accompanied you and did not have a specific role to play?
CAPT HECHTER: It could have perhaps been that he went along to look after the car, but I can't say. Usually, in most cases it me and Sergeant Goosen. He carried the weapon and I carried the explosives and then we left somebody at the car. I can't remember whether Eric was left behind at the vehicle at that stage or whether I invited him to go with. If he said I've asked him to come with, I'll accept that, if he said he did not want to look after the car, I would also accept that. I can't remember at all why he was taken along, but the way in which he described the mellow-yellow and the registration plates, that was my usual modus operandi.
MR DU PLESSIS: But from the need-to-know principle, based on that you would not have told Goosen everything, you would only have told him that which was necessary for him to know?
CAPT HECHTER: He said he did not know. I accept that we had to have a little discussion about this, that for example we were going to attack May Ledwaba's house tonight because he was going to attack police. It was just an overall information session, I would not give him detailed information, it was not necessary for him to know that.
MR DU PLESSIS: And this incident, would you have reported this to Brigadier Cronje?
CAPT HECHTER: Definitely, yes, because explosives were used, it was a serious matter. The normal procedure which was followed was that every morning at the Security Branch we held a meeting, all the officers got together in the Brigadier's office.
After everybody had discussed the previous day's affairs, the other officers would leave and I would remain behind because not all officers were involved in our operations. Then those officers left, Cronje and I myself were in the office and we discussed the previous night/night's operations. If he had any further instructions he would have given it them.
If during the course of the day there was something I wanted to discuss with him I would go back to him, but every morning after a previous night's operation he was fully informed.
MR DU PLESSIS: You've testified earlier and last week also that with these types of activities it was possible that innocent people could be injured, is that correct?
CAPT HECHTER: We foresaw that.
MR DU PLESSIS: And your action, did you ever see that as an action against innocent people?
CAPT HECHTER: No, it had to do with a specific activist and also the political dispensation of the day, with special regard to UDF or ANC.
MR DU PLESSIS: Let us take this incident, we accept that May Ledwaba and Mr Selepe who were injured, were not involved in the liberation struggle at all, they were innocent and your purpose was actually to do something to May Ledwaba, but you were unsuccessful, against whom was this incident aimed, regarding your evidence regarding intimidation?
CAPT HECHTER: This intimidation effect would have had a very big effect on May Ledwaba, because his family would have told him: "You see it's because you're fighting against the Boers that they are attacking us". It would have had an intimidatory effect.
MR DU PLESSIS: And I wanted to ask you, was this action, in a broader aspect, against the liberation struggle?
CAPT HECHTER: Yes, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: The question was posed whether May Ledwaba was not kidnapped and for example, taken to Pienaarsrivier and eliminated there or somewhere in Boputhatswana. Why in certain instances did it happen like that and in other instances you used petrol bombs or bombs with explosions?
CAPT HECHTER: There's a twofold answer to this question, Mr Chairman, firstly, there was this big intimidation effort or this intimidation onslaught was not applied, but many of these youths, when you tried to catch them they just disappeared from the community. That would not have had an intimidatory effect. It's not so easy to remove a person from the community without the other people noticing that, it's not easy to so-called "steal a person".
MR DU PLESSIS: If I understand you correctly, are you saying that in certain instances the only possible activity was the type of activity or action which took place here, for example, throwing a bomb?
CAPT HECHTER: I accept that why we did that, why we threw a bomb was the only reasonable activity at that stage.
MR DU PLESSIS: And it's has also been evidenced ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: But surely other people would have discovered that you had thrown a bomb?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, that is correct, that is correct, but those people would know that it was us, it is the Security Police that threw it and they would have thought twice before they accompanied May Ledwaba in further actions.
CHAIRPERSON: And if you took May Ledwaba away and he disappeared, they would know it was the Security Police and they would think twice before they did similar things.
CAPT HECHTER: Not necessarily, Mr Chairman, because they came and they went, these comrades. Most of the times the people, the parents did not even know where their children were.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, you also testified ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Captain Hechter, we have heard - as I understand it, that this man was on bail, he was reporting to a police station daily.
CAPT HECHTER: This is what I could gather from the evidence. I can't dispute that, or I can't agree with that. In other words, this person had already been arrested, what's the use to arrest him again, you'd just make him a hero, a further hero ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: To take him away and eliminate him was what you said or suggest ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, but it was not so easy to steal him because he's already out on bail. I don't know. Wouldn't the fingers have been pointing to the police and say: "Yes you stole him ..." ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: He's out on bail, he has to report to a police station daily and he has to live at his home.
CAPT HECHTER: That's correct.
CHAIRPERSON: You'd have no problem finding him.
CAPT HECHTER: No, we could find him, Chairperson, but how do we steal him? He had to accompany Mamasela voluntarily and I had to take him or arrest him with violence and I can't do that at the police station. You must remember the uniformed members didn't know about our operations.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter ...(intervention)
JUDGE PILLAY: If the reason was to prevent that this plan to attack policemen's houses, why couldn't you arrest him?
CAPT HECHTER: Mr Chairman, these comrades operated from their cells, it not help to just take a person away, all his colleagues or comrades were already in place to do certain actions and if you take him away they would just continue. If you arrested him legally, they would just have continued, but now if you threw a bomb his other comrades knew; be careful, the Boers know about our plan, aren't they going to throw bombs at us? - again the intimidatory effect.
JUDGE PILLAY: Captain Hechter, we all know, we all knew in the past that it did not work, it just made things worse.
CAPT HECHTER: No, Mr Chairman, it did work, it prevented many people from doing things.
JUDGE PILLAY: Then Pretoria is the only place where that worked.
CAPT HECHTER: Then it worked here.
MR DU PLESSIS: Captain Hechter, is it so that the unrest related incidents in Pretoria, to a greater degree, were fewer than other regions?
CAPT HECHTER: According to statistics available at that stage, I don't know whether they're still available, that was the case yes, we had great success with our actions. We kept them so busy that they were running all the time, they had no time to execute operations.
MR DU PLESSIS: And can I ask you the following, the level of risk for you, there was always the risk that you would be caught by the police or the army patrolling that area. That level of risk between kidnapping somebody from an area and eliminating him and throwing a bomb, can you explain?
CAPT HECHTER: With special reference to May Ledwaba, he would not have accompanied Joe Mamasela easily. If Joe Mamasela said: "Come with me, I want to discuss something with you", he wouldn't have done that. The chances were not good that he would have accompanied him. And to go and steal him in a black township was not an acceptable risk.
MR DU PLESSIS: Do you say the risk was higher in such a case?
CAPT HECHTER: It was much higher to do that than just to throw a bomb.
MR DU PLESSIS: But there were instances where you did kidnap people?
CAPT HECHTER: That's correct, Chairperson.
MR MALAN: I'm sorry to interrupt, I don't know whether my notes are wrong but right in the beginning you said
"Captain Hechter, do you remember this incident?"
And you said:
"No"
And according to my notes you were asked :
"Can you remember the name May Ledwaba?"
And you said:
"No"
And now you are telling us how well you knew May Ledwaba and how he would act.
CAPT HECHTER: No, I've been listening all morning and I'm referring to modus operandi, how we operated up to that stage and further. That was my general modus operandi, that's how I reacted to certain instances.
MR MALAN: But then you have to chose your words better because I've heard you say
"No, Mr Chairman, May Ledwaba would not accompany Mamasela."
CAPT HECHTER: He was a well-known activist who has already been in detention or he was in detention. He is a person - I think Mr Steenkamp said he was out on bail, so you had to be very careful ...(intervention)
MR MALAN: Don't you want to ...(intervention)
CAPT HECHTER: Excuse me, then I must ...(intervention)
MR MALAN: Otherwise I will now find you guilty of a something you're not guilty of
CAPT HECHTER: I'm sorry, Mr Chairman, I shouldn't be mentioning names here. In similar incidents, that is how I would have acted and also how I did act. You stole somebody, you arrested somebody where it was possible and where the risk was small. And other instances where the risk was big and you wanted an effect of intimidation, we did not know at that stage how many people would be involved in this action against the police, what is the easiest, throw a bomb at one of their houses, that would be the easiest; "they knew about us, they bombed this person, wouldn't they bomb my house the next evening?"
MR DU PLESSIS: And then Captain Hechter, what you've just testified about May Ledwaba was based on what you've heard during these hearings?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: And then lastly, Captain Hechter, I just want to refer you to the last part of your first application which you've already testified about, because are other incriminated people. I just want to read it to you as a last question. In a previous hearing you testified as follows
"I firmly believed that what I did was to the advantage of the Republic of South Africa, its people, my religion and also my religious convictions.
Today I am uncertain of where I stand and how I've landed in this position in which I am finding myself today. I feel very unhappy and I'm sorry about the loss which family members of the victims suffered and also the loss of life.
I hope that this disclosure of mine would lead to a better understanding, reconciliation for all the people of our country. It is not for me to decide who was right and who was wrong. I am a resident of this country and I feel that the full truth should be disclosed. This can be applied to policemen and also liberation fighters."
MR DU PLESSIS: Do you still agree with that?
CAPT HECHTER: I still agree with that.
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS
MR ALBERTS: I don't have any questions either, thank you, Mr Chairman.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR ALBERTS
MR ROSSOUW: I don't have any questions, Mr Chairman.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR ROSSOUW
ADV STEENKAMP: No questions, thank you, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: No?
ADV STEENKAMP: I have no questions.
MR MALAN: Captain Hechter, the name Squish or Squash, that doesn't ring a bell?
CAPT HECHTER: Unfortunately not, Chairperson. I did look and I did think, but unfortunately at this stage, no.
MR MALAN: You also don't remember anything about a necklace, a chairman of a street committee's court or whatever, who was released on bail?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, we had so many similar cases that we saw and worked with that I cannot remember specific cases.
MR MALAN: Thank you.
JUDGE PILLAY: Captain Hechter, you say you acted as a Christian person, please explain.
CAPT HECHTER: Can you please repeat, Chairperson.
JUDGE PILLAY: You said you acted as a Christian person, please explain.
CAPT HECHTER: In the church, or in the earlier religion you also killed your enemy, Chairperson, the Bible tell repeatedly of people being killed, Chairperson.
JUDGE PILLAY: Especially, even if those that you defended were wrong?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, at that stage it wasn't wrong, we were busy fighting a total onslaught in this country. Those people also killed blindly and they killed innocent people, people that didn't agree with them politically. Their own people they killed. We didn't attack innocent people. Sometimes innocent people were injured in the attacks, that is so, we can't argue about that, but they weren't the target, the target was the political party.
CHAIRPERSON: But you don't seem to have cared. When you throw a bomb into a house where people, nine people are living, you're attacking innocent people.
CAPT HECHTER: That is so, Chairperson, unfortunately at that stage we were in a situation of warfare and you had to intimidate these people in the strongest possible way to cease their deeds.
CHAIRPERSON: By killing innocent people?
CAPT HECHTER: As I said, it was foreseen, Chairperson, but it wasn't intentional, it wasn't the main purpose.
CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.
JUDGE PILLAY: You see, Mr Hechter, I can't understand your answer because you say your enemy were those who fought the worst system.
CAPT HECHTER: To me that system at that stage was correct, Chairperson.
JUDGE PILLAY: How so?
CAPT HECHTER: I supported the government of that day, I was strongly in support of that government, I believed in what applied at that stage and I defended that system.
JUDGE PILLAY: Yes, but we're not talking about the government of that time.
CAPT HECHTER: I'm talking about that system of apartheid that was the government. This system was established by the government.
JUDGE PILLAY: Yes, that I can understand, it was their policy, but is it that you believed in the policy?
CAPT HECHTER: Chairperson, I was brought up like that, from day one I was brought up that way. We were daily in church at work. We as children grew up in a militaristic way. This total communist onslaught we tried to ward it off, we were brought up to fight it and I believed in it.
JUDGE PILLAY: And the person who had a higher rank in the Police Force without thinking, just believed that apartheid was correct, owing to the fact that you were brought up in that way?
CAPT HECHTER: I don't think it was just the person, I think it comes from above. He didn't act by himself, those orders came through from the top.
JUDGE PILLAY: Thank you.
CAPT HECHTER: Thank you, Chairperson.
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I perhaps be afforded the opportunity to ask one question in response to Judge Pillay's questions. Am I allowed, Mr Chairman? Thank you.
Captain Hechter, evidence was also led and it's contained in your application under the heading: "Propaganda", where you said in your application:
"The Security Forces were convinced from day to day to act against the liberation movements owing to the fight against communism."
And then you expanded on the propaganda bombarding that the Security Forces underwent at this theological level. And in the second last part of that paragraph you say:
"An excellent example of how the propaganda came through to all forms of the government can be found in the book of President Mandela: 'Long Walk to Freedom', on page 405, where President Mandela himself says
'By definition, if a man worked for the present service, he was probably brainwashed by the government's propaganda. He would have believed that we were terrorists and communists who wanted to drive the white man into the sea.'"
Is that correct?
CAPT HECHTER: That is correct, Chairperson, and the black people in general also saw it as such.
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS
CHAIRPERSON: What time tomorrow morning? 09H30? 09H30 tomorrow morning.
MR MALAN: Mr Chairman, just before we rise, may - I'm sorry, we can informally continue now, but this is just for the rest of the programme. Can I ask Mr Steenkamp to liaise with those of you who are still involved in the Scheepers Morudi bomb attack, which will be the one that we're starting with tomorrow I believe. Is that ...
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
