DECISION
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This decision relates to an incident which became known as the McKenzie Car Bomb incident.
The applicants applied for amnesty in respect of all offences and delicts arising out of and directly connected with the explosion of a bomb in a Hi-Ace motor vehicle in Gaberone, Botswana during April 1987 including murder, attempted murder and damage to property.
All the applicants were members of the South African Police serving in the Security branch. Momberg and Goosen acted as handlers of Mr McKenzie ("McKenzie"), who at the time supplied information to the Security Forces. Although Mr McKenzie initially applied for amnesty in respect of this incident, the Committee was informed by the Evidence Leader that he had withdrawn his application and his application was accordingly not considered.
McKenzie had been in the service of the Security Police since 1983 and managed to infiltrate uMkhonto weSizwe ("MK") in 1985. He became a courier for MK and smuggled weapons and explosives into the Republic of South Africa ("RSA") on their behalf. The security police thereafter controlled these weapons.
Towards the end of March 1987 Brigadier Cronje called a meeting in the vicinity of Broederstroom. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a possible operation in Botswana with the objective of eliminating MK leaders Victor Hannes Mnizi, Ernest Pule and Lester Dumakude. Mnizi was believed to be one of the chief planners of the Church Street bomb explosion in 1983, Pule was a member of the MK Special Operation group and Lester Dumakude was a member of the same group operating from Lusaka and responsible for the smuggling of weaponry into the RSA.
According to the recollection of Momberg the meeting at Broederstroom was attended by Cronje, Loots, Goosen, Charl Naude, Hechter and himself. A plan was discussed which involved the placing of an explosive device in an existing secret compartment in McKenzie’s Hi-Ace mini bus which was used for the smuggling of weapons. The explosives would be detonated by remote control. This, however, would most probably also have resulted in the killing of McKenzie. Hechter, Goosen and Momberg were against this plan and the meeting adjourned to consider alternatives.
They reconvened the following day. Hechter wasn’t present at the second meeting but Crause attended. They agreed on an alternative plan which they thought would not endanger McKenzie’s life. They knew that on seven out of twenty three occasions when McKenzie visited Botswana weapons were smuggled into the RSA by using the secret compartment in he Hi-Ace. They had information that Dumakude had phoned McKenzie and requested him to urgently come to Botswana. A tape recording of this conversation was available. They knew that the procedure on occasions that weapons were transported to the RSA was that McKenzie would be left in Gaberone and that the targeted MK members would collect the vehicle and go to a secret destination where they loaded the weapons into the secret compartment.
After this they returned the vehicle to McKenzie who would then proceed to the RSA. They decided that they would use a light sensitive detonator to ensure that the explosives would detonate once the compartment was opened. As this would happen when the weapons were being loaded, the victims would in all probability be the targeted MK members or other trusted operatives who would be aware of this compartment and how to open it. As a secondary measure the explosive could also be detonated by a remote device which was to be operated manually by a member of the SADF Special Forces Unit who operated in Botswana. This was to be used if one or more of the targeted victims would be seen in the vicinity of the vehicle or in it.
Goosen and Momberg accompanied McKenzie to the Kopfontein border post where Goosen activated the light sensitive detonator without McKenzie’s knowledge. McKenzie was at no state aware of the bomb. Four or five days later applicants received news from Botswana that a bomb had exploded. McKenzie didn’t return and they only found out what had happened to him years after the event when they saw him again.
McKenzie informed them that he had been stopped by unknown MK members before he reached Gaberone. They instructed him to go to Francistown where he was kidnapped by Dumakude, Pule and other MK members and eventually landed in Quattro Camp in Angola. It became clear that McKenzie’s cover was blown by a person operating from the Security branch who leaked information to the ANC. This unexpected event caused the operator who was in control of the manual remote explosive device to lose track of the Hi-Ace. On hearing of the explosion, Momberg concluded that the operator must have traced the vehicle eventually and caused the explosion or that somebody must have fiddled with the secret compartment. It transpired that the explosion took place in a built up area killing and injuring, according to news bulletins, several people contrary to the initial planning to kill or injure Mnisi, Pule or Dumakude or operatives loading weapons into the vehicle.
Goosen testified that he was told by members of the Special Unit that the person who had to control the manual detonator device searched for days to trace the Hi-Ace. Approximately five days later he saw the vehicle parked in a built up area and then detonated the bomb. Three innocent civilians were injured and another three were killed.
The roles of the other applicants can be summarised as follows:
Loots was present at the meeting at Broederstroom because he was the area commander, Crause had to make sure that the vehicle would cross the border at Kopfontein without the bomb being detected. Van der Merwe authorised the operation after he was informed of the plan the reasons for it.
The Special Forces Unit of the SADF would have been in control of the operation as far as the cross-border aspects of it were concerned. That would have resorted under Charl Naude and the applicants were not aware who the operative or operatives tasked in the operation had been. No member of the SADF has applied for amnesty and it was stated that this is because of legal advice furnished to them about cross border operations.
The applicants confirmed the facts set out above insofar as it feels within their personal knowledge. Hechter did not attend the follow-up meeting at Broederstroom, was not informed of the second plan which was adopted and in no way took part in the operation.
It is common cause that the operation was associated with a political objective, that it related to the conflicts of the past and that it was directed at political opponents. It was also conceded that the fact that the explosives were used made it foreseeable that people other than the three targeted MK leaders or other MK soldiers assisting in loading weapons into the vehicle could be killed or injured including civilians in the vicinity of the vehicle. It was also foreseeable that property could be damaged. These are risk inherent in the using of bombs or land mines in the war situation that existed.
In the result all the applicants are GRANTED amnesty in respect of any offences and/or delicts flowing from and directly connected with the explosion of a car bomb in a Hi-Ace motor vehicle in Gaberone, Botswana during April 1987 in which explosion people were killed and injured and property was damaged.
Signed at Cape Town on this the 23rd day of November 2000
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JUDGE S KHAMPEPE
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ACTING JUDGE C DE JAGER
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MR IAN LAX
