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Khotso House bombingExplanation MR DANE: I see. And when you discussed that, did you discuss COSATU House bombing, COSATU - not Khotso, COSATU House bombing? CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR MAFOJANE: General, the million signature campaign to which Mr Du Plessis referred, and basically which was the collection of signatures calling for the release of President Nelson Mandela, would that have justified the bombing of Khotso House? MR MAFOJANE: Now, with reference to the Khotso House bombing, Colonel De Kock has testified, I think it was at the (indistinct) trial, that they were armed with, amongst others, Uzzi sub-machine guns with low velocity bullets, with AK's 47 and with a silenced pistol, and you will admit that this is ... ADV GCABASHE: Can I ask a short question while we are waiting. Take the Khotso House bombing, did you attend a State Security Council meeting that discussed the Khotso House bombing? MS GCABASHE: The question is really asked in light of the Cosatu House bombing and the Khotso House bombing, and I would then have to ask you: at that informal level, did any of them ask you about either bombing? be the next applicant. 36, yes - he's not on that list. He was inadvertently left out, Mr Chairman, it's really because he's actions pertaining to Khotso House occurred quite a while before the bombing occurred and that is why he was left out. It's not Mr Mpshe's fault Mr Chairman. I suggested ... ... of this idea of, you know, of this tactic was, that is the bombing of Cosatu House but I will go further anyway. Now, we come to 31st August 1988, Khotso House is bombed and according to your evidence, it was bombed at the behest of the former State President, Mr P.W. Botha. You know, he said ... ... which you provided during cross-examination in respect of the information which you received, that with the first unsuccessful attempt at bombing Khotso House, Mr Zeelie would have walked along with plastic bags in which there were landmines, my instructions are to place it on record and to put ... ... was involved what I gather from you and from what Mr Prinsloo has put to you, in the bombing of or putting explosives in the lifts, was it in the Khotso House I think it was? This is a planning of what appears to be on your own terms an act of terrorism which has been planned at high ... ... people in the Security Branch were party to certain information. I personally had been involved, it's in my amnesty application, the bombing of Khotso House and COSATU House. I'd given information and been requested to supply information on other venues which were part of shall we say this ... ... that he acted under the instructions of the then State President, P W Botha and Law and Order Minister Adrian Vlok, in ordering the bombing of Khotso House in 1988, under what category would such an incident have ... ... operations undertaken by security forces have been made by both the ANC and PAC. General Johan van der Merwe is, in turn, on record as saying the Khotso House bombing was the work of the SAP. He further indicates that the operation was authorised by former President PW Botha and that Minister ... ... crisis of the time that there was no credible police force we could resort to because the same policemen who managed that situation like in the Khotso House bombing I now learned that the policemen who came first to investigate about the bombing was the one who managed the operation. And so ... Now the problem is in Khotso House there was evidence that the State President gave the instruction to Vlok and Vlok conveyed that instruction to Van der Merwe and that was conveyed through Schoon, to de Kock. Cosatu House was heard at the same time, the incident regarding the bombing of Cosatu ... A notable example of the end result of such joint planning with head office and with the government for that matter was the bombing of Khotso House. and this annexure deals with the bombing of Cosatu House which you will note is not included in the bundle Volume 1 from page 180 which is only for Khotso ... ... investigations, and I will name three of them - the investigation into the disappearance of Stanza Bopape; the investigation into the bombing of Khotso House and the investigation into the bombing of Cosatu House and that during the course of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission processes ... ... Vlok and Van der Merwe took full responsibility for taking this particular decision and testified that it was only with respect to the bombing of Khotso House that the order came from P W ... ... refer Chairperson, to the decisions of the Amnesty Committees during the past years. Those of Cronje, Venter, Mentz, Hechter and van Vuuren, the Khotso House application, Kondile in which you were the Chairman, Mr Chairman and then the two latest decisions that have come to light are the ... ... for amnesty for any illegal act or omission which might stem from your involvement of both Cosatu House during May 1987 and also the bombing of Khotso House during 1988? I see that page 66 makes reference of 1987, but that is a mistake, it was the 31st of August ... |