MONDAY, 8.00AM
A FORMER Western Cape security policeman seeking amnesty for torturing Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres on Monday demonstrated the “wet bag” technique to a truth commission hearing.
Many of Jeff Benzien’s former victims looked on as he demonstrated the technique at African National Congress MP Tony Yengeni’s request. Benzien had in the past used the method on Yengeni, who asked him to show the commission’s amnesty committee how he tortured his victims. Earlier Yengeni told the amnesty committee he had been blinded by Benzien before he was tortured. “I also want to see it with my own eyes … what he did to me.”
Benzien responded by describing how police used a cloth bag known as a “prisoners property bag” to torture activists. The bag would first be submerged in water. The detainee would be handcuffed with his hands behind his back and forced to lie prone, Benzien said. A policeman would then straddle the detainee and pull the wet bag over the victim’s head, closing it around the neck “to cut off air”. The victim would then be interrogated.
Yengeni was not satisfied with a verbal explanation and requested a demonstration.
Former ANC Western Cape president Mncebisi Sikhwatsha volunteered to be the ginuea pig, a blue pillow case provided by Yengeni was used by Benzien.
Afterwards, Benzien, his voice breaking, returned to the witness stand and under persistent questioning from Yengeni admitted there was always the possibility people might lose conciousness. However, he defended the use of the method saying police gleaned information by using it.
Benzien is also applying for amnesty for the killing of MK soldier Ashley Kriel, whom he shot in the back in 1987.
Benzien on Monday stuck to his testimony, accepted by a 1989 inquest court, that he shot Kriel in the back by accident on July 9, 1987.
“I would like to say to the family of Mr Kriel, now that I am older and I perhaps know a bit more about the politics of those years, I believe Mr Kriel acted very courageously. My purpose was to arrest him, not to kill him. His death was a tragedy for the family. I am very sorry he had to die,” Benzien said.