JEFF BENZIEN’s torture of former Umkhonto weSizwe guerrilla Peter Jacobs was, he said, “robust and very long”.
“The normal interview with you carried on for quite a while … It was obvious you were playing for time. It was then that I resorted to using the wet bag on you,” Benzien told his amnesty hearing.
“We were not getting the desired results, time was passing and I think I applied electric shocks to you using a hand generator.”
Jacobs: “In what parts of my body?”
Benzien: “I’m not exactly clear.”
Jacobs (to the committee): “It’s only when one provides him with information that he says yes, I concede.”
Judge Bernard Ngoepe: “You’re able to remember he said he’d slept under a bush, but when it comes to where on his body you applied electric shocks you don’t remember?”
Benzien: “Sir, if I say to Mr Jacobs I put the electrodes on his nose, I may be wrong. If I say I attached them to his genitals, I may be wrong. If I say I put a probe in his rectum, I may be wrong. I could have used any one of those methods.”
Judge Ngoepe: “Did you use these methods?”
Benzien: “On Mr Jacobs, yes.”
He had used the wet-bag treatment on Jacobs, whom he claimed was the first person he’d ever tortured, more than on anyone else, Benzien said. Jacobs was also the only detainee to whom he gave electric shocks.
Judge Andrew Wilson: “And you have difficulty remembering where?”
Jacobs: “You’d undress me, tie my blue belt around my feet, put on handcuffs with cloth over my arms to prevent marks … You did it [the electric shocks] quite a few times … When I thought I was dying you said, `Peter, I can take you to the verge of death many times, but you will talk.'”
Benzien: “I concede that might be so …”
Jacobs: “Why is all this not mentioned in your application? We want full disclosure [of] everything that in court you denied and the judge dismissed …”
Benzien: “You were being tried for terrorism. I could not admit to that. And now in this commission – using electric shocks, I could not bring myself to put it on paper.”
Jacobs: “I was the first survivor of this torture method of yours [the wet bag]. When [Benzien demonstrated the technique before the committee earlier] you appeared very effective, yet you had no experience – how come?”
Benzien: “I can’t answer that, how effectively I did it.”
Jacobs: “Are you a natural talent?”
Benzien: “I wouldn’t know. It’s not a very nice habit to have.”