WEDNESDAY, 5:00PM:
THE Goldstone Commision into the mysterious ‘framing’ of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s chief investigator began on Wednesday with the man who started the controversy, Gugulethu gardener Bennett Sibaya.
Given a group of 24 pictures, Sibiya picked out two policemen he said had ‘tortured’ him and told him to give evidence linking Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigations head Dumisa Ntsebeza to the 1993 bombing of the Heidelberg Tavern in Cape Town.
The first picture picked out by Sibiya belonged to Des Segal, a former Cape Town policeman who died earlier in a car crash earlier this year. The second belonged to a person known only as “Fulani”, also allegedly a policeman.
Johannes Elsabeth, the policeman who took the statement from Sibaya in 1994, confirmed that Segal had brought Sibiya to him to make the statement accusing Ntsebeza, but said there was no evidence that the gardener had been tortured, and the relationship between the two men seemed amicable.
Segal’s brother Warrick said his brother had been apolitical and would have had no motive to ‘frame’ the Truth Commission.
Director Leonard Knipe, head of the Western Cape violent crimes unit, said Segal was a close friend and would have told him of any secret scheme to show Sibaya a photograph of Ntsebeza and link him to the attack.
Sibiya is due to give further evidence on Friday, explaining why he pointed out Segal.
Gardener confesses to Tutu he ‘lied’ (3 Nov)
Sibiya’s evidence against Ntsebeza (27 Oct)
Profile of Ntsebeza (11 Nov)