FRIDAY, 6:30PM:
BENNETT SIBIYA, the man who ‘framed’ a Truth Commissioner, admitted yet another lie to the Goldstone Commission (see below): he said he only did gardening as a ‘cover’, and that his real occupation was a poacher.
He said he had been caught poaching crayfish in January 1994 by policeman Des Segal. Instead of charging him, Segal had beaten him up to persuade him to help frame ”a terrorist from the Transkei”. Sibiya produced his bloodied shirt for the commission, which he had kept from that day as evidence.
The reason he had unexplained amounts of money in his bank account, he said, was that crayfish poaching had proved lucrative. He sold his wares to ”a Greek” but had since given up poaching.
FRIDAY, 4:30PM:
A POLICE investigator seconded to the Truth and Reconciliation Commision told the Goldstone Commisssion that when he left the commission two months ago, he took with him the files on the Bennett Sibaya case — because he did not trust people in the TRC.
The commission, under Justice Richard Goldstone, is investigating the ‘framing’ of the TRC’s chief investigator, Dumisa Ntsebeza, whom Sibiya linked to the Heidelberg tavern massacre.
Captain John Lubbe, the man who first uncovered Sibaya’s claims against Ntsebeza, told the commission he was concerned because in the past important statements, for example, those related to the St James Church slayings, had gone missing. He said the TRC consisted of people from a wide range of backgrounds including the liberation movements and the police, and he could not trust everyone.
Lubbe believes he acted correctly in passing on the Sibiya evidence. He denied that he had failed to spot obvious inconsistencies, and said there was not conspiracy to frame Ntsebeza.
He handed the judge documents and a tape recording of an interview he had with Sibaya.