Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt on Tuesday faces interrogation by Advocate Kessie Naidu, the man who had South Africans glued to their television screens as leader of evidence in the recent Hefer commission hearings.
Naidu was appointed at short notice to replace Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza as legal representative of the families of three of the victims of the 1989 Motherwell car-bomb killings.
Ntsebeza withdrew last week after counsel for Nieuwoudt and fellow applicant Wahl du Toit claimed he had a conflict of interest because Ntsebeza had had a discussion with Du Toit on the Motherwell killings when he headed the investigative unit of the now-defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Nieuwoudt gave his evidence-in-chief on Monday in the Port Elizabeth High Court before the amnesty panel that is hearing the Motherwell application afresh. He gave testimony for the car-bomb killing of Warrant Officer Glen Mgoduka, Sergeants Amos Faku and Desmond Mpipa, and Xolile Sakati at Motherwell outside Port Elizabeth in December 1989, at the height of the liberation struggle against white apartheid rule.
He, Du Toit and the third applicant, Marthinus Ras, were refused amnesty after the first round of hearings in 1997, but the Cape High Court ordered in 2001 that they get a fresh hearing. They have admitted to killing three black security police colleagues and an informer who they believed were leaking information to the African National Congress.
On Monday Nieuwoudt showed no remorse as he recounted yet again how he blew up four black colleagues he believed were ANC sympathisers.
Nieuwoudt, who was at the time head of the security branch’s intelligence unit in the Eastern Cape, displayed little emotion as he recounted how he travelled to Pretoria to secure the “logistic support” of five Vlakplaas operatives, two of whom prepared the deadly car and three of whom stood by to shoot the victims if the bomb did not do its job properly. The car bomb operation was designed to look like the work of the ANC, Nieuwoudt said.
Vlakplaas was the base of a special police unit involved in the torture and murder of anti-apartheid activists.
The nearest Nieuwoudt came to an expression of regret was when his evidence-in-chief was nearing its close at the end of the day and his advocate, Jaap Celliers, noting he had written in his original amnesty application form that he had been acting with political motives, asked: “Is it on that basis that you request amnesty for this tragic incident that occurred?”
“That is so,” replied Nieuwoudt.
Remorse or lack of it is, however, not one of the factors that will decide whether he gets amnesty. The amnesty panel, headed by Port Elizabeth Judge Ronnie Pillay, has to decide only whether he has made full disclosure, whether he acted with a political motive, and whether the means he employed was proportional with his objective.
Nieuwoudt told the panel that he was instructed to “eliminate” the men by his superior, Brigadier Fanie Gilbert, after it became clear that they, and Mgoduka in particular, were leaking information to the ANC and its military commander in Lesotho, Roji Skenjana.
Under questioning by Pillay, he said killing the men was the only solution, because if they were put on trial they could still have passed on information that would destroy the security branch’s vital network of informants and safe houses in the province.
The situation was complicated by the fact that some of the four were involved in fraud, and when challenged, threatened to spill the beans on the killing of Cradock-based United Democratic Front activist Matthew Goniwe if action was taken against them.
At one point during Monday’s hearing, Pillay gently took Nieuwoudt to task for using the term “trained terrorist” to describe a guerilla fighter he had captured and interrogated, saying it was a “sensitive aspect” and suggesting he use something else.
Nieuwoudt apologised repeatedly, saying he was aware South Africa was a 10-year-old democracy.
“The use of the term was just because of the culture I grew up in,” he said. “I am very sorry I used the terminology.” After that, he referred to “freedom fighters”, and on one occasion described the ANC as a “liberation organisation”.
Nieuwoudt also gave the panel insight into the workings of the security branch in the Eastern Cape, saying it was headed by Gilbert, with Colonel Isak Nel as second-in-command.
There was an administrative component, he explained.
“Then you have the black component, the white component, the coloured and Asiatic component, and the investigative component, and the technical component,” Nieuwoudt said.
“This does not refer to distinctions within the security branch, but to the targets of investigations,” Celliers prompted.
“That is correct,” said Nieuwoudt. “Those were the more specialised components, for example the black component concentrated on the black organisations that operated inside the country.” — Sapa
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