Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt was cross-examined at length on Wednesday on his reasons for killing the so-called Motherwell Four in a 1989 car-bomb explosion.
At one point Advocate Kessie Naidoo, representing the families of three of the four, accused him of pretending not to understand a question; and at another of giving nonsensical replies.
Nieuwoudt, who is applying for amnesty for the murders, earlier this week told the amnesty panel, which is sitting in the Port Elizabeth High Court, that the men were killed because he had information they were working with the then-banned African National Congress.
He also testified that only hours before they were killed, he instructed them to monitor the movements of a trained ANC operative, Simon Maqubela, in Motherwell that night.
Naidoo put it to him on Wednesday that one did not have to be a rocket scientist to realise the strong likelihood that the four were in fact working together with Maqubela, and might warn him of the security police’s interest.
”I cannot dispute that,” replied Nieuwoudt, but added later that in his experience the ANC had operated in a cell system involving a limited group of people.
Accused by Naidoo of deliberately ducking subsequent questions on the issue, he said: ”With respect, Mr Chairman, I am giving you my opinion, how I saw it, and I can’t take it further. It suited me in my modus operandi.”
He said it had also suited him when one of the four, Xolile Sakati, proposed that they use a car not known in the black community, and he was able to get them all into the VW Jetta that had been prepared with explosives.
”That was a big piece of luck,” said panel chairperson Judge Ronnie Pillay.
”It was,” said Nieuwoudt.
”That might have been luck for you then, Mr Nieuwoudt, but it’s not luck for you now,” said Naidoo.
There was a light moment when Pillay asked whether the phones of the four men that Nieuwoudt said he bugged were Post Office instruments or cellphones, then corrected himself.
”There were no cellphones in those days,” he said.
At that moment a cellphone rang in the public gallery. — Sapa
Nieuwoudt would have lied under oath