Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt said on Tuesday he would have been prepared to lie under oath in his criminal trial for the 1989 Motherwell bombing but was telling the truth in his amnesty application.
He was testifying under cross-examination by advocate Kessie Naidu, representing the families of three of the four men killed in the explosion, at the hearing of the application in the Port Elizabeth High Court building.
At the close of his evidence-in-chief on Tuesday, Nieuwoudt had told the amnesty panel he apologised to the families of the four men, three of whom were black security policemen, and wished he could turn back the clock.
Naidu said he wanted his clients to know how genuine this plea for forgiveness was, and asked Nieuwoudt whether, had he been called to take the stand in his 1996 trial — where he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years jail — he would have lied.
”I would have done it,” said Nieuwoudt.
”Which is an indication, Mr Nieuwoudt, that you’re quite prepared to lie when it’s convenient for you,” said Naidu.
”No… If it was my case in the criminal trial, yes,” replied Nieuwoudt.
”Should we accept then that you’re a person who is prepared to lie when it’s convenient for you?” asked Naidu.
”That was the first time I was charged, and there I denied it… I came here before you precisely to tell the truth,” Nieuwoudt said.
Naidu also asked Nieuwoudt why he was unable to ”explain satisfactorily” his reason for not warning other colleagues in his unit that he suspected the four were African National Congress sympathisers.
”It is not a question of inability. With respect, Mr Chairman, it was my task, my function, to convey [information] directly to my commander. That was the function of my unit.”
Naidu put it to him that the fact was that he was unable to explain why, in the light of his earlier testimony that the men were killed because they posed a threat to their comrades, he had over a period of several months not warned the colleagues who were in danger.
”No,” replied Nieuwoudt.
”Yes, you’re unable to explain?” said Naidu.
”With respect, Mr Chairman,” protested Nieuwoudt, ”Mr Naidu has made a very long speech. What question must I respond to?”
Naidu said he intended to submit at the end of the commission that Nieuwoudt’s inability to explain was because his evidence that the four had been contact with the ANC was a ”tissue of lies”.
”Mr Chairman, with respect,” said Nieuwoudt, ”I deny that. What I said today is the truth, to the best of my ability where I could possibly help the committee. I told the truth.”
Earlier, panel chairperson judge Ronnie Pillay had asked Naidu to simplify his ”almost triple-barreled questions” so that the interpreter, who was relaying them from English into Afrikaans, could deal with them better.
In his apology on Tuesday, Nieuwoudt said: ”I want to use this opportunity to offer the family and those left behind an apology, precisely to try to share in the reconciliation process in our country.”
He said South Africa was now a democracy and that if the transition had occurred earlier ”the circumstances would not have been as they are. I wish I could turn the clock back.”
However the widows of three of the men, who were all at the hearing, rejected the apology.
Doreen Mgoduka, widow of slain warrant officer Glen Mgoduka, asked why he did not make the apology at the time of his first amnesty hearing in 1997.
”He sees now if he misses this opportunity it’s jail for him,” she said. ”My question is, if there had never been an opportunity of an amnesty would he have made that apology?
”To me it seems he is being compelled by the Act (the Truth and Reconciliation Commission legislation) and that’s for his own personal interest and benefit.”
Mantobeko Mapipa, widow of Sergeant Desmond Mapipa, said: ”He doesn’t feel bad, he is still feeling good about what he did. I am a Christian too; I can be able to forgive him but the way he is acting, he is still not open.”
Pearl Faku, widow of Sergeant Amos Faku, said Nieuwoudt had not shown any remorse and his apology was not genuine.
The family of the fourth person who died, security police informer Xolile Sakati, have chosen not to be involved in the hearing.
Nieuwoudt testified on Monday that the bomb, prepared by Vlakplaas operatives and detonated by himself with a remote control device, was deliberately set up to look like an ANC limpet mine operation.
He said the four dead men were killed because they had been leaking information to the ANC and could not be brought to trial without endangering the security police’s network of informers.
Applying for the amnesty along with Nieuwoudt are Wybrand du Toit and Marthinus Ras.
They were refused amnesty after a hearing in 1997 but the Cape High Court subsequently ordered their application be reheard by a fresh panel. – Sapa