IN THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
GAUTENG LOCAL DIVISION, JOHANNESBURG
CASE NO: 445/2019
DATE: 2020-01-30
FORMAL INQUEST
in terms of section 5 of the Inquest Act 58 of 1999
into the death of the late
DR NEIL HUDSON AGGETT
BEFORE THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MAKUME
ON BEHALF OF THE STATE : ADV MLOTSHWA
: ADV SINGH
ON BEHALF OF THE FAMILY : ADV VARNEY
ON BEHALF OF IMPLICATED SAPS : ADV COETZEE [Previous SAPS]
ON BEHALF OF SAPS : ADV MOHAMED [Current SAPS]
INTERPRETER : [not applicable]
537 KENSON STREET | CONSTANTIA PARK | PRETORIA P.O BOX 32917 | GLENSTANTIA | 0100 Tel : 012 993 1335 | Cell: +27784987479 | Fax : 086 601 5996 Email: [email protected] | [email protected] Website: www.veritastranscribing.co.za MR VARNEY 1 F CHIKANE
PROCEEDINGS RESUMES ON 30 JANUARY 2020 [09:27:20]
COURT: Adv Varney, you may proceed.
MR VARNEY: As the court pleases. Your L ordship, our
witness of today is Reverend Frank Chikane.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: With the leave of the court we would like to call
him to the witness stand.
COURT: Yes. Reverend Chikane, please come forward.
COURT CLERK: Please state your full names and surname?
10 WITNESS: I am Frank Chikane.
COURT CLERK: Do you have any objection against to taking
the oath?
WITNESS: No.
COURT CLERK: Do you swear that the evidence you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, if so raise your right and say so help me God.
WITNESS: So help me God.
COURT CLERK: Witness sworn in.
FRANK CHIKANE: (duly sworn states)
20 COURT: Thank you.
EXAMINATION BY MR VARNEY: M'Lord, Reverend Chikane
has made up an affidavit. With l eave of the court we would
like to hand up his original affidavit.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: It is, we intend to mark this affidavit as
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 2 F CHIKANE
EXHIBIT G14 and M'Lord, since Reverend Chikane did sign an
affidavit before the 1982 inquest as well as his attorneys p ut
up an unsigned affidavit as well.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: We will hand these up to you as copies and
refer you to those exhibit numbers.
COURT: That is in the 1982 inquest?
MR VARNEY: Exactly.
COURT: Thank you. Yes.
10 MR VARNEY: Reverend Chikane, before we start can I just
confirm that you have in your possession a copy of the affidavit
that you signed yesterday?
REV CHIKANE: I do.
MR VARNEY: And do you have the copies of your signed and
unsigned affidavit that were put up in the first in quest in 1982?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I, I had that, it is in my computer.
MR VARNEY: It is in your computer, okay, well let us
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: I do not have copies here.
20 MR VARNEY: We will then make a plan to give you
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Thank you.
COURT: What is the exhibit ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: So we now have three affidavits with you,
yesterday’s affidavit and then the two, the 1982 affidavit.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 3 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: The one is signed and one is unsigned.
REV CHIKANE: Okay.
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, for the record the signed affidavit.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: Is EXHIBIT B3.1.2.
COURT: B, B3.1 ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: B3.1.2.
COURT: 3.1.2, yes, okay.
10 MR VARNEY: And the unsigned affidavit is EXHIBIT B3.4.5.
COURT: Yes, thank you, I have that.
MR VARNEY: Reverend Chikane, before we start can I just
confirm that the affidavit which you signed yesterday, in fact
the 29 th of January is your affidavit and do you confirm its
contents?
REV CHIKANE: It is my affidavit and I confirm.
MR VARNEY: And also for the record do you confirm that
back in 1982 during the proceedings, the inquest into the late
Dr Neil Hudson Aggett the attorneys for Dr Aggett’s family
20 caused you to sign an affidavit as well as to make up an
unsigned affidavit which were put up as exhibits in that matter?
REV CHIKANE: Yes, I confirm.
MR VARNEY: Reverend, if we can then, then commence, can
you describe to the court your current occupation?
REV CHIKANE: Here in this application?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 4 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: Uhh, you, you …, feel free to have reference to
the affidavit, but I am only asking you to describe to the court
what you are currently doing now ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Oh, okay.
MR VARNEY: In terms of work.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And any other activities.
REV CHIKANE: Yes, I, I, I have been a Pastor in, in Naledi
Soweto for many years, but I handed over the congregation
10 May last year and I have been the International President of
my church for the Apostolic Faith Mission which exist in, it has
a presence in about 35 countries and I have been the
International President for 23 years and then I handed over the
leadership in August last year. I, I am currently a Moderator of
the church’s Commission on International Affair s of the W CC
has got all the churches represented including observers from
the Catholic Church and Evangelical Alliances and we deal
with the conflict situations in the world generally and that is
our responsibility, but otherwise I serve in boards and other
20 activities, ja.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend. Reverend, if I may ask
is it possible that you ...[intervenes]
COURT: To raise your voice
MR VARNEY: To raise your voice a little.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 5 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Oh, ja.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: As you can see we have various TV and radio
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja. Ja.
MR VARNEY: Personnel here.
REV CHIKANE: Okay.
MR VARNEY: And plus we have been advised that those at
the back of the gallery are struggling to hear.
10 REV CHIKANE: Should hear, okay.
MR VARNEY: Thank you.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: And while we are on your personal history
perhaps we can now dig into some more detail looking at your
personal background and your political career. Perhaps we
can start by dealing with when you were born and where you
were raised.
REV CHIKANE: I was born on the 3 rd of January 1951. I do
say in my affidavit that my parents say I was born in Soweto,
20 but I have worked it out that I was born in Bushbuckridge.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: But during those days they had to move, if
you were pregnant you had to move and be born in the right
place so that you can have the right ID and be able to work in
the right place and so I do not think they were able to .., I
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 6 F CHIKANE
cannot show that my mother was in Johannesburg or London.
COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: But indeed my records would say I was born
in Johannesburg. I went to school in Soweto, ended up the
University of the North during that time.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: I could not go to Wits, because I wanted to
do, I was in the field of meds, applying mathematics and you
know, I wanted to do that medicine, but I was told the
10 University of the North has meds so that is where black
children go to.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I ended up in the Un iversity of the North.
We were, of course, send home a number of times during my
time as a student, because of protest action. The last year of
1974, I went there 1972, the last year 1974 we then celebrated
the Frelimo Rally. We had a Frelimo Rally, we celebrated the
freedom of Mozambique and, and those rallies were banned
just hours before they happened and we met as students and
20 we were, the police came and told us we are breaking the law.
We left the hall singing freedom songs and then they charged
on us and lots of students got injured and we ended up with
the Snyman Commission to look at that unrest at the
University. What is important about it is that the, almost half
of the student representative counsel either went into exile ,
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 7 F CHIKANE
went underground and therefore the student representative
counsel was not operational. I then was elected as a student
aid,
well-fare type of organisation to take care of the students and I
spend time doing that and by the time the commission came I
was the Chair of that Committee and had to represent the
students at the Commission. After that in January I was
advised by one of my lecturers there that you should not come
back to this university otherwise you will end up in jail and that
10 is how I stopped going to the Unive rsity of the North. I came
back home, worked at the Nuclear Physics Research Unit at
Wits, because that was my field of work . Uhmm, we left there
about 1979, because we were, we were three black workers in
that laboratory.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And having read more into the investigation
about development of nuclear weapons in the country, we felt
we, we should leave, because we are contributing into
something that might destroy us.
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And so that is how I left the, the Nuclear
Physics Research Unit. I became, I became a Pastor of
Church in Kagiso, Krugersdorp and that is where I was
detained a number of times. Maybe we will come back to that
part of it and tortured severely and then returned to Soweto
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 8 F CHIKANE
after my church had suspended me and I ended up
...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: I am sorry, perhaps before we get to the
history.
COURT: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Of you arrest and detention let us just finish up
on, on aspects of your educational and medical career.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: So you indicate, Reverend in your affidavit that
10 because of the political turmoil and your involvement in the
student activism, you had to abandon your university education
at least at Turfloop?
REV CHIKANE: At that, ja.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Uhmm, but did you register then at University of
South Africa, UNISA?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, during those days I actually do not know
what the reasons were, but we were advised you do not, if you
will leave the university where I left you do not apply to UNISA
20 until after two years.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: Otherwise you would not be accepted. Now I
have never established the facts about it, but I delayed that, so
I did my Theological Training Diploma with the Church during
that time which I qualified because I was doing it by
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 9 F CHIKANE
correspondence by 1979 and I was ordained in 1980 as a
Pastor, but in the meantime I did register with UNISA those two
years later for a B.Sc Degree which was the degree I was
doing at Turfloop with .., and all the time we had to write
exams where either there is a state of emergency or you are in
detention or you know.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I never was able to finish that degree. I
registered for a Theology Degree with UNISA thinking that
10 might do better, but when I wa s supposed to write the final
exams in 1986 I think, they declared a state of emergency. We
used the language, some of us were in the prison trial in ’85
we were due to be arrested in six months’ time again and we
thought it does not make sense.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So we went underground. So I was
underground for about 11 months, five of it was outside the
country and I left hoping I could write the examination outside
the country and UNISA told me I can only write it at the
20 embassy.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Of South Africa which meant I will go to jail in
anyway, so I never wrote that , that exam, so in essence there
was disruption in my life for those years. Later I, I did further
studies and have a Masters in, in Religious Studies and a
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 10 F CHIKANE
Masters in Public Administration , University of Natal and
Harvard University. So that is where I would be in terms of the
academic processes.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend and perhaps just to
complete the story and picture of your life, can you indicate t o
the court the balance of, of your political career.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: In other words post getting these degrees what
positions did you occupy up until the present day.
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja, well all of it ran parallel in terms of my
work. I returned from Turfloop, taught at the Naledi High
School in Soweto, but it could only last for three months and
the security police began to visit the principle. I was a private
teacher, so they said they cannot have me there, because I will
influence the students and in that class there were students
who became leaders during 1977 and then after that I worked
with Christ for All Nations, that is an evangelistic entity within
the church for one year, worked for a short while with my
church for another year as an evangelist and then ended up
20 with the University of Witwatersrand in terms of the research I
was doing at the Nuclear Physics Research Unit. Then I
became director of a self help project in Kagiso to help people
who were victims of apartheid , but in terms of my political
engagement when, when I arrived at Kagiso as a Pastor
normally I go and visit leaders.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 11 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And in Kagiso the Pan-African Congress was
more dominant during those days and so I went to visit every
leader who was there and six months later as a Pastor all of
those leaders I visited were in detention .
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: And so I had the pastoral responsibility to
visit the families and assisted them to get lawyers to enquire
about the whereabouts of their family members, because they
10 were detained under section 6 incommunicado and I think the
mistake of the lawyers was to say we are instructed by
Reverend Frank Chikane to enquire about so and so which
then attracted the attention of the police on me . Within six
months they detained me ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: Reverend, we, we are going to be dealing in
some detail with your experiences with the police and the
Security Branch in particular.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: But can we just give the court just brief
20 highlights of your career, say for example you were the Head
of the South African Council of Churches for some time.
REV CHIKANE: Oh ja, ja.
MR VARNEY: You know that you played a role in, in the
presidency and then we will return to the deta il with the police.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I was Pastor of the Congregation in
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 12 F CHIKANE
Krugersdorp at Kagiso for about five and a half years.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And at the end of that five and a half years
that is when my church accused me of being involved in
politics and then suspended me. After my suspension I worked
for the Institute for Contextual Theology for another five and a
half years or so which was dealing with different theological
traditions particularly liberation theologists around the world.
COURT: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: And after the Institute for Contextual
Theology I was appointed General Secretary of the Council of
Churches from 1987 to 1994 and it was during the, the worst
moments in our country in terms of resistance, violence,
detention of people which I had to deal with as General
Secretary of the Council of Churches. Then I was appointed as
a member of the Electoral Commission in 1993 .
COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: Whilst I was General Secretary of the Council
so I was part of the Electoral Commission that took care of the
20 first democratic elections in the country and afterwards I
retired from the SACC. I could not be part of the government,
because I was in the Electoral Commission, so I went to study,
that is where I did my Masters in Public Management and
Administration and after that I returned, did a short time at the
University of Cape Town as a researcher and was then
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 13 F CHIKANE
appointed as an adviser to Deputy President Mbeki . At that
time I became later Director General and then Deputy
Secretary of Cabinet during Mandela’s presidency and when
Mbheki became President I became Director General and
Secretary of the Cabinet.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: And that took us to 2009.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend and perhaps I, I will just
10 highlight one event in your history which I think is worth
recalling. Was there an attempt on your life by the Security
Branch? Do you recall?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the …, besides the detentions, torture and
what happened there later in about 1988 I think, 1989.
MR VARNEY: I think that is right.
REV CHIKANE: Yes, I was banned from entering Namibia .
Now I am not sure whether I was the only one who was banned
from entering Namibia, I was invited to go to Namibia to assist
them with the crisis there as General Secretary of the Council
20 and I was given an, an order at the airport to stop me from
going to Namibia. When the United Nations took over
responsibility based on Resolution 435 I then thought well, I
can now go and help them because the regime that banned me
it is no more in charge, but that is when the poisoning story
happened.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 14 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: We, fortunately we now have evidence in
court, the people who did it confessed, it is the former Minister
of Police, the Minister Vlo k, Commissioner van der Merwe and
three other, three policemen who executed the operation and
then so they put the chemical weapon stuff into my clothes
which would rub against me.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And I had horrors experience about that in
10 Namibia when I was there. I think the plan was they knew I
would travel to the North of Namibia in the morning the
following day and I would have died in the North where there is
no help. Fortunately we were delayed and it hit me halfway
and there was a hospital there where they took care of me . To
shorten the story, that they …, I was brought back to
Johannesburg, flown back for treatment, but they could n ot
work it out. I went to them, joined my wife who was
concerned, because we had an appointment with President
Bush as church leaders and then I got attacked again there
20 and three times by that chemical and it took those doctors see
me three times to work out what it was.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And I survived that, but the, the scientist who
produced that chemicals came to ask for forgiveness from me,
because they, they were producing the stuff in the laboratory
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 15 F CHIKANE
which was being used against political activists . The police
responsibility was to deal with those who were inside the
country and the military dealing with those who were outside
the country and the order was from the President, the National
Security Council. Now what I am talking about now it is in the
records of the court.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Because they made confessions about, about
all that. I always quote myself in the record, because those
10 scientists said to me you should have died, but I survived.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend and just for the court’s
record it was in 2007 that the former Minister Adriaan Vlok, the
former Commissioner of Police Johannes van der Merwe
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Van der Merwe.
MR VARNEY: Van der Merwe and then I believe it was about
three senior Security Branch officers.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
20 MR VARNEY: There was an Otto, somebody by the name of
Otto, another officer by the name of Smith, I cannot recall the
others, but they, they pleaded guilty to attempted murder and
they were given ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Suspended sentences.
MR VARNEY: Suspended sentence by wa y of a plea bargain.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 16 F CHIKANE
Why did you think that the Security Branch wanted to murder
you when you were not involved in the armed resistance per
sy, you were a Pastor and you were involved in peaceful
resistance?
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Why do you think the police wanted to kill you?
REV CHIKANE: They, they, they partly gave the reasons, but
I, I can explain it from my perspective that I think what
happened in the country is that besides the ANC and the PAC
10 Communist party being banned, there was res istance in the
country. I was part of the leadership of the United Democratic
Front between 1983 and 1985. It was during the time when I
was suspended from my church, so I could do that.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: And, and we created a situation in the country
which they called a condition of ungovernability(sic). Basically
what we were mobilising or pressed was do not cooperate with
the apartheid system. We are still paying for that, because
people are refusing to pay services now, but, but we refuse to
20 pay anything who had a relationship with the apartheid system.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Including bonds which came through the
administration, they used to West Rand Administration which
managed bonds for black housing in Soweto .
COURT: Hmm.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 17 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: We even boycotted that and so ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: Thank you.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend. I think you have given
the court a good idea of the non -violent threat that you
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Posted to the apartheid regime at that time.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
10 COURT: Can, can I just clarify, one of the witnesses, I am not
sure whether if that was Ms, Ms Hogan mentioned a Van der
Merwe. Now Reverend Chikane has mentioned a Van der
Merwe ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Van der Merwe.
COURT: In this point in his story, is it the same Van der
Merwe?
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, we will double check, but I, I do not
believe that they are the same officers. They are different Van
der Merwe’s.
20 COURT: Okay, could you just ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: This Van der Merwe was the National
Commissioner of Police.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: So it is, he was ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: He, he was ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 18 F CHIKANE
COURT: He was the National Commission er ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: He was, at that time he was the Commissioner
of Police. Previously he had been himself the Head of the
Security Branch.
COURT: Now who, someone in the papers came to wash your
feet.
REV CHIKANE: Yes.
COURT: Who was it?
REV CHIKANE: It is the former Minister Vlok.
10 COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
COURT: He, he was in charge of the three?
REV CHIKANE: At the point when he was Minister they were,
the Commissioner was in charge of the three policemen.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: I think what Mr Vlok said to me was because
we were investigating these three policemen. I was the
Director General and we were beginning to crack the code,
they used their names to put them together as if it is a name of
20 one person and we thought we were looking for one person and
we found out it is three people and once we cracked that, that
is when Mr Vlok came to me and said to me he wants to talk to
me, firstly he would like to ask for forgiveness about what he
did, secondly that he wou ld not in good conscience allow his
foot soldiers to be charged and tried without him and I thought
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 19 F CHIKANE
it was a respectable thing to do .
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: And he came with the National Commissioner
another day to vouch that they will, I think they w anted an
arrangement plea bargain arrangement that we would not bring
those policemen into court and I said it is not possible to do
that. So in essence Vlok was responsible for the operation or
the operators at that time.
COURT: Ja.
10 MR VARNEY: I, I can advise you, Reverend that I am
personally aware of the fact that both, in fact all the convicted
in that case from Minister Vlok and Commissioner van der
Merwe down to the ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Three policemen.
MR VARNEY: Security Branch officers.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Originally sought leniency from the then
National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli who
decided to pursue with the prosecution because they were
20 refusing to disclose other crimes that they have been involved
in and then subsequent to that they then applied for a pardon
through President Mbeki’s special dispensation of political
pardons and various organisations opposed their pardoned on
the basis that they were refusing to disclose other actions they
had taken against various other targets. It was, in fact, they
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 20 F CHIKANE
did accept that there was a list , a so-called hit list that they
were not willing to disclose who else was on that list and what
action was taken.
REV CHIKANE: Okay, I think part of the challenge was that I
wanted information about me in particular and I was not
prepared that we do plea bargaining without them giving the
information.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Which they ended up doing, because they
10 would have been charged in any way, but my pain ab out it is
that I happened to be the person who is known to have been
poisoned by them, but if you go to the order for chemicals that
is in the records of the court there are other orders over a
period of about two – three years I think, used against other
people and nobody up to now knows who they were used
against and I thought the court would have dealt with the issue
about what happened to that chemical, what happened to that
chemical.
COURT: Hmm.
20 REV CHIKANE: And when they matched the chemical they
ordered for me with the laboratory outcomes in the United
States where I was in the hospital, they matched and, and
nobody has pursued that. There are those who were attacked
outside, I know somebody in the Netherlands trying to find out.
Many would have died and so if you are dead then nobody
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 21 F CHIKANE
would have known. If I had died in the first attack nobody
would have known what happened.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So that was the struggle at that time to say at
least tell me what happened about me . That is where the
reasons come in, firstly it is that they could detain me before,
now I am General Secretary of the Council of Churches it was
not possible for them to detain me . So they had to use what
you would call extrajudicial methods to deal with me. I t hink
10 that is where, what qualified me to be attacked. The other
thing is that after burning all the organisations that is what I
was, the point I was making, they then restricted tra de unions
and other organisations during the time I was General
Secretary. So even the neighbours, the leadership in the
neighbourhood when I visited the countries would say the only
voice they heard during those days was my voice which is the
General Secretary of the Council, because everybody was
restricted, could not call f or a stay-away, it was illegal to
announce somebody is detained and we had to use the
20 churches during prayer sessions across the country to
announce that we are praying for so and so who is in
detention, that was the only way in which the families would
know, because it was illegal to make that announcement, so we
did quite some things that we meant to help the victims of the
apartheid system to survive under those conditions and then
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 22 F CHIKANE
Kgotso House I was saying through the United Democratic
Front they were saying we created conditions of
ungovernability(sic) and then in 1987 I become General
Secretary, Kgotso House became the centre of activity and the
…, when Bishop Buthelezi who is late now, had to give
evidence in many of the cases, they accused the Counci l of
Churches in that case as operating like an alternative
government.
COURT: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: Which means we were taking care of the
detainees, we were taking care of prisoners, we were taking
care of families, we even had Cowley House in Cape Town
where people who visited prisoners in Robben Island, we would
fly them there, we get money paid for it. They would wait in
Cowley House, be fed there until they are called to go to the
Robben Island. It was all Council of Churches.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Operating, we did the defence for political
prisoners, raised money.
20 MR VARNEY: Thank you.
REV CHIKANE: To do that. So they then said we are acting
like an alternative government and the last thing I would like to
say is that what appears in the court records of those
policemen, Vlok and Van der Merwe, is that the main issue that
made me to me(sic) to attack me was that we were
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 23 F CHIKANE
campaigning for comprehensive sanctions against South Africa
and we, we had an international delegation that went to se ven
of the G7 countries to ask that they apply sanctions against the
apartheid government, we will take care of the people and that
is in the court records, that is this sanction campaign that they
had to take with.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend.
COURT: Yes.
MR VARNEY: That is enormously helpful inserts and certainly
10 I think the point has to be made that there are a large number
of families, an unknown number of families who are waiting to
hear the truth as to how their loved ones perished and it i s
important that that truth be uncovered . Now if I may take you
back to the late 1970’s and here we are now going to be
dealing with your various arrests and detentions and this would
be from, from paragraph 10 onwards in your, in y our affidavit.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: You indicated that your first arrest and
detention by the Security Branch was for seven days and that
20 was late January, early February 1967.
REV CHIKANE: 1967.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: But then later in 1977 you were detained fo r an
extensive period you say from the 6 th of June 1977 until
January 1978 and it appears that much happened during that
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 24 F CHIKANE
detention including considerable abuse.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Can you describe that detention now to the
court?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, actually I, I have written about this in my
book No Life of My Own and I always say that those first two
detentions were the worst of what I experienced, I mean the
first detention seven days in John Vorster Square, they were
looking for my brother and young people from my congregation.
10 Eventually they detained every young person they could find
from my …, my, you know, during, during that time and when I
noticed they came to Krugersdorp to search the church. They
even went to the Baptist Malpond, b ecause they were looking
for arms.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: And they found nothing, but threatened to
detain me. I went to the car with them. Then I found that one
of the members of our church in Soweto and the mother and
the family were, the father and family, mother of the family I
20 know were detained and I knew the two other boys were on the
run and the oldest child will be 15 years who is remaining in
the house, so I decided to go there to go and check the kids.
When I arrived there seven o’clock i n the morning, they left
five o’clock at my home, they welcomed me, they set up an
ambush, welcomed me there and said well, I am under their
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 25 F CHIKANE
control now and sitting in that dining room I thought it is
important to explain this, because the .., it was quite traumatic,
sitting there, I am coming to take care of the children, make
sure they are taken care of as a Pastor. There was a young
man there who was bleeding profusely who was a friend of my
younger brother who was assaulted so badly and the security
police were all over and the 15 year old was screaming in the
bedroom being tortured.
COURT: He or she?
10 REV CHIKANE: She.
COURT: She was being tortured?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, she was being tortured in the bedroom,
the bedroom screaming and when, after t his detention then I
got to know that she, they took her to the bushes in the
Lerafe(?) Station there next, there next to Lerafe(?) Station in
Soweto and went and subjected her to electric shocks to get
her to tell them where the, the brothers are. So it was a huge
operation and when I said well, if I cannot help this child can I
leave and Sersant Sons, he appeared in the Timol case, he
20 was in charge of that operation.
MR VARNEY: Seth Sons?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, Sons.
COURT: Oh, Sons.
REV CHIKANE: He was in charge of that operation and he
told me well, you, we will tell you when to stand up there and
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 26 F CHIKANE
that was the beginning of my detention and we were tortured
thoroughly at John Vorster. I say that, that the detention
where they use third degree methods which means there are
no rules. The trampled on me. Did everything they could do.
About three people died during that detention one of them was
Malele I think. In the Biko Chart for people who died in
detention you can see the names of the people in th at chart.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: We were so tortured that when they released
10 me seven days later I was completely disorientated. I could
not, I could not even say where home was. They had to take
me home and it took time to recover from that. In t he second
detention ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: Reverend, before you move to the second
detention.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Do you recall the identities or names of the
Security Branch officers involved in, in your torture in those
seven days?
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja, the first, the seven days I cannot
remember, it was so rough. I mean you had 10 security police
on top of you. You cannot even identify them. You …, I mean
that, the second torture was the one where you can actually
identify people, because it took six weeks of torture
...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 27 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: Just ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: This one was seven days.
MR VARNEY: It was short, but you did mention Seth Sons,
was Seth Sons involved in the torture during those seven
days?
REV CHIKANE: Well, he was around.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: But I do not, I cannot remember if you had 10
people on top of you I would not say he was there, but he was
10 around the activity.
MR VARNEY: Right.
REV CHIKANE: Because I could not forget him, I mean h e
was, he detained me, I sat in that house for a few hours before
we left.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Because they were waiting to ambush these
two boys which they never got and they ended up in exile.
MR VARNEY: Thank you. Let us move to the second p eriod
of detention which you say began from the 6 th of June 1977 at
20 Krugersdorp Police Station.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I was detained 6 th January, June, June
and it had to do with the case of the detained leaders in Kagiso
who ended up in Bethal trial.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: During those days. They, they believed, well,
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 28 F CHIKANE
firstly that I could not help them if I do not know what they
have done, so I must tell them about, you know, what they
were doing which was asking for too much. Secondly,
somebody had been tortured and told them my car was used to
take people to the border which was also false . The, the only
thing that happened with my car is that one of those detainees,
the leaders was, had a workshop fixing cars so I had just taken
my car to fix, to get fixed, that is all, but that was translated to
taking people to outside the country. The witness by the way
10 did say it was false, he was forced to make that statement . I
went through six weeks of torture and I would say every
method that he could think of ...[indistinct] assault, chaining
me in concocted positions like chain you against your feet and
against a chair and for many hours you stay in that position.
When, when they take you out of that position you cannot walk.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: They, they hanged me head down until I
...[intervenes]
COURT: Sorry, you say hanged you?
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja, they put me on a broom, hanged me with
my head facing down.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: And until I lost consciousness so I do not
know how long that lasted and by the time I gained
consciousness it is when they were taking me back to the cell .
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 29 F CHIKANE
They made me stand for 48 hours to 50, I have explained that,
on a set of bricks, at times chained against the heater in the
interrogation room. They changed shifts eight hours per shift
and kept me awake for, for 48 hours interrogating me, beating
me up and there were screams in the other three interrogation
rooms and at one stage I remember engaging the police,
because there was a woman who was really scre aming and I
said to them I mean really, you cannot sit here in a good
conscience listening to that woman screaming, I am being
10 tortured, but you know the screaming was just unbearable, how
would you allow this type of thing to happen. Well, we are not
in charge, we are just doing our job.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And this is the place where I write about a
deacon of my church supervising that torture, a white deacon
of my church and I had visited that church during normal days,
you know, of my work and, and I engaged him and he said no, I
am just doing my job, I am doing my job and he would leave
me there, come back to his shift to find me there and they
20 interrogated me for 48 hours and ...[intervenes]
COURT: So ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: At the point of 48 hours I stopped answering
their questions. I told them I am no more okay, I am not
normal, so I cannot answer your questions , because anything
you get now will not make sense and I refused to talk to them
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 30 F CHIKANE
for two hours and then they unchained m e, put me on leg irons,
drove me to Rustenburg Prison and dumped me there until the
following year. So that was a whole six, six weeks I think, I
will have to check my …, the record in the book it is more
reliable, because I wrote, wrote whilst my mind wa s very fresh
and then dumped me there. When I arrived there, that is
important because I was, I could not walk, you know, I
struggled to walk and they, I demanded to see a doctor. They,
they took me to the doctor. The doctor examined me. My feet
10 were swollen and he said to them take him to the cell, he will
be okay and that is it.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And there was no medical attention, nothing.
I had to recover on my own in that cell. So it is, it is one of
the, I would say the seven days or third degree methods, there
were no rules there, you know, this one was a slow process of
torture to make sure they did what they want which did not
make sense, because I ...[indistinct]
COURT: Sorry, you say the deacon was in your, was in your
20 church in Soweto or what?
REV CHIKANE: No, in the white church.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the AFM in the white in Krugersdorp. We
had visit them, visited there on mission days , you know, we
would meet and, but I would not have known him. He
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 31 F CHIKANE
introduced himself as a deacon.
COURT: So he is a police officer, he was a police officer?
REV CHIKANE: A police officer, a security police officer. He
introduced himself to me as a deacon of my church, but he
explained he is doing his job. I, I looked for him aft er ’94 as
well as I was told he ended up in Free State and I have not
been able to reach him, because I wanted to make peace with
all of them, I mean the, the things that happened were terrible.
I do not think he is alive now, because he was a bit older t han
10 me.
COURT: Okay.
MR VARNEY: So he was a full time Security Branch Officer?
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And also a volunteer at his church as, as a
deacon?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, because many people become deacons in
church, it could be any person who works anywhere.
MR VARNEY: Ja ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja, but ...[intervenes]
20 MR VARNEY: Do you recall his name per chance?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I had his name, I had tried to remember
now. At the time I was looking for him I had his name, but I
cannot find it in any of the records, but you see it was a,
because he was a deacon of my church I was saying to that
church can you help me find this man, let us make peace, I
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 32 F CHIKANE
mean he does not have to run away from me, because I am not
intending to send him to jail.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: We just have to make peace, because we will
meet again. Let me make an example when one guest visited
South Africa they, the police have to take care of these guests
and then there was as Director General in the presidency
meets this leader and there the, my torturer was taking care of
this leader, you know, so we greeted each other and, and I
10 thought why do we not make peace, we will meet all over,
because they are still in the state missionary.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: At the least the first few years after ’94. Ja,
and then the last thing about that, that torture is that they,
they, they used to take us out and they will walk with you in a
road going from one point to another and they would say walk
in front so we can see you. I then said no, I will not walk in
front, I will walk next to you, because if I walked in front you
will shoot me and say I was running away.
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I am not going to do that. So there was a
lot of engagement with the guys who, who were torturing you.
You reach a stage, I mean three weeks, I do not remember
whether it is three weeks or six weeks , but we will check that,
but even three weeks it is a long time with a torturer to …, you
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 33 F CHIKANE
create a relationship.
MR VARNEY: So Reverend, you were then released in
January 1978.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And it appears that in fact, you were then
charged with public violence?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, instead of being charged with the people
they were questioning me about it. They then charged me with
other, the group of detainees we were with for public violence .
10 I must, I must add which is not in my statement that when they
brought us together in January, because we were dispersed all
over, we were put in one cell. I did not even know some of
those young people who were there, but one of them had
completely lost it, I mean he was totally abnormal and he never
recovered, but I cannot track down the name so I, I cannot, I
am not able to do that. So they then charg ed us for public
violence, released us, I think we were going to come back in a
week or so’s time, I do not remember the time frames. On the
day when I was supposed to go to court they came and
20 detained me in the morning.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It was in the Men’s, the Mission House, the
church where Pastors, so I stayed in the church house in
Kagiso. They detained me there. They started beating me up
from the bedroom.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 34 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And I was living with, because I was not
married at that time, I lived with a couple in the building and
the Isac Kele who, who was the, the, the one, the couple, the
husband came to try to help and asked what is happening.
They send him back with a gun to go and sleep, so that he
should not see what is happening. So they beat me up from
the house into the cars. They took me to Kruger…, Kagiso
Police Station and you know those, those days we had afro
10 hair, you know it was the black consciousness hair days of afro
hair and et cetera. They pulled out my h air in the police
station. It got scattered all over the police station and they
forced me to collect my hair and put it in a dustbin and they
then took me, drove to Bethal which is where the case ended
up being held, but I do not know why they drove me t here,
because I should appear in court at ten .
COURT: Where, in Krugersdorp?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, in Krugersdorp. So they assaulted me
throughout as we were going to Bethal and I arrived there, I
20 think their Commander said go back to Krugersdorp, the case
is waiting for you. So they drove me back to Krugersdorp at
two o’clock and when they detained me they did not allow me
to put my clothes on, so I had my clothes in my hands and
pyjamas so I was able to dress up as we were going back in
the car on top of my pyjamas and when I appeared in court the
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 35 F CHIKANE
congregation was full in court waiting and I appeared there
with my jacket on top of the pyjamas and then the case was
thrown out, there was no case and then we went home and,
and that radicalised that congregat ion so much that some of
the young people ended up in exile, some of them ended up
with uMkhonto we Sizwe, because they were so angry about
what happened there. After my release I could not sleep in
one place for two nights, because you know, if you were
detained for so long they detain you a few days later, torture
10 you so much, I could not sleep in one place for two days. So
my friends had to move me from one house to another. I could
not go and sleep there. They change either and it took a long
time before I could go back and, and stay at the church.
MR VARNEY: Reverend, the, there has been a request from
the back of the courtroom that you, you elevate your voice.
REV CHIKANE: Oh!
MR VARNEY: They are very interested in hearing what, what
you have to say.
REV CHIKANE: I will do the preaching voice then.
20 MR VARNEY: Ja.
COURT: That is what I have been waiting for, Reverend.
MR VARNEY: Perhaps if you can pretend that we are actually
in a large cathedral and your voice has to burn.
REV CHIKANE: Okay.
MR VARNEY: You mentioned in your affidavit at paragraph 16
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 36 F CHIKANE
that you had a brief detention in 1980 and you were not
interrogated.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, that is the time when Krugersdorp was
going to give P W Botha the freedom of Krugersdorp, of
Krugersdorp and for them to do that they had to detain all the
leaders in the, in Kagiso and, and Mansonville, so they
detained us before the celebration. They did not ask us any
questions, nothing and the celebration went past and then they
released us afterwards.
10 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Which means they could not have their
celebration whilst we were there. Obviously they knew we
would protest against it and our view was why give P W Botha
freedom of Krugersdorp when we are not free in our country, i t
does not make sense. We need to be free and that is, that is
what we were struggling with.
MR VARNEY: And you then go on to say that during the latter
part of 1981 you were suspended by the District Council of
your Church, the Apostolic Faith Missio n.
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Could you explain why they suspended you?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I thought I must explain this when I
reread it again.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: The, the District, the Church is structured in a
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 37 F CHIKANE
form of local congregatio n districts and national, so that I was
the secretary of the District Council and they called a meeting
of the District Council without telling me what the agenda was
and I was the agenda.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I went to the meeting and within 20
minutes I was put under suspension and the reason was I am
involved in politics, I am embarrassing the church, I appear in
the newspapers and I am embarrassing the church, but they
10 can only suspend you, that is around August and then the
National Executive had to deal with my discipline and so I went
through the disciplinary process of the church I think by
October or so it was completed. I got suspended indefinitely
and you know, Pastors can, they do terrible things at times and
they suspend them for one year and they come back again, I
was suspended indefinitely until you repent, you are
suspended until repent and so we started looking for
accommodation, because they gave us two months to vacate
the house with my dear wife, M'Lord, I am doing this for th e
20 first time with my wife here, because she said she does not
want to listen to these stories, I must write a book so people
can read it.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Because it is not, it is not a good thing to talk
about your torture and you know, and so they, we looked for a
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 38 F CHIKANE
house in Soweto. Before we could settle in the police detained
me. So and then the church stuck to their deadline to throw
her out of the Men’s and some charitable people, friends
assisted to secure the house to make sure she is in a house.
So that, that is when my next detention which was the fourth
one started.
COURT: Hmm, ja.
MR VARNEY: Reverend, there is some irony in the fact that
the church, the Apostolic Faith Mission did not appear to be
10 that charitable or compassionate in relation to you and your
family.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, actually the, the painful thing is that I was
talking about this on Tuesday in the presence of the new
President of the Church, Pastor Bathlob o. The irony about this
is that their ...[indistinct] cha nged radically. The FM was
divided into coloured, Indian, African, White and what, what
the, the white church was the legal entity and they declared us
adherents to a church in terms of the clause which was passed
in parliament and the, the action, you ha ve got District Council
20 of Black Leaders, but chaired by a white missionary and so
what they would say is like ’76 when I started in Krugersdorp,
they paid me a stipend for one month and the white people who
were contributing the members said if Frank Chik ane is part of
your list we withdraw all our funding and I then said no, let
them not withdraw these funding for this poor pastors, take me
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 39 F CHIKANE
out of the list, so I was never paid between ’76 and 2010 by
the church whatever I did in the church, but it was the white
section of the church dictating what happens and the Chair of
the District was a Pastor Pieterse , he is the one who chaired
the meeting to suspend me and then he had a national, again it
is a missionary, a white missionary who chaired the meeting .
So the black church was more under control in terms of what
the white membership was doing.
COURT: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: But I am, I am saying this because when we
united in 1996 Doctor Isac Berger who was the leader of the
white church, publically asked f or forgiveness about what they
did to me and we united, actually we are the only church which
was divided, that has reached unity than those who were even
liberal.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: In that sense. So I just want to put it within
context so we do not talk about the church AFM as if it is what
it was, it is now.
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It was what it was then, but there was no
sympathy, because they, they believed we are the terrorists
amongst white members of the church and the, the, the, th e Dr
Isac Berger who is still alive did say to me I never believed
that you were tortured, I could not bel ieve that my people could
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 40 F CHIKANE
do such things. They were kept so ignorant and read nothing
about our experiences and that is where the, the success of
apartheid system was that they would keep whites ignorant
about what was happening.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: There was even a law which said the white
person must get permission to visit Soweto. Whites had to
apply for a permission to be in Soweto.
COURT: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: That was ...[intervenes]
COURT: Was it not all the black townships?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, it was for all the black townships, there
was a law that prescribed that they should apply for permission
to, so when they came to the township s they had to get
permission and that is how apartheid was done in a way that
keeps whites ignorant about awful things they were doing to us
and justified our torture and called us terrorists and I even in
my case said these propaganda leaflets about communists who
torture people, who hang people down, with the head down
20 they used to have those leaflets propaganda and I said well,
what do you say the communists do, this government which
claims to be Christens has done to me, everything that you
say.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And, and it took a long time before they, they
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 41 F CHIKANE
got to understand this and then I must say that I mean, I think
that, that church has changed.
COURT: Okay.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend. Can we now move to
your fourth and longest period of detention which you say was
between the 20 th of November 1981 and the 7 th of July 1982
and I suspect that this period of detention will be of most
interest to the court because it coincided in part with the
detention at John Vorster Square of th e late Dr Neil Aggett.
10 Perhaps we can begin, Reverend by, if you can describe to the
court how you were arrested and where you were taken .
REV CHIKANE: I was, I was arrested again from the church in
Krugersdorp that is, that is where I was arrested and that was
November. The …, ja, the, it was a very rough experience. I
am of the view that I was arrested by the security police which,
who operated from Protea in Soweto. So they arrested me and
took me to Protea Police Station. I was kept at Mondeor Police
Station. That is, that is where I was kept and that is the place
where they even forgot, there were no detainees there, I was
20 the only one, they forgot I exist, they locked me up and
changed shifts and I missed meals, because they forgot there
is a human being in that, in those cells, but the torture was
quite extreme. It was around issues about people I was
ministering to, people who have gone into exile. People I
interacted with and, and in particular I, I put that name
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 42 F CHIKANE
yesterday, because I though t it is very important, the name of
Lillian Keagile which appears in paragraph 20. I, I happened
to and I refer to Ernest Dipale in paragraph 23 ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: If, if we could just pause for a moment, so you,
you are now talking about your experience at John Vorster
Square and not, not Protea Police Station?
REV CHIKANE: No, starting from Protea Police Station.
MR VARNEY: Okay, so we are still at Protea Police Station.
REV CHIKANE: We are at Protea Police Station.
10 MR VARNEY: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: But, but the detention in Protea Police Station
was related to also, because when they moved me from Protea
to John Vorster it was like a continuation , so what the John
Vorster people said to me was those people in Protea Police
Station did not have sufficient information about you, we have
more information about you, that is why I am brought to, to
John Vorster ...[intervenes]
COURT: Not, not Mondeor? Where is Mondeor?
REV CHIKANE: Mondeor it is when you are in Southgate Mall
20 driving South it is on the left hand side that is where Mondeor
is.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: And the police station where they kept me
was in Mondeor.
COURT: Oh!
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 43 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja, but there were no detainees there, I was
the only one there so it is a whole corridor of cells without
people except myself, but that is the time I was in the hands of
the Protea Security Police.
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: They used to pick me up during the night, go
and beat me, beat me up, torture me and at one stage they did
what was done to me. They were tracking some people from
Botswana to South Africa and you could hear from their walky
10 talkies that they are talking about a movement . They chained
me against a chair and left me there and went to do this
operation and ...[indistinct] people in Krugersdorp and other
things and came in the morning, it was dark about one o’clock,
came in the morning to come and unchain me and send me
back to the police station. It was a horror story, because when
they come and pick you up at one in the morning to go and
torture you it is meant to disorientate you and you do not know
where they are taking you to when they pick you up. Then I
was transferred to John Vorster, but the case ...[intervenes]
20 MR VARNEY: Can we just the, the ...[intervenes ]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: The date, because in paragraph 3 of your
signed statement, that is the exhibit for the first inquest.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: B3.1.2 the date given there is the 20 th of
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 44 F CHIKANE
January 1982 that you were transferred from P rotea.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: To John Vorster Square, is that right?
REV CHIKANE: Yes, yes, it is about January.
MR VARNEY: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: So I spend about two months in Protea Police
Station staying and being kept at the police station and
tortured in Protea Police Station. Then I was transferred . Now
in, in, for me the, the two major cases except many other
10 things they were interrogating me about, M'Lord and I need to
say that in the earlier detention they would even put records of
how I prayed in ...[indistinct], you know, you prayed in
Vereeniging against the apartheid government.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, and beat you up for that. It was like you,
you are generally against them, so the cases I cannot separate
the two, but I would like to deal with them together, the Protea
and the, there were two major issues they were questioning me
about. The one was about Lillian Keagile.
20 COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: Now they, they detained us. The Ernest
Dipale would be the person who, who when I had to go to
Botswana took me to Botswana, so he was also detained there
and Ernest Dipale died during that detention. They released
him and detained him again whilst we were still there and he
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 45 F CHIKANE
died the second round, but I then understood that h e was, he
is related to Lillian Keagile, but Lillian Keagile served six yea rs
in jail after this detention, but she, she had a, a policeman, a
security policeman who was in love with her and she did not
know that this is a policeman or has been recruited a nd knew
everything she did including our interaction with her during the
struggle and therefore believed I knew what Lillian Keagile was
doing, but I did not know much.
COURT: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: And they tortured her quite severely and
charged her afterwards. They wanted some of us to be
witnesses and we said no, I am not going to be a witness
against anybody. The second person who was Cedric Maison .
Cedric Maison worked with us in the struggle within the
churches, the Methodist Christ and he was part of the Institute
for Contextual Theology. He worked closely with Beyers Naudé
who supported a lot of us, those who were at needs and Cedric
Maison ran some operation of his own and then send letters to
that letter boxes, but actually the police were trac king that and
20 they believed that I was part of that operation and, and I was
tortured for that, so there were a number of issues they were
torturing me for and wanted me to make statements to
implicate people where I do not have the information that they
were looking for.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 46 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: In, in paragraph 21 you said that while at John
Vorster Square.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: You were interrogated and assaulted by
someone by the name of Piet Syfert .
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: On one occasion during the detention, can you
describe where in John Vorster Square that took place and
10 approximately when, if you have an idea?
REV CHIKANE: Well, the, we were generally on the second
floor where we were kept, that is where the cells were I think ,
but they used to take us to 10 th floor on the John Vorster
Square, 10 th floor that is where the interrogation happened and
the torture there. Their method was very drastic, because it, it
made you .., they bring a t eam that looks very friendly and
tried to encourage you to say you know, if you do not talk
these bad guys will come here and, and kill you.
COURT: Hmm.
20 REV CHIKANE: So you need to talk and then if they feel you
are not talking they would then let these guys come and they
were very violent, but they do it so quickly and go, you do not
have a picture of them, you know, they torture you and get out
of the space and then those who remained with you tried to be
friendly. So this particular Syfert, I mean I can only recall
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 47 F CHIKANE
when I saw the records, I had forgotten the names you know,
but now the old records can tell you that , the, the .., he, he, he
did something that is beyond the general , because he was
there most of the time and I think they became very ang ry
when I said to them you, you cannot force me to make
statements about people I know nothing about and they write
the statement for you, so you sign it . Of course, in the middle
of the torture, the beatings you could sign a statement, but
when they said do it under oath, I said no, I have read it
10 carefully, it does not represent the truth and then he got very
angry and started beating me up and Warrant-Officer Deetlefs
was there most of the time . I think he must have been the
person who had to take care of, of me in terms of all these
processes and actually this, this morning my, my dear wife said
when Aggett died the families came to visit us, because there
was an uproar, people thought all of us are dead, so they had
to prove we are alive, allowed our families to see us and she
came to see me and I decided that day we must give you
powers of attorney to run the family, because she could not
20 access my accounts and et cetera and she remembered this
morning that it is Warrant-Officer Deetlefs who handled those
documents for me to sign and et cetera , to give her powers of
attorney. So that was one of the rough moments when I said
no. They get, they get frustrated, because you could see that
the Captain wants it from them. They must get it from me. If
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 48 F CHIKANE
they cannot get it from you and they have to report to the
Captain that they cannot get it, it is almost like you are failing
to do your job and then they become more violent , because
they would leave satisfied there, finished with you and you
think you had to tell them a story that will let them get out and
then they will come back more violent and you say but what
has happened, because I thought we, we are done , but clearly
when they go to their commanders I am sure they would say
you have not done your job, we want this information, we want
10 that and et cetera and he had to agree even when it is false.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend. You indicate that
Warrant-Officer Deetlefs was present during the, during your
assault.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Piet Syfert, now if I can refer you to the
unsigned affidavit that was put up as an exhibit in the first
inquest, M'Lord, that is the one marked B3.4.5.
COURT: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And I, I see a paragraph 5 of that affidavit page
20 2, you have a, there is a headi ng there titled contact with
Warrant-Officer N J Deetlefs.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And there you say he never assaulted you, but
he did insult and abuse you, can you describe to the court how
he insulted and abused you?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 49 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja, that is, that is difficult to, to, I cannot use
his words. I mean the, the insult undermining language ja,
treating you like less than a human being, calling you a kaffer
predikant, you know, it, it, I would not want to use the
language, because I mean it is really abusive language that if
a person wants to undermine you, because they want to break
you, you know.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: This, this kaffer Predikant who behaves this
10 way and that way and et cetera. The, the …, so I at that time,
because I wrote this whilst my mind was fresh.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: At that time and I could only take it as far as
being referred as a kaffer Predikant, but to use the language
they were, they are very abusive, the, the language was
terrible, swearing at you, doin g all sorts of things, but he never
assaulted me, but I was assaulted in his presence.
MR VARNEY: And this would all take place in one of the 10 th
floor offices of John Vorster Square?
20 REV CHIKANE: On the 10 th floor, ja, on the 10 th floor.
COURT: So, so but you say that he never assaulted you, but
other officers assaulted you in his presence?
REV CHIKANE: In his presence and I think that is what that
paragraph deals with, I was assaulted intermittently during the
first few days of my interrogation . I was assaulted by the said
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 50 F CHIKANE
Syfert in the presence of Deetlefs.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: That was the only occasion that I was
actually physically abused at John Vorster in this particular
detention.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: And if we can just unpack what you mean by
assault, what kind of physical assault did you endure at the
hands of Syfert?
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja, you see that is, that is what you do not
want to repeat. They assaulted you, they beat you up. They
used anything that they can use to beat you up. Remember
that in detention you are totally in their hands. I always say
that I suspect that Biko could not allow them to do that to him
and that is why they killed him. So you n eeded to measure
your resistance to what extent, how do you surviv e and, and to
be beaten when you cannot defend yourself it is a painful
thing. It is worst if they have, you know, chained you up and
be beaten when you are chained up. It is, ja the …, I would
20 not want to go further on that, ja.
MR VARNEY: I see and Reverend, I, I must apologise for
raising these traumatic times for you.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: But it, it will assist the court if there is some,
some detail, for example during that assault were you
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 51 F CHIKANE
restrained or chained, if you can recall?
REV CHIKANE: I, I think at, at …, I cannot remember the
details, because at times they kept you on leg irons. They
bring you with, you know like a normal prisoner, but take out
the hands, the handcuffs, but leave you in leg irons so that you
do not run around, but I cannot remember at this particular
moment the state in which I was , but I remember it was very
violent.
MR VARNEY: Right.
10 REV CHIKANE: Because this Syfert must be the one who
went to the Captain, I have forgotten his name now, Captain at
that time, he was very, he was like a bull who wanted
information. They must do whatever they need to do to get the
information he wants, because he must convict people. So I, I
would not remember the details. I must say that during the
time I was at John Vorster this matter does arise from time to
time, I was, I was taken to a window, you know, at the 10 th
floor where I was told this is where they took out Timol and
that they were going to throw me out of that window if I do not
20 talk and, and if I did not t ell them what they want and they
actually did an action to try to put me at the window as if they
are throwing me out and brought me back again. So they used
every method they could hopefully to break you so that you can
sign a statement or agree with the m about what they want from
you.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 52 F CHIKANE
COURT: Sorry Reverend, when they did that, the Timol
inquest had already been done?
REV CHIKANE: No, no, no the ...[intervenes]
COURT: In this 1981?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, no, I would not, I would not know the
sequence of it, but it was a famous story like when Biko died I
was in Rustenburg Prison in solitary confinement. The first
time I heard that Biko has died is from the security police.
They came to me and said Biko is dead and you are going to
10 die like him. You know, it was a language they used in the
process.
COURT: No, no, what I am trying to get at, Reverend is that
we know that in the Biko trial, Biko, sorry ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Inquest.
COURT: In the inquest of Timol they had put up a version tha t
he jumped out of the window.
REV CHIKANE: Yes.
COURT: Now I am trying to say that when they took you to
that window to demonstrate they did not say that Timol jumped
20 out of here or that ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: No.
COURT: But that we threw him out?
REV CHIKANE: No, they threw him out.
COURT: That is what they told you?
REV CHIKANE: And …, ja, and that they were going to do the
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 53 F CHIKANE
same with me.
COURT: Okay7.
REV CHIKANE: They were going to do the same.
COURT: This is 1981?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, it is 1982.
COURT: 1982.
REV CHIKANE: I think, ja.
COURT: You see the Timol inquest must have been finalised
then, because he died in 1971.
10 REV CHIKANE: Yes, I ...[intervenes]
COURT: It must ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Well, I cannot say, but whatever the case,
that story was a public story.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: That Timol had gone out of the window and
that the police were saying he jumped out. We did not believe
it and so when they said it to me, it just confirmed my views
that Timol was not, he did not jump out of the window, they
threw him out of that. Whether he was alive by the time they
20 threw him out one would not know.
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, for the record and I, I can talk with
some authority, because I represented the Timol family in a
reopened inquest, so Ahmed Timol was murdered in 1971. The
inquest was held in 1972.
COURT: Ja.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 54 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: And at that point in time the inquest magistrate
found that he had committed suicide and nobody was to blame
and then the reopened inquest in 2017 Judge Mothle found that
Timol have been murdered and the Security Branch have
thrown him out of the 10 th floor window.
COURT: You are confirming what the witness said that they
actually told him?
MR VARNEY: Indeed so, that was some 1 0 years later.
COURT: Ja.
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja, ja.
MR VARNEY: If we could just go back to the incident of, of
assault by Syfert and I am not going to press on the details, I
understand that it is traumatic. You have said both in your
recent affidavit as well as this unsigned affidavit and indeed
the signed affidavit before the 1982 inquest that this was done
in the presence of Warrant-Officer Deetlefs.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Now did Warrant-Officer Deetlefs did he attempt
to stop the assault?
20 REV CHIKANE: No.
MR VARNEY: Did he object, what did he do at that time?
REV CHIKANE: No, but then for me he was part of it even if
he did not touch me, but I mean he did not say you cannot do
it, you know what I mean I, the, the only place when somethi ng
was stopped it was during the, the 7 days detention in John
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 55 F CHIKANE
Vorster where I mean more than 10 policemen went on top of
me on the floor, I mean they jumped on boots and everything
and, and somebody then stopped it at that particular moment .
The, that is the only time when, but it was not like stopping i t,
because it should not happen, but I am sure he realised that I
would die and, and stopped it, but no, not in this particular
case, I mean Deetlefs was there and ja, the best they can say
to you is that if you do not talk to us the rough guys will come,
you know, talk to us or the rough guys will come.
10 MR VARNEY: And at some point did you make an official
complaint about this assault?
REV CHIKANE: Yes, I did. I mean normally they would have
a magistrate or a judge who visits you once a month, three
weeks to, to ask for enige klagtes, I mean that is why they
would say when they come to you, but it was a useless
exercise, because they did nothing after you have reported
about those matters. I do give a n example of my request for
the Bible, a simple thing, because all detainees were given the
Bible in detention. The only thing that you were allowed was
20 the Bible.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: But I was not given the Bible and so I
complained and they said no, die Bybel no ...[indistinct], you
are a terrorist, so it is not going to help to give you a Bible and
it took three months talking to a, a judge in this case who came
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 56 F CHIKANE
here, a retired judge to get them to get me a Bible and when
they did they gave me an Afrikaans one.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: To make sure you asked for a Bible, there is
the Bible and, and I always say, M'Lord that I, I read that
Afrikaans Bible three and a half times.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, from Genesis to Revelations, beca use you
were sitting in a cell, there was nothing else except this, this
10 Bible. So they did not act, but in this particular case in
paragraph C of the unsigned statement, we do refer to, I saw
inspector of detainees Morton.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And I must rely on this text, because I had
already forgotten the names and I reported about this matter. I
cannot recall well, the visit took place although I did take, it
did take place some time after the assault and as a result of
my making the complaint the inspector subsequently saw
Sergeant Blom which is in the record who would then took a
20 statement, et cetera, but nothing came out of it, you know, as,
as far as I can remember.
MR VARNEY: You, you do indicate in paragraph 6 of your
unsigned statement that at first at least you could not, you did
not have the names of the people.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 57 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: Who had assaulted you and you knew who was
present.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: But then you were able to identify Deetlefs and
Syfert.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Perhaps you can, you can indicate how it is that
you, you got to eventually name them ?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I would have to rely on this text,
10 because this is the earliest.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: Then if you ask me today to remember those
details would be very, very difficult.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I would rely on this.
MR VARNEY: Okay, well, it, it is, it is a matter of, of public
record as to how you, you got to identify Deetlefts and Syfert
and M'Lord, it is set out in paragraph 6.
COURT: Yes.
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja, at the, at the end.
COURT: Ja, Sergeant Blom came to see me for a second me,
is that where it is?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, on the second occasion that she visited
me I was initially unable to ident ify Deetlefs. Sergeant Blom
was insistent that I identify the person concerned by name. I
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 58 F CHIKANE
saw her going to Deetlefs’ office and she returned with a list of
names. I was then able to identify the persons concerned
namely Deetlefs and Syfert. You see the y do, they call each
other by name, so you have to work out who is who and, and I
was able to work out that Deetlefs and Syfert were the people
who were involved, ja.
MR VARNEY: Yes, and, and in the same paragraph I have a
question that arises. You say that on the first visit.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
10 MR VARNEY: After leaving Sergeant Blom’s office I saw
Deetlefs entering the office with others whilst Sergeant Blom
was still there, I just heard them talking to her, but I cannot
hear what was being said.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: So this was in fact moments after you had given
your statement to Sergeant Blom.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Then Deetlefs enters the office and confers with
Sergeant Blom?
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And what was your reaction to, to that, to that
incident?
REV CHIKANE: You know for, for me the, they were beds of
the same, the same, what is it?
MR VARNEY: Feather.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 59 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Feather.
COURT: Feather.
REV CHIKANE: I mean you have got policemen assaulting
you, you have got another policeman investigating, they are all
together here, you do not know what their relationships are.
For me it was a formality really, I did not expect anything from
them. I expect that they would collaborate. They never sell
each other out, even if they were present when you, you were
tortured or beaten up. I have not seen policemen doing that.
10 They always work together. At least if they had brought maybe
a judge or a magistrate it might have worked differently, but
you are in their hands, you are being tortured and another
policeman comes to investigate your complaint and you do not
know who this guy is. For me it is just the same.
MR VARNEY: Reverend, do you know what the outcome was
of that investigation?
REV CHIKANE: No, I got nothing out of it, from my point of
view like all the other complaints you never got results, except
the Bible I fought for and I used to say to the judge who came
20 to me, the retired judge, you have asked for klagtes last month
and the other month, but you have done nothing so I have
nothing to tell you anymore, because it does not help to tell
you anything.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Well, I can inform you, Reverend that ultimately
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 60 F CHIKANE
the Attorney-General refused to prosecute anybody arising
from your complaint.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, for the record Sergeant Blom who
testified in, in the first inquest confirmed that she investigated
the complaint, that is at page 498 of the record and then at
page 810 of the record counsel, I believe it was counsel for the
Police confirmed that the Attorney-General had refused to
prosecute and Reverend, while, while we are dealing with your
10 unsigned statement.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: There is another heading there titled
description of activities of Warrant-Officer McPherson. Did
you, do you recall what his position or job was at John Vorster
Square?
REV CHIKANE: My memory is failing me now, I cannot, it, it
is long ago, ja.
COURT: Perhaps we can adjourn and allow the Reverend to
read through the statement so that he can then recall.
20 MR VARNEY: Yes.
COURT: He can read through the statement during the tea
break and then he can be able to then say he recalls that .
MR VARNEY: Perhaps, it is 11h13 so perhaps we can take the
tea adjournment.
COURT: Ja.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 61 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: And he can then ...[intervenes]
COURT: He can, he can read ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: Read those paragraphs.
COURT: Paragraphs 6, 7, 8, and what, it is a long one up to
15 and then also maybe, maybe both affidavits if you wa nt to,
him to lead evidence on the two, it will make it easier and
faster.
MR VARNEY: As the court pleases.
COURT: Thank you. At this time we will take a tea
10 adjournment for 15 minutes.
COURT ADJOURNS [11:08]
------
COURT RESUMES [11:31:51]
COURT: Thank you very much. You may proceed. Reverend,
you are still under oath.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
FRANK CHIKANE: (still under oath)
COURT: You may proceed.
EXAMINATION BY MR VARNEY (CONTINUES) : As the court
20 pleases. Reverend Chikane, during the teatime did you have
an opportunity to ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Read through your statements?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I had an opportunity to read those
paragraph 7, 8, you know, up to the end. The, I, I did not pay
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 62 F CHIKANE
attention to those paragraphs, because I thought it is about
details of our .., the happenings within the cells and how they
moved us from one place to another, exercises, things that
were allowed. That, that is what it is dealing with and I can
see that at the time we did the statement they would have put
the question to me to say what did McPherson who was
responsible for us there.
MR VARNEY: Yes, now ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Now I would not have not remembered the
10 name, but now that they are saying it.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: That would have been the person who was
taking care of us.
MR VARNEY: Right, thank you.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: So for the moment we are actually going to
leave your unsigned statement and we will return just to a few
aspects of it a little later.
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: We are going to return to the affidavit that, in
fact, you signed only yesterday.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And in paragraph 23 you say that you were kept
in the cells on the second floor with the other political
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 63 F CHIKANE
detainees and that you were moved at least three times.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: And you initially occupied cell number 210.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: During the tea break we, we gave you a floor
plan of the second floor male section. M'Lord, this is page 4 of
EXHIBIT G10.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, I do have a spare copy if you cannot
10 find yours.
COURT: No, I have got it here.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, M'Lady.
COURT: Page 4 of G10.
MR VARNEY: Ja.
COURT: Sorry, what did I do to it now? Oh no, no, no, I am
referring to the inspection -in-loco.
MR VARNEY: Perhaps M'Lord, if we can just hand up a copy,
a colour copy of the floor plan?
COURT: Ja, okay. Yes.
20 MR VARNEY: Now Reverend Chikane, I totally appreciate that
this is some 38 years back.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: But if you look at that floor plan do you think
you might be able to point out where cell number 210 was?
REV CHIKANE: Ja ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 64 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: Bearing in mind that the cell numbers have
changed.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: They no longer reflect the numbers
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: No.
MR VARNEY: At that time.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, even the structure might have changed a
little bit, but M'Lord if yo u, I mean entering from where they
10 say you are here which must have been the entry point.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: From wherever the offices I think I was put on
the first corridor first when I arrived there, I would not know
which one of those cells, the number in my statement says
210, but it comes from the old statements, but I was on that
corridor and then I was changed to the next corridor there
which I call it an L-shape.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: So the second part of it and I would have
20 been in cell number 8, you know, cell number 867 around there
where they have got B16, B17, B18 .
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: And then I was then changed to what now
comes either as B20 or B21. I suspect it would be B20 there.
COURT: Hmm.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 65 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Because the, what I remember very well is
that when you were in those two other cells where I was, you
could not see the people when they pass, because the hole is,
you know, if you look through the hole if they go past you
would not know who was there unless if they stood there, but
from that cell B20, B1 I would, I was able to see activity on the
corridor.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And that was by the way very helpful to me,
10 because being in solitary confinement you see nothing except
yourself in the cell and when they come to give you food, but
this gave me an opportunity to look at people doing exercises
or taking, you know, detainees in and out, you could see that
activity and that, that would have been the cell where I am , I
would have been and then of course, after Aggett’s death there
were changes again, I would not remember where we are, we
were.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend and then moving to
paragraph 24 of your recent affidavit, you point out that certain
20 items were prohibited in the cells.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Can you give examples and explain why?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, then they took our belts and shoes laces
and you know, anything they thought you could use to hurt
yourself or hang yourself with and left you with your bare
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 66 F CHIKANE
minimum things like clothes and the blankets and the mattress
which they used, I do not know what they call them, it is not a
mattress, but it is a flat type of ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: Like a mat?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, a mat, ja, like a mat. So that, that is what
they allowed you. Before Aggett’s death in solitary
confinement your family does not know where you are. So they
would not bring you anything actually. When I was in
Rustenburg I know my mother worked it out, prisoners informed
10 her, she came to Rustenburg from Soweto and the police told
her I am not there, there is no such a person here.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And of course, they came to tell me that we
just told your mother you are not here, because those
policeman felt very guilty about the black p olicemen who were
around in, with us, felt very guilty and he would come and
share information with you in the process.
MR VARNEY: And, and ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: So no, they would not allow you food from
20 outside or anything, but after Aggett’s d eath certain things
happened that were not allowed to happen here.
MR VARNEY: Yes, and we will come to that shortly.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: It is interesting that you indicate that you were
provided with, with blankets but not sheets.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 67 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: No, there were no sheets.
MR VARNEY: No sheets.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the white section had beds and sheets
and blankets. In the black section there were no sheets there ,
it is just a blanket and the mat.
MR VARNEY: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: In all the detentions I was kept in you only
had the mat and the blanket.
MR VARNEY: Thanks. Well, the evidence so far, Reverend is
10 that certainly on the second floor although it appeared that
some detainees might have been privileged over others, but
there were no sheets albeit.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: No, I never had a sheet or bed in all my
detentions.
MR VARNEY: And you indicated that the cells were searched
on a, on a regular basis.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
20 MR VARNEY: Did you recall how frequent?
REV CHIKANE: I would not remember, but they did not give
notice, but they did search the cells from …, they were trying
to check whether we are communicating, whether we have
information, whether you know, so they would come and search
the cells. They suspected at times that we might be getting
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 68 F CHIKANE
information through the regular police or something like that or
ja.
MR VARNEY: And now prior to the death of, of Neil Aggett,
what other items were you allowed and here I am thinking of
things such as, you know books and sweets and other
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: No.
MR VARNEY: Other odd items, games, et cetera?
REV CHIKANE: Except the Bible, nothing. In, in my case,
10 because the, even the clothes you had, you know, were limited
in terms of what you, you had in the cell. So I cannot
remember having anything else for reading, no.
MR VARNEY: And you do make a comment at paragraph 12 of
your unsigned statement that you cannot comment on whether
or not Neil Aggett’s cell was as well stocked as it is stated by
the police.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, no, I would not, because I would not have
had the chance to look at his cell, you know, the …, ja, once
they put him in that corridor where I was where I could look
20 through the hole, once they go into the cel l that was it, it is a
dark spot, you do not know what is happening on that other
side and if you walk through for exercises or they take you
elsewhere you cannot look through the hole into the cells, it is
not possible.
MR VARNEY: Right, we, we have hea rd evidence in these
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 69 F CHIKANE
proceedings that in Dr Aggett’s cell after his death they
discovered 19 books, chess sets.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Games, sweets and the like, what is your
reaction to that?
REV CHIKANE: Well, maybe there were others who wer e
more privileged than us, but no, I, it would have been nice if I
had all that, but I ...[intervenes]
MR VARNEY: I am sure.
10 REV CHIKANE: I had nothing, absolutely nothing.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: I mean you struggle, M'Lord with just the food
they were giving you. They will throw the plate under the grill
door and then when they come next they want the same plate
to put food on it and it has not been washed.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It still has the food you have not eaten ,
because you do not …, you cannot eat this food and, and they
told me well, why did you not wash it? I said where do you
20 wash it?
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: They said the toilet, water it is there in the
toilet. At that point I realised ja, that is tough here, you know
and, and so you used the, the coffee they give you to try to
wash the plate so that you can eat next time. So you drank
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 70 F CHIKANE
your coffee three quarter way, you used the rest to wash.
They, they, of course, they do that when you arrive so that they
put lots of pressure on you, but afterwards they did not ask me
to use the same plates, but there was nothing in the cell in
where I was. It is only during the treason trial, of course,
where we had access to food and things coming from the
family. Once you are charged ...[intervenes]
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: You can receive that.
10 MR VARNEY: And in your recent affidavit from paragraph 26
you indicate that while on the second floor cells of the male
section you and some of the detainees developed a system to
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Communicate.
MR VARNEY: To communicate.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Do you recall what that system was?
REV CHIKANE: No, the, the …, we had to find ways of
communicating. You are creative when you are in that spot .
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I was in the corridor, the first corridor
there.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And, and I was send a note to say empty the
water in the toilet during the night and we will talk to you .
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 71 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So I thought this was funny, so I
experimented and emptied the water. Fortunately there is a
drainage there and once you empty the water in the toilet you
could talk to the other detainees.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Through the toilet and so we were able to
work out who is around and how they were tortured or had
experience and because of that you had to keep it very clean
10 …(laughing), because you need it during the night for
communication. Of course, the other communication was
through prisoners in Rustenburg it worked better there. They
would tell you, these are ordinary prisoners who clean cells
and they would know there are these detainees there , they are
ordinary, you know, prisoners, but they would want to be
helpful to these detainees, so they will come in t he cell, clean
while the police are watching and they will say to me next time
leave your, I mean well, use the toilet to do a message, put it
in the, the collage box at that time, because you, you got the
20 colgate box. You could then put the toilet paper inside there
with a message and they will make sure it reaches Soweto
from Rustenburg.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: The prisoners when they go to court they give
it to family and say the Reverend Chikane is in that cell, can
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 72 F CHIKANE
you pass it over to the family.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And they did it, they did not have to know lots
of the detainees, so that is how my family knew I was in
Rustenburg and they came and they told them I am not there ,
so there were many ways in which we tried to break the system
and even prisoners assisted us.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: At times it is the police who assisted us, it is
10 not in our statement, but M'Lord, it might interest you to know
the dynamics between the detainee, the white security police
and the black security police, because the black security police
were discriminated against, treated in my view like that and
were just guards even when they were senior, when they go
away they make sure they take care of you, when they come
back they take over, but there is also the un…, the uniformed
police who would take care of you in the cells and one of those
policemen decided he would not lock my cell up to nine in the
night.
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So when he went past I said to him you know,
why are you not locking the cell, lock it. He said no, my
conscience does not allow me anymore to lock you up. So I
said you will lose your job, just lock, because I am not going to
run away and I am not going anywhere, just lock for the sake
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 73 F CHIKANE
of your job. He was so angry, he came back to me and said I
am going to lock you in and I am going to beat a white
policeman so they dismiss me, because they could not allow
them to resign.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And I never saw him again and months after I
was released he saw me in the street stopped the van, came to
talk to me and said I am the policeman who was refusing to
lock you up. So there was lots of pain even amongst the police
10 who were taking care of you.
MR VARNEY: And do you recall whether black policemen
were able to assist you in any other means?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, some of them would be able to pass over
information, it was a risky operation. They, they would, for
instance I knew about Aggett’s death through one of those
police, policemen who let me know about it, because they
would not tell you ...[intervenes]
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: That somebody has died. That, of course,
20 will communicate via the, the toilet telephone …, (laughter) to
let others know as well, ja.
MR VARNEY: Yes, if I can just check the, th e toilet telephone
that you were using on the second floor male section of John
Vorster Square and the smuggling through the toothpaste
boxes that took place ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 74 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: That is Rustenburg.
MR VARNEY: Rustenburg.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, it is Rustenburg.
MR VARNEY: And while using the toilet telephone you would
get a sense as to who was on the floor with you .
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And what might be happening with them.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, they, actually that is why I am saying life
10 in detention it is, it is a different type of life, because to
survive we had to even make jokes about torture, M'Lord to
laughed at each other, you know, how did they treat you
yesterday and then they will tell you how, what happened to
them and, and the way to survive is to laugh about it and say
hey, I survived yesterday, how did you go? So there was a bit
of communication, but it was not regular, because you had to
watch the police moving around so you get off the toilet and so
it was not like you, you, it is a free accommodation …, it is a
free exercise, but it happened more when I was on the first
20 corridor, not on the second corridor.
COURT: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: I see, but you indicated you were not able to
communicate directly with Neil Aggett through the toilet
telephone?
REV CHIKANE: No, no, no, it was the other comrades that
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 75 F CHIKANE
were, were able to communicate with him .
MR VARNEY: Right, you also point out in paragraph 29 that
you were suffering from a Vitamin D deficiency.
REV CHIKANE: Yes.
MR VARNEY: Through the lack of sunlight and they would
take you to a higher place , but you had certain fears, what,
what were those fears?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, before I answer that question there is
something that is not in my statement that we u sed to be taken
10 to a doctor who took care of prisoners after you know, the first
detention, the third degree, you know, stuff my body, my body
was in a real mess and so that doctor made drawings of where
I had injuries and et cetera and so forth, but on th is particular
instance when we visited the doctor he found that most of us
were Vitamin D deficient, because in John Vorster Square you
do not do exercises outside, if it is a prison like Rustenburg
they take you out to the sun, you do exercises, but in Jo hn
Vorster you do exercises along those corridors, you never see
the sun.
20 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: For months in, months out, so they detected
we are Vitamin D deficient and then they arranged for us to be
taken to the top of the building, I do not kno w whether it was
the highest, I think it must be like third floor or something, not
the, the 10 th floor, where the cells were .
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 76 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And they will take you to the top of the
building with a policeman and you sat there for 30 minutes with
him and then go down.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It was supposed to happen daily 30 minutes ,
but it was the, the scariest thing you could have, you know, if
you have to sit with that policeman at the top of the building,
they could push you over.
10 COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: And you sat there hoping that nobody is going
to push you over into the street. Ja, that is that and most of
those police would be the black policeman they take you with,
who take you to that space.
MR VARNEY: Another point you really had the fear, because
you have already been threatened that you would be thrown
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja, thrown through the window.
MR VARNEY: As, as Timol have been thrown.
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja, ja.
MR VARNEY: Talking of complains, Reve rend Chikane in your
unsigned statement at paragraph 8.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: You make reference to the operation of a
complaints book which you say you ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 77 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: You generally signed this book every day.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, when I was initially asked by the lawyers I
did not actually remember about this book, but I think they had
to, because it was mandatory for them to take you for 30
minutes for exercises and 30 minutes to the sun and so you
had to sign something that it did happen, you know just as
proof, so they had their own control system to, to have
evidence that they were following the, the requirements of the
10 law.
MR VARNEY: And yours indicate that you would fill in a
certain section of this complai nts books.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: And then McPherson who was the, one of the
officers in charge of the second floor would countersign it.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Do you recall that?
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And, and typically what would you complain
20 about in that book?
REV CHIKANE: I believe that I .., if you were not treated well
or you missed a meal, because at times they forgot you, you
missed a meal or you know, the, you were not taken for
exercise or something, you would have some complaint there,
but you know, you stopped writing anything there, because it
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 78 F CHIKANE
does not help you.
MR VARNEY: Right.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Although you did indicate that you did have
some health complaints relating to high blood pressure.
REV CHIKANE: I, I did, because I developed high blood
pressure during that detention and since then I had to get
permanent treatment up to today, ja, I did complain about that,
the blood pressure.
10 MR VARNEY: And as a result you did see the district surg eon
and ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Secure medication?
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Uhmm, you also indicate at paragraph 14 of
your unsigned affidavit that a high -ranking member would visit
the cells each morning.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And you say this was Colonel Oosthuizen.
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And what, what was the purpose of those
visits?
REV CHIKANE: We, we had a number of visits, some of them
did not make sense to me and then we had a retired judge
coming once in a time, then a magistrate and then there would
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 79 F CHIKANE
be the ordinary police and then this one would have been the,
the security, this is the Uniform Branch Precinct, this was, this
was, this would be the Uniform Branch, this Oosthuizen I think
it is a high-ranking member of the Uniform Branch, not the, not
the security police and he would just come and open the cell
and make sure you are there and pass. I mean as I say in that
statement he just said are you okay and most of the time you
just say yes, I am okay, because you do not expect much from
them.
10 MR VARNEY: In paragraph 15 you, you indicate that there
would be checks including at night, however, they would not
wake you up.
REV CHIKANE: No, ja, but after the death of Dr Aggett they,
they then woke you up, it is almost like are you still alive, you
know, are, are you there, ja, they would do that. It was
disturbing, because I mean it means when you are asleep they
wake you up, put on the lights.
MR VARNEY: And, and prior to Aggett’s death woul d you
know how they would do the checks?
20 REV CHIKANE: No, they just opened the door, put on the
lights and closed.
MR VARNEY: I see.
REV CHIKANE: Most of the time, ja, most of the time.
MR VARNEY: But if they simply checked by peeping through
the peephole you probably would not have known about it?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 80 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: No, no, except that they would kick, they
would have to keep the lights on for them to see you through
the hole, so at times they left the lights on. Remember as a
prisoner you, you are not in control of the lights, the lights are
controlled by them.
MR VARNEY: And, and just sticking with the theme of
complaints at paragraph 23 of your unsigned statement.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: You indicate that you saw the inspector of
10 detainees on a fairly frequent basis.
REV CHIKANE: At page 20…, paragraph 20?
MR VARNEY: Paragraph 23 on page 9.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, ja.
MR VARNEY: And we know that you did complain to the
inspector of detainee, that was Mr Mouton.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: You indicate that you saw the magistrates
frequently, but you never complained about except about the
food and health, why was that, Reverend?
20 REV CHIKANE: Ja, because I did not expect much. I .., they,
you give up to the system. Remember you are totally in their
hands, all of them, so you, you give up in the system ultimately
and maybe when you arrive first you might complain a lot, but
then you realise it is not helpful. The …, ja.
MR VARNEY: And you also indicate a possible reason and
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 81 F CHIKANE
you suggest that the inspector of detainees would channel the
complaint to the Minister ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Hmm, to the Minister.
MR VARNEY: And the magistrate would channel the complaint
to the Commissioner of Police?
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: The, I, I now do not remember their roles
which means at that time when I did the statement the roles
10 were very clear that this inspector reports to the police, to the
Minister and the magistrate reports to the Commissioner of
Police the complaint, so I, it does not as I read it now it is, it is
not like reporting, it is giving you the Commissioner of Police a
complaint to satisfy the fact that they have handed it over, but
there was no process or feedback.
MR VARNEY: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And it seems as if your, the attorneys who
consulted with you in 1982 they canvassed the question of
20 interrogations on the 10 th floor.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: And what you could see through the partitions
between ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Yes, they, they asked that.
MR VARNEY: Some of those offices.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 82 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And it was described as what you could see
through a frosted glass.
REV CHIKANE: Glass.
MR VARNEY: To an adjoining office.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Perhaps you can explain to the court that you
were interrogated in one of those rooms and you had an
opportunity to look through that frosted glass?
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja, what they were trying to get from me it is
just they were talking to the detainees when on the 10 th floor to
say could you see through, could you hear what was happening
in the next interrogation room and that, you know, glass
partitioning in some of the rooms could you see through and
my view was that you could not see exactly what was
happening inside there, you could just see movements, but in
other interrogations rooms there were no glass see-through
stuff, it is walls.
COURT: Hmm.
20 REV CHIKANE: Like where I was with Warrant -Officer
Deetlefs, you, you were just in that ro om, you cannot see
anything else beyond.
MR VARNEY: So the, the court has conducted an inspection -
in-loco on that floor and also looked at the partitioning in at
least one of the offices and from what we could see the glass
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 83 F CHIKANE
was not frosted, so it was not like misty.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: The glass there it was ribbed, so it had folds in
the glass.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Which also obscured vision to some degree .
You indicate in paragraph 18 that you could not see details of
the person, but you could discern movement?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, if you were, if you were in that type of
10 room, ja.
MR VARNEY: Right.
REV CHIKANE: You can discern movements, but you cannot
really tell what is happening there.
MR VARNEY: And Reverend Chikane, did, did you ever
decide to request the Security Branch to interrogate you for
longer periods?
REV CHIKANE: No, I do not understand that.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: I was, I was asked by the lawyers, I do not
20 understand that, because how could you, you a sk for more
interrogation, it is, it is enough, you are happy to be left alone
rather than staying longer. I am not sure what they were trying
to find out.
MR VARNEY: Yes, well the, the evidence on the police
version is that Dr Aggett at his request had to endure a period
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 84 F CHIKANE
of detention for some 60 hours, a period of interrogation at
least.
REV CHIKANE: Per his, his request? Ja, I cannot see
anybody asking interrogate me more. I think the quicker they
finish and let you go the better and, and that is w hy I could not
handle that 48 hours, 24 hours around the clock detention and
interrogation, because it is tiring. I mean you do not have to
…, 3 hours it is enough especially if people are violent.
MR VARNEY: They, they did claim and this is part of the
10 police version that they were bringing camp bed, a camp bed
for Dr Aggett to sleep on. Did you ever experience a camp bed
being brought in?
REV CHIKANE: No, no.
MR VARNEY: If we could turn to the last time you saw Neil
Aggett.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: You did indicate earlier in your evidence that
you had seen Dr Aggett.
REV CHIKANE: Uhmm, it is in paragraph 33 the last time I
20 saw Aggett.
MR VARNEY: Yes, I, I just want to make sure I that I am
correct in saying that, that you had seen Dr Aggett on one
occasion previously.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, through the hole, because if he is on, he
was on either cell 9 or 8 of the time I was in what I call cell 10
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 85 F CHIKANE
which was 210, but for me it was like 1, 2, 3, 4 up to 10, so he
was in one of those cells, so when they take him out I would
see him like I would see other detainees and Ernest Dipale was
also in that corridor and I could see through the hole, but I
cannot say how many times, no.
MR VARNEY: You say in the last week before the, the death
of Neil Aggett you indicate that you were possibly occupying
cell B21.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
10 MR VARNEY: Which as you have pointed out on the floor plan
is at the far end.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Of that cell block and that you were then able
to see the corridor. Can you describe to the court how you
were able to see Dr Aggett and what condition you saw him in?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, that is, that is the last picture I have of
him and it is not a good picture to talk about, but I mean I had
seen him walking with the police before, normal feet and et
cetera, but when he came he appeared from that corridor,
20 because you hear sounds when you are in the cell and then
you go to the hole to go and see, it was interesting to see
activity and then I saw him coming with the police, struggling
to walk and he was bending forward like that.
COURT: Do ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Almost like he was not able to pick up his, his
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 86 F CHIKANE
body. It, it felt like the time I was chained myself against my
feet and for hours, when you come out of it you cannot raise
your back, because it is painful and, and, and he was
struggling to walk, to a slow almost like a patient who was
being assisted to, to get to the cell, very weak in my view and
distressed. I am trying to get words of descri bing that
particular scene, because it was a few minutes until they put
him into the cell, as I am saying it would have been like you
know, B17 or B18 in terms of this, this structure and that was
10 the last time I saw him.
MR VARNEY: Ad idem in paragraph 5 of your unsigned
affidavit you say that your recollection of him was the posture
was that of a man who have been broken?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I mean it, it was clear to me that he had
gone through the worst of what that detention would be like.
You know, if they beat you up unless you reach a stage where
you have concoctions you, you are still able to walk. If they
kept you standing like me for 48 hours, the 50 th hour I could
not walk, I had to be assisted, because your feet are swollen
20 and et cetera, but, but in his case I mean it was ja, he, he
looked awful. I did not get close to him, so I cannot give more,
more details about it, ja.
MR VARNEY: And was this in stark contrast with how he
appeared the first time you had seen him?
REV CHIKANE: Definitely.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 87 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: And that is in fact in paragraph 4 of your
unsigned affidavit that …, your un…, sorry, your signed
affidavit at least.
REV CHIKANE: Oh, the signed.
MR VARNEY: The signed affidavit that is EXHIBIT B3.1.2.
REV CHIKANE: In paragraph?
MR VARNEY: Paragraph 4.
REV CHIKANE: 4, ja.
COURT: 4, ja.
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Where you indicate that this would mean you
have been placed in cell 210 which you say was next to
Aggett’s cell.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: And at that time you had occasioned to
...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: See him.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, to see him, ja.
20 COURT: Ja.
MR VARNEY: You were not able to communicate with him, but
perhaps describe to the court, you know, the glimpses you did
have, what condition he was in at that time.
COURT: What I say is that on occasions that I saw Dr Aggett
during the aforementioned period he did not give me the
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 88 F CHIKANE
impression that he was a man suffering either from mental or
physical stress, in fact, he appeared quite normal, that, that is
what I, I said, ja..
MR VARNEY: So you, you indicate in your affidavit you
signed yesterday, Reverend Chikane that Security Branch
detention at that time takes its toll.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And that this impacted on yourself?
REV CHIKANE: Oh ja, ja.
10 MR VARNEY: So can you just describe to the court how the
effects of solitary confinement and abuse impacted you?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I mean I experienced that more in
Rustenburg Prison, because this, this prison was new, so there
were no detainees there, so I was in a long corridor of cells
and I was the only one there, there was no sound except
people who come to clean and those who brought food, but I
realised as time went by three months around being there that
I was beginning to find it difficult just to make choices, at least
they gave me choices, they would say do you want to have
20 exercises first or you want to have a shower first.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: You know they would give you that choice
and, but you would choose to have a shower first under normal
circumstances, but if you, you were not made to have a shower
and you missed it and you want to take exercises whilst the
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 89 F CHIKANE
sun is there, you know there were choices you had to make.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: And when they asked me I realised I made a
choice I do not want to make, it is only when you are now
exercising and you realise but I did not want to exercise, I
wanted to have a shower first, but, but then you realise your,
your brain seems to get affected and you do not, when you
listen you do not hear properly and you take time to respond
and I would imagine that is what solitary confinement is made
10 ...[intervenes]
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It is …, I discovered that you cannot live with
sound and people, you cannot be normal.
COURT: Ja.
MR VARNEY: And Reverend, the Security Branch and their
approach to how they treated you in detention, were you of the
view that they were trying to break you psychologically?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, they, they, they want to break you so that
you can then say what they want to hear from you and make
20 you to incriminate yourself or incriminate other people
including adding statements, I do not remember which
paragraph in the unsigned statement, but, but I say there onc e
they read back the statement they have written interrogating
you, you listen carefully and say well, whatever they are saying
even if it is not true where it does not implicate anybody, I will
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 90 F CHIKANE
agree in any way, because it will lessen the pressure on me,
they will stop the torture , but when they come and say now
here is an affidavit, sign it, at least you have had a break to
think and, and you would then say no, I cannot sign that unless
you remove that and you remove that and immediately you do
that you invite you know, torture again and, and assaults and
they will then bring the bad guys, they used to use that
language, we will bring the guys that are going to deal with you
here as if there was a team meant to do that, ja. So it, it is
10 meant to break you. I mean make me stand for 48 hours, feed
me with soft porridge irregularly and nothing else.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: It can only be meant to, to break you. It is
not meant for anything else and keep on beating you up and
that I do not know where th at broom came from, the broomstick
you know, hit you with the broomstick and hang you down
facing downwards, do all sorts of things, you are totally in their
hands. You, you have no, you cannot do anything about it.
MR VARNEY: And Reverend Chikane, you were present on
20 the night that Neil Aggett died?
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR VARNEY: Allegedly in the, in his cell on the second floor.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR VARNEY: Do you recall anything of note on that evening
or the early morning of the 5 th of February 1982?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 91 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: No, I do not, I was asked that question
before, but I mean I do not, I do not remember any activity or
sound, maybe I was asleep, so I cannot say that I, I heard
activity, but the following morning there would then be, there
was lots of activity during the day around that area and then
they moved us. I think they did not want us to see what is
happening around the space .
MR VARNEY: And you have indicated that after Dr Aggett’s
death conditions improved?
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja, Aggett’s death allowed us to meet family
for the first time, that is how I was able to arrange with my wife
to sign that powers of attorney and I told the police I would like
to sign powers of attorney and that the documents must be
brought and I was able to sign tho se documents, so that was
how we got new clothes, I mean new supply of clothes and
even some food.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Which was not the case before and, and the
torture process stopped during that time , ja.
20 MR VARNEY: Reverend Chikane, before I close the leading of
my evidence with you, is there anything further you wish to add
or inform the court?
REV CHIKANE: No, I, I would not want to, M'Lord add
anything more, I think it is, it is, I have, I have come to this
court because for, for Dr Agge tt, but I would not go anywhere
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR VARNEY 92 F CHIKANE
to go and talk about this experience, it is not something you
would want to repeat and when I read about it in my book to
prepare, you, you get traumatised about it, because it is not
something you would want to ...[interven es]
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Relate to anybody. You know, there are
people who are victims who, who enjoy being permanent
victims and tell their story about being victim, but it does not
help you to heal, so when you have to talk about it again it, it ,
10 it, it does not do anything good to you.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: In, in this regard, ja, but I, I came to do it,
because for Aggett. We wrote the book No Life of My Own and
did a chapter on torture so that if somebody talks, asks me
about were you tortured I say read the book so that I do not
have to repeat it again.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
COURT: Ja.
20 MR VARNEY: And, and for the record, M'Lord the book is
titled No Life of My Own and the biography by Frank Chikane .
REV CHIKANE: And the, the new text it is Chapter 9, the old
text it is Chapter 8.
MR VARNEY: Thank you, Reverend.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 93 F CHIKANE
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, I have no further questions.
COURT: Thank you. Counsel, Adv Mlotshwa.
EXAMINATION BY MR MLOTSHWA: Thank you, M'Lord.
Reverend, I appreciate that you would not like to be reminded
of what happened. As much as possible I will try to limit my
question to not re-victimise you.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR MLOTSHWA: So to speak. The Mondeor Police Station,
you remember Your Lordship asked you about the Mondeor
10 Police Station.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Mondeor is a suburb after, as you are
coming out of Baragwanath Hospital.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: You pass the South ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Southgate Mall.
MR MLOTSHWA: Southgate Mall and then you find the
Mondeor ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: Suburb.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: And it is in, the Mondeor Police Station it is
in that long road called Columbine.
REV CHIKANE: That is it.
MR MLOTSHWA: Road.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 94 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Correct.
MR MLOTSHWA: Towards the Kliprivier Road
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Okay. Reverend, in your opinion is there a
chief, so to call a chief interrogator th at is assigned to each
detainee or you would not know?
REV CHIKANE: You would not know, I mean you will work,
work out. Now that I have this affidavit I now know it was
Captain Cronwright, you know when we were in John Vorster
10 clearly Captain Cronwright, Major, they called him Major
Cronwright was in charge, you could feel that . You, you work it
out, but I mean they change, they …, different people appear,
M'Lord so you can only guess.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja. Did any torture of whatever kind took
place on the second floor of John Vorster Square?
REV CHIKANE: No, I was not, I was always taken out to the
10th floor.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: And was there any occasion that you were
taken up with any other detainees or were you always alone
when you were taken up to the 10th floor?
REV CHIKANE: In, in principle, in general, not in principle, in
general they did not want detainees to meet or detainees to
meet anybody else.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 95 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Because you are in solitary confinement so
they have to keep you away from people, but I mean it does
happen that they move another detainee and you meet in the
corridor, but there would be no opportunity to interact.
MR MLOTSHWA: I see.
REV CHIKANE: Even for exercises they took you one at a
time.
MR MLOTSHWA: Okay.
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Do you know that Deetlefs is still alive?
REV CHIKANE: I, I was made aware that he is still alive, ja.
I, I did not know.
MR MLOTSHWA: I see. Has he ever apologised to you?
Have you ever met him after?
REV CHIKANE: No.
MR MLOTSHWA: Your detention.
REV CHIKANE: I cannot remember meeting him , no, I mean
the people who came to apologise to me were the scientists
20 who worked in the laboratory, Vlok, Van der Merwe and the
three policemen, but I do not remember, unles s if we met
somewhere.
MR MLOTSHWA: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Where I may not remember.
MR MLOTSHWA: So in short he never apologised to you?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 96 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: I cannot remember.
MR MLOTSHWA: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: What will be your reaction if he were to
deny that he was ever present when you were tortured?
REV CHIKANE: Well, I would not be surprised, because he,
he would have been himself and Syfert alone, so my only
witness is the guy who tortured me, I do not have another.
MR MLOTSHWA: Hmm.
10 REV CHIKANE: So I would not be surprised if he denied it, in
fact, they did it in a way that they can deny it.
COURT: Hmm.
MR MLOTSHWA: And Sergeant Blom the one that took your
statement is a female, sorry, was it a female Sergeant?
REV CHIKANE: I, I think so, but I, as I am saying I, I, I had to
read this affidavit to remember, even the names, if you ask me
before I read it I would not have remembered that, ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: But the earliest text for me would be the best
20 referenced text for memory, ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: I see and how did you come to know Ernest
Dipale?
REV CHIKANE: I got to know Ernest Dipale, because I had a
mission to Botswana and my car was not in order. I was also
going to preach there.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 97 F CHIKANE
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: So my car was not in order, then they told me
there is somebody who drives between Johannesburg and
Botswana who can help you and now that we are in a new
South Africa I can tell you the real story, we are in a new South
Africa, so he, he came to pick me up to take me to Botswana .
That is where this lady Lillian Keagile was. She came with
him. They picked me up at the hospital in Kagiso and we
dropped Keagile in Randfontein and he drove me straight to
10 Botswana, that is how I got to know him and I was tortured to
tell more about him and Lillian Keagile and I had no idea, I
mean they were, for me they were people who were send to
transport me.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: But that is how I got to know Ernest Dipale.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, Lillian Keagile and Baby Duane would
be the same person?
REV CHIKANE: No.
MR MLOTSHWA: No.
20 REV CHIKANE: They are not the same, Baby Chaiwa.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, Baby Chaiwa is the current secretary of
Parliament, so she, ja, I would ima gine you are raising it,
because when I came back from Botswana Baby Chaiwa was
put in that same car to come back with us.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 98 F CHIKANE
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: I am sure that is where you get it from.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: She was detained as well at a later stage?
REV CHIKANE: She was also detained, ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: So in fact the people that picked you up
from Krugersdorp from the, the hospital, Leratong Hospital it is
Dipale and Lillian?
10 REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Not Chaiwa?
REV CHIKANE: No.
MR MLOTSHWA: Right and do you know how Dipale died?
You told us he died in detention.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I do not know how he died .
MR MLOTSHWA: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: But we were all detained and he got released,
because he was not in the environment and I am told he got
detained again.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: yes.
REV CHIKANE: And he came back into the cells and the next
we heard is that he had died. I have no idea of how it
happened.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, but were you informed that he had
hanged himself?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 99 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Well, the story was always either you hanged
yourself or you slipped in the bathroom shower or there, there
was a normal story and we never believed that.
MR MLOTSHWA: That is right. So the common way of
allegedly dying in detention was hanging or slipping on a soap
or in a shower?
REV CHIKANE: That is the story they would tell after, that is
why I would be very careful when I go to a shower to make
sure I do not die there …(laughing).
10 COURT: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: And according to the information that I have
Dipale died in August the same year Dr Aggett died .
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
MR MLOTSHWA: What I now want to find out from yourself at
the time Dr Aggett died you were in detention and at the time
Dipale died you were still in detention?
REV CHIKANE: No, I cannot confirm that.
MR MLOTSHWA: You cannot confirm it.
REV CHIKANE: You see times, times are ...[intervenes]
20 MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I discovered the brain tends to compact
things as time goes by. They, they, I thought the first incidents
in Soweto was a day before June 16, but I discovered
afterwards it was 14 days before June 16.
COURT: 14 days.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 100 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the brain tends to compact things as time,
so the sequencing must be based on actual dates as recorded.
I think that would be a reliable thing. So what I know is that
he was with us, he got released and then got detained again
and then died in detention. Whether it was during the time we
were still there or after I cannot, I can not, ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: I appreciate that, Reverend and Reverend,
when you were deprived of sleep was it on the 10 th floor at
John Vorster Square?
10 REV CHIKANE: No, it was, it was Krugersdorp.
MR MLOTSHWA: Krugersdorp.
REV CHIKANE: On the 4 th floor, Krugersdorp was the 4 th
floor.
MR MLOTSHWA: I would imagine that there were always
people during these 48 hours or Security Branch police officers
during these 48 hours that would keep watch on you?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the people who kept watch would be th e
black security police guys who, they were really used like
guards even if they were senior and the, the white security
20 police would be the ones who come and interrogate you, beat
you up and the black policemen also participated, because
they must show loyalty and that they can be trusted.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: But when the rest go away they, they start a
different conversation.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 101 F CHIKANE
MR MLOTSHWA: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: So there, there was activity, but it is 24
hours. They change shifts, they never left me alone, ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, did you know a Security Branch officer
known as Paul Erasmus?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I, I have heard about him, I do not know
whether we met physically, but he talked to me by telephone,
he did.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
10 REV CHIKANE: M'Lord, it would be the, if you were talking
about the same Erasmus.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: He is the one who called me and said he is
one of those who put me in the list, you see, what they do is
the headquarters would say we are going to hav e a state of
emergency, we are going to detain people, you must put on the
list the people who must be detained.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Who are troublesome and so he, he called me
20 via Mail and Guardian Newspaper to get to me to say he
wanted to talk to me and he said I put you in the list , I am
sorry about having done that myself, I think he would have
been young at that time, 18 years or something like that, when
he did it, but he was older when he talked to me.
COURT: Hmm.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 102 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: I think that, that should be the Eramus you
are referring to.
COURT: Is that ...[intervenes]
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, I am referring to that Erasmus.
COURT: Is that Paul Erasmus?
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, Paul Erasmus and if I recall you told us
that you were made to, you were asked to write a statement
about Ernest Dipale?
REV CHIKANE: Well, it is one of the people they interrogated
10 me about.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: And they, actually it was around the same
Lillian Keagile case, because Ernest Dipale was crit ical, he
drove me there and they wanted me to confirm his name at that
point and I could not, because I mean if they send a person to
drive you, you do not pay too much attention to that person, it
is not like you have a personal relationship so and they
thought I knew him well.
COURT: Hmm.
20 REV CHIKANE: And I was meeting him for the first time as far
as I was concerned and they interrogated me heavily about
Lillian Keagile and I said to them you know, if you find a man
with a woman in the car and they g ive you a lift you do not ask
too much, you know, about the person and we dropped him in
Randfontein.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 103 F CHIKANE
COURT: You dropped her?
REV CHIKANE: Sorry?
COURT: You dropped her in Randfontein?
REV CHIKANE: Randfontein before proceeding to Botswana.
COURT: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: And the police believed I knew what the
operation was, I knew what she was doing and I had to tell
them about that and you get tortured thoroughly to talk about
10 something you do not know.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, would you remember who asked you to
write the statement about Dipale?
REV CHIKANE: No, I would not remember.
MR MLOTSHWA: You would not?
REV CHIKANE: No, not the detail, no.
MR MLOTSHWA: Yes, was, was it after his death or before
his death, would you remember?
REV CHIKANE: No, I was only interrogated about him during
my detention.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: During my detention, not after.
MR MLOTSHWA: Not after and …, thank you, Reverend and
the, the people who pleaded guilty to attempting to m urder
you, did they ever apply for amnesty in the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, do you know?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 104 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: No, I, I do not know the details, but what I
know is that when they went to the Truth Commission it is
Minister Vlok, he did not tell the Com mission about my
poisoning. So it was more about Kgotso House and the
bombing of Kgotso House. M'Lord, I did not say when we were
talking about ...[intervenes]
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: The, the reasons for my poisoning that they
are the same reasons for bombing Kgotso House.
10 COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Because the Headquarters of the Church is in
South Africa, got the largest bomb to put it down and so for
them the SACC was the major target, ja.
COURT: Hmm.
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja, Reverend there were four Khoza
students that were killed in Krugersdorp.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: By the security police officers.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: Do you know about that incident?
REV CHIKANE: I would, I would remember that, but not the
details.
MR MLOTSHWA: Not the details?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, in any way many people were killed in
Krugersdorp, ja by the security police.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR COETZEE 105 F CHIKANE
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja. M'Lord, I have got no further questions,
thank you.
COURT: Thank you. Adv Coetzee?
EXAMINATION BY MR COETZEE: Thank you, M'Lord.
Reverend Chikane, I, I recognise that it was a traumatic
experience for you, even here today like it was then.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR COETZEE: In retirement, I accept that it was difficult to
testify. I appear on behalf of Deet lefs as well as Venter which
10 I do not think is involved with you and I have certain
instructions from him and one of them is that he denies that he
was ever part of any assault on you.
REV CHIKANE: Is it Warrant-Officer Deetlefs?
MR COETZEE: Yes, indeed so, Reverend. Do you care to
comment on that?
REV CHIKANE: No, my statement it is quite clear that he was
present when I was assaulted and even when the bigger group
came, I mean he went out and came back again, it was almost
like I do not want to be party to the bigger group operation,
20 you know, but no, he was present, he knew I was being
tortured. He …, I complained about it and so he cannot say he
does not know.
MR COETZEE: Sir, further my instructions also is that he
deny that he ever used those derogative words towards you
which you ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR COETZEE 106 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Well, I wish I had a record mechanism to
record in the interrogation room, but you do not have that
privilege. They can only do what they do and go and deny it
and ja.
MR COETZEE: Now Reverend, if I understand your evidence
correctly you, you said that there was extreme pressure from
the senior officers on the interrogators to extract information.
REV CHIKANE: That was my observation , M'Lord they, they
would interrogate like Warrant -Officer Deetlefs, you would
10 think you are done, they are happy about what they have done ,
it is finished and then they leave you and they come back and
be more violent and insulting and you wonder what happened
between the time they left you and wherever they come from
and that made me conclude that the seniors were pressurising
them. This Cronwright at one stage they took me to him and
he said you have not told all the truth and we want the truth
and they must get it from you .
MR COETZEE: Apart from that meeting with Cronwright was
Cronwright ever present when you were interrogated or did he
20 do any interrogation of you?
REV CHIKANE: No, I do not, I do not remember him being
there. He did not interrogate me directly.
MR COETZEE: And your memory is that Siefrets(sic) was a
Lieutenant, ...[indistinct]
COURT: Who is that?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR COETZEE 107 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: Syfert, Syfert.
COURT: Syfert, Paul?
MR COETZEE: Syfert.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, I, I would not remember the rank, I think I
remember the rank of Warrant -Officer Deetlefs, because he
spend more, I spend most of the time with him, he was there
most of the time and they called him Warrant -Officer Deetlefs
that is how you get to know the names.
MR COETZEE: And later he, he assisted you with the
10 documents with your wife as well as you had testified?
REV CHIKANE: Ja, the, according to my wife.
MR COETZEE: And sir, in relation to the goods in your, in
your cell, do you remember whether you had more than one set
of clothing in your cell?
REV CHIKANE: No, I, I had the clothes that I had.
Remember at the beginning you do not have much, because
they detain you and this is on the things that you have in your
hands, but after Aggett’s death we got more, ja, so I cannot
remember how much clothes there were, ja.
20 MR COETZEE: I have got no further questions to the
Reverend.
COURT: Thank you. Advocate?
EXAMINATION BY MR MOHAMED: None, M'Lord.
COURT: Re-examination?
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR VARNEY: M'Lord, nothing on re-
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 108 F CHIKANE
examination.
COURT: Reverend, I just wanted to find o ut how long, how
long have you know the deceased Neil Aggett prior to his
death?
REV CHIKANE: No, I, actually I do indicate that I did not
know him personally, I would have heard about him, I knew he
is, you know there are people in the struggle during t hose days
you would know they are, he was part of the Trade Union
Movement, but and we might have met during that time, but I
10 never, I cannot say I had personal knowledge and when he was
detained, remember that the white comrades amongst us who
were detained were very few, so they, their presence was
noticeable, ja.
COURT: But when you saw him on that day through the
peephole.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
COURT: In the corridor.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
COURT: How long before that had you last seen him, can you
20 recall, if it possible?
REV CHIKANE: It would had been there around, I would have
seen earlier, but around that time ...[intervenes]
COURT: Right.
REV CHIKANE: They were taking him in and out for
interrogation.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 109 F CHIKANE
COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: So I would have seen him a number of times
through that hole and it, it was not difficult for me to, to know it
is Aggett, because the other white comrades who were there,
there were two others I think, I knew them very well.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: So it was not difficult to say that is Aggett, ja.
COURT: You never spoke to him when he was in detention at
the same time?
10 REV CHIKANE: No.
COURT: You have not?
REV CHIKANE: No.
COURT: Okay. On the morning of the discovery of his body
by the police did any of the police officers, your handlers
inform you about it or and what did they say what happened?
REV CHIKANE: No, they did not, as I said it is one of the
black policeman, uniformed police not the security police.
COURT: Hmm.
REV CHIKANE: Who made me aware of it and my memory, if
20 my memory serves me well it was a uniformed policeman who
informed me, ja, because they used to, to share information
about what is happening, ja.
COURT: What did he say?
REV CHIKANE: Uhmm, well, I, I would not remember the
details, but he just said Aggett has died and ja, but I cannot
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 110 F CHIKANE
remember the exact words.
COURT: He, he never mentioned whether he died because he
hanged, they found himself hanging?
REV CHIKANE: No, there were no details ...[intervenes]
COURT: No details.
REV CHIKANE: Because its cryptic ...[indistinct], because
they also are ...[intervenes]
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: Are doing something they are not supposed to
10 do, they are not supposed to talk to us.
COURT: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: And he would not spend too much time.
COURT: Now when you say that after his death conditions
changed.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
COURT: What actually changed ? The tortured changed, you
were allowed more visits or you were allowed more privileges ,
what actually changed and why did it?
REV CHIKANE: What was dramatic for us is that they made
20 us meet family.
COURT: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: That to me was the dramatic thing, because
ja, in terms of section 6 of that Act nobody would know where
you are and the family had no right, no lawyer could actually
ascertain that, so that was the most dramatic that they brought
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 111 F CHIKANE
all our families to come and see us and that is how we then got
to know the details and then they were able, I was able to do
the powers of attorney which could not happen if you were in
detention. They brought us food, they brought us fresh
clothes, but not much in terms of reading material or we, we
had no freedom actually, but less, the torture sort of stopped.
COURT: It stopped?
REV CHIKANE: At that point as far as …, as it relates to
myself.
10 COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: I do not know what they did with other
people, but they were more careful, more cautious.
COURT: Now did they allow lawyers to come and consult with
you?
REV CHIKANE: No, except around the time when they
allowed family to talk to us, but we remained under solitary
confinement. Until you are charged ...[intervenes]
COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: The lawyer could not or you are released, the
20 lawyer could not interact with you.
COURT: From your statement here you say that, I think the
signed one is that …, I think the signed one.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
COURT: On paragraph 3 you say I remained at ...[intervenes]
REV CHIKANE: The old one ...[intervenes]
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 112 F CHIKANE
COURT: Your signed statement.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
COURT: B3.1.2 on paragraph 3 you say you were detained
20th November and you remained at John Vorster until your
release in 1982.
REV CHIKANE: Hmm.
COURT: 7 July. Were you again detained at any other time
thereafter?
REV CHIKANE: Yes, I was detained again in 1985.
10 COURT: Oh!
REV CHIKANE: Ja, for the, for the treason trial, so that is the
UDF leaders, they had two sets of leaders, they detained us
first and our trial was in Pietermaritzburg.
COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: And then the next lot ended up in Delmas
trial, ja.
COURT: Okay.
REV CHIKANE: But that, that detention was really detention
to go and charge us.
20 COURT: I see.
REV CHIKANE: So it did not involve ...[intervenes]
COURT: Any torture.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, and ja.
COURT: Okay. Well, thank you very much. Any questions
arising out of that?
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro COURT 113 F CHIKANE
FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VARNEY: No questions,
M'Lord.
FURTHER QUESTION S BY MR MLOTSHWA: There is one
from my side.
COURT: Okay.
MR MLOTSHWA: If I heard you correctly, Rever end you said
on the day when Aggett passed away you were removed from
your cells.
REV CHIKANE: Ja, there was movement.
10 MR MLOTSHWA: Yes.
REV CHIKANE: You know, so I cannot remember the details,
but there was .., we were moved around .
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: When was it, during the day or during the
night when you were moved?
REV CHIKANE: I do not think it would be during the night.
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja.
REV CHIKANE: No.
20 MR MLOTSHWA: That is right, that would be during the day.
REV CHIKANE: Ja.
MR MLOTSHWA: Early morning, afternoon, you would not
remember?
REV CHIKANE: No, I would not remember.
MR MLOTSHWA: Thank you, M'Lord.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro MR MLOTSHWA 114 F CHIKANE
REV CHIKANE: I would imagine they, they removed us
around, because they did not want us to be there whatever was
happening, that is, that is the only thing I can think of, but
otherwise ja, it was just movement.
MR MLOTSHWA: Ja, did you know the cell that Neil occupied
at the time?
REV CHIKANE: I did say that at that time he was on the same
corridor, it would most probably be, for me it used to be cell 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, you know without the B’s and the 1’s and I think it
10 would have been one of those cells 6, 7, 8 around, it was on
the side.
COURT: Yes.
MR MLOTSHWA: Thank you. Thank you, M'Lord.
COURT: Thank you.
MR VARNEY: M'Lord, we attempted to reschedule our witness
for this afternoon, but unfortunately it did not work out.
COURT: Ja.
MR VARNEY: So we, we have no further witnesses for today.
COURT: Today.
20 MR VARNEY: However, we do have a witness lined up for
tomorrow morning at 09h30.
COURT: Okay. Reverend Chikane, thank you very much for
your information and the good thing is that you have registered
in writing the book, we shall gladly access the book and read
it.
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro 115 POSTPONEMENT
REV CHIKANE: Okay.
COURT: I appreciate that, thank you very much.
REV CHIKANE: Thank you.
COURT: You are excused, Reverend.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS
COURT: Well, very well then, it means we, we will have an
earlier break today. I hope I did not ca use it because of my
earlier arrangement.
MR VARNEY: Not at all, M'Lord.
10 COURT: Not at all, ja okay, no, that is fine then. Okay, we
have no further witnesses for today, this matter is then
adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, the 1 st of, is it not the 31 st?
Is it Friday tomorrow?
MR MLOTSHWA: It is a Friday, M'Lord.
COURT: Yes okay, Friday the 31 st for further evidence. The
court adjourns for the day.
COURT ADJOURNS [12:58]
20
445/2019_2020.01.30 / mro
TRANSCRIBER’S CERTIFICATE
I, the undersigned, hereby certify that so far as it is audible to me, the aforegoing is a true and correct, verbatim transcript of the proceedings recorded by means of a digital recorder in the inquest hearing of the death of:
The late DR NEIL HUDSON AGGETT
CASE NUMBER : 445/2019 RECORDED AT : JOHANNESBURG HC DATE HELD : 2020-01-30 NUMBER OF PAGES : 116 FILING NUMBER : (OFFICE USE ONLY)
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. This is a verbatim transcription of court proceedings. 2. Where no clear annotations are furnished, those names are transcribed phonetically
TRANSCRIBER M ROOS NAME
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