18"x24" Charcoal Drawing
(1999)
Face to Face:Perpetrator II
Cross examination by Advocate George Bizos, Senior Counsel and witness,
Johan Martin Van Zyl, one of the police officers who applied for amnesty
in the killing of Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo
Mhlauli, known as the 'Cradock Four'.
Bizos: Mr. Van Zyl, sixty-three stab wounds were inflicted on
the four people you murdered on the night of the twenty seventh? Do you
agree with the District Surgeon's report on that?
Van Zyl: I cannot disagree with that, Mr. Chairman.
Bizos: Do you agree that the sixty-three stab wounds is
evidence of barbaric conduct?
Van Zyl: Mr. Chairman, in retrospect, absolutely. The fact is
though that the instruction was that this killing should look like a
vigilante attack and that a more humane way of doing it would not have
had the same effect.
Bizos: Does your answer mean that you were prepared to behave
like a savage barbarian in order to mislead anyone that bothered to
investigate the murders that you had committed?
Van Zyl: In effect yes, Mr. Chairman.
