moment from Swanepoel’s career took place even before the Letsoko case was over. Arthur cross-examined Swanepoel on 20 June 1963. On 11 August 1963 Swanepoel was brought in to try to force the truth out of AnnMarie Wolpe, whom the police (correctly) suspected of having assisted her husband Harold and others to escape from jail. The police had just raided the farmhouse at Rivonia, and were in the process of tearing apart much of the ANC’s underground network. Wolpe and three others, however, succeeded in bribing a jail guard and escaping. That left AnnMarie Wolpe exposed to arrest, which followed quickly, as did interrogation. Glenn Frankel describes Swanepoel’s role:
[AnnMarie] could see the thick swelling of veins in his forehead and saliva forming in the corners of his mouth. He fired off jagged bursts of obscenities. Then he took the arms of her chair and shook it as he talked. His partner, who looked like a junior version of him, ringed his hands around AnnMarie’s throat and left them poised within inches of her skin. But they did not touch her. The old rules – no violence to white women – still applied.
Then as suddenly as they had arrived, they stormed out of the room. Swanepoel had one last parting shot for her. ‘I’m going to get them. I’m going to fucking kill them.’26
In Letsoko, some disturbing things took place even in the courtroom. At one point family members were barred from using empty seating, until Arthur brought the situation to the attention of the judge in open court. Near the very end of the trial, Michael Maimane, the second accused – a man whose emotional difficulties were such that his counsel had successfully moved for him to be evaluated at a mental health facility – is described by the transcript as ‘refus[ing] to have the handcuffs removed from his hands’ when he arrived in court. After an adjournment to permit Arthur to consult with his client, Arthur reported back that ‘apparently, my lord, the difficulty was a physical one and the handcuffs couldn’t be removed but during the period a locksmith was found who was able to undo the lock – the handcuffs have now been removed and the accused is in Court. They were very tightly fixed on his arm and I think that was probably the difficulty.’27
A remarkable thing happens, however, as witness follows witness. Together with Joel Joffe, Arthur seems to have approached his problem with the basic idea that if he forced the police to tell him the details of what they had done with the witnesses, they would inevitably wind up in embarrassment. (‘What a tangled web we weave …’) The theory was a good one, though it had a flaw which the trial court exploited – it was possible, at least in principle, that the police witnesses’ confusion was not a result of evasion. The police, as the trial court emphasises, were new to sabotage investigations, and their inexperience could have led to disorganisation.28 The Appellate Division evidently took a less sympathetic view, but the trial judge was prepared to forgive a lot without inferring any improper motive on the part of the police witnesses. Whatever the judge’s response, however, it appears that the police, for their part, began to realise that any detail of their activity they let slip might lead them into trouble. And so officers under cross-examination began denying so much activity that their denials themselves became incredible. Arthur told Lieutenant Van Wyk that a subordinate officer, Sergeant Ferreira, ‘said that he did not know whether the persons that he had questioned had been questioned by others’. Van Wyk replied that ‘This is ridiculous.’29 Detective Constable Els spends several days in the midst of a high-pressure investigation interrogating suspects but reporting nothing of his activities to his colleagues. Arthur asks:
You just carried on independently all by yourself without getting any information of value and without reporting to anybody? – Els: This is correct.
But then the persons whom you questioned could quite easily be questioned again the next day by somebody else? – Els: This could have been so, Your Honour.
And you could be questioning people who had been questioned by other persons? – Els: This is completely correct.30
Another police witness, Constable Trijtsmann, denied that he had taken statements from the suspects. Then it turned out, unmistakably – his name was on the papers – that he had taken at least one. This led Arthur to ask why he had been so reluctant to acknowledge having done so. Trijtsmann answers that this was his first time working on such a case, and taking statements in a case like this is very complicated. A few pages later, Arthur asks why Trijtsmann was taking statements in the first place. Trijtsmann says this wasn’t part of his ordinary work, but also says it wasn’t ‘by accident’. Perhaps he was asked to help? He can’t recall. Arthur continues: ‘Will you take a statement without being asked to take a statement?’ Trijtsmann replied: ‘Well, for my own interest I will, Your Honour.’31 Confusion reigns.
Still another, Constable Vermeulen, was said by the first accused, Napoleon Letsoko, to have escorted him to the magistrate, before whom Letsoko was to make a statement. Statements made before a magistrate had more legal weight than those attested to only by interrogating officers, but the process posed a challenge to the security police, because the witness, while speaking with the magistrate, was temporarily beyond the control of the police. One way to deal with this problem was to remind the accused of the danger he faced once he was back in police hands, and Letsoko said that Vermeulen had in fact threatened him in this way as they made their way from the cells to the magistrate’s office.32 Trying to head off this charge, Vermeulen at one point denies speaking with Letsoko at all while taking him to the magistrate. Then he acknowledges talking with him, but insists he didn’t discuss the trip to the magistrate. In fact he denies even giving Letsoko directions as they walked. Arthur is incredulous:
And when you got there didn’t you tell him we must go in here … this is where the Magistrate is? – Vermeulen: No, I took him directly to Room 401 … I mean you didn’t drag him along the street behind you did you? – Vermeulen: No, I didn’t.
He had to walk alongside you? – Vermeulen: That’s right.
And he had to know where you were going? – Vermeulen: Well, I took him, this isn’t for him …
Yes but you had to tell him where to go didn’t you – Vermeulen: No, I was with him, Your Honour, it wasn’t necessary for me to tell him where he must go.
How did he know where to turn to the left? – Vermeulen: I walked with him.
And when you turned to the left he had to follow? – Vermeulen: Yes.
And you didn’t say to him: We are turning left here? – Vermeulen: No, I didn’t.33
I have the impression that Arthur becomes blunter as the trial goes on. For example, when Officer Els admits that he could have had contact with other witnesses – despite having earlier asserted on direct examination that he did not – Arthur asks him for an explanation. Els says that he thought the prosecutor was only asking him whether he had contact with other witnesses at the same time that he was taking one witness’s statement. Arthur responds:
And that is why you gave the answer which you did? – Els: It is.
Are you being serious, Mr Els – are you being serious when you give that as your explanation? – Els: This is correct, Your Honour.
Because I shall have to argue to His Lordship that that is quite a ridiculous explanation and that it shows that you are an unreliable witness – is there any other explanation you can give? – Els: This is all that I can say.34
That’s pretty blunt, and it may reflect that Arthur had grown weary of the officers’ lies.
Since Arthur was clearly capable of bluntness, we might ask why he was not always so blunt. The clearest example of his not adopting a confrontational tone
