FERDINAND BARNARD
Mr Chairperson, I cannot specifically recall a time, but I think it was approximately in April 1989, because I was at that stage involved in the Webster case and the task had already been issued.  It happened spontaneously actually.
	Det-Sgt William Knox was a very good policeman and I had a lot of respect for him, and I still have today have a lot of respect for him.  He was the person who taught me certain things after I left the Police College.  He resigned from the Police Force and he established a private company, one of these armed response companies.  He's got a very strong company today.  He had offices in Troyville and every time when I was in the area of Hillbrow, I contacted him and go and visit him, and we discussed certain things.
	That specific time, he was still attached to the police, but he was already in the phase of leaving the Police Force, he had this side-line business.  When I went to go and see him at his offices, he told me that he was aware that I functioned in some intelligence unit, and he told me he was still finalising certain dockets  and there was an Irish person, Donald Aitchison, who he arrested and he asked me if I did not want to use him because he's got a foreign passport.  I have told Knox on a previous opportunity, I told him that I was looking for people with a foreign passport, somebody who was awake.  He knew what I was looking for.
	He then told me about this Irish person, Aitchison.  I asked him what was the charges against him, and he said theft, he stole shoes from the OK Bazaars.  Then I told him "how are you going to get this guy out" and he said he is on bail but he can speak to the people from the OK Bazaars and they may withdraw the charges.  He then did this.  I provided him money to pay for the shoes and they apologised and then he told the manager of the OK Bazaars that Aitchison is not quite sane, he does things that he does not know about, in other words he's got a mental knock.  Then they felt sorry for him and they withdrew the case.
	I went to go and meet him at the Bedford Centre, under an alias.  I told, I asked him if he was willing, or I was working for a consortium, and I used that same cover.  From the second meeting, Aitchison kept on going about this Z-Squad.  Where he heard this, I do not know.  I didn't even know about the Z-Squad.
	Later I heard, I read in newspaper articles, I think it was the former Bureau of State Security under Jan Hendrik van der Berg, that there existed a Z-Squad and they referred to a certain unit of the CCB as the Z-Squad.  I discouraged him, but he kept on going on.  I kept on talking about the business and eventually I asked him to give me a background report about what his background consisted of.  I got that from him, and in the meantime I made contact with Calla Botha.   If I can recall correctly, he was on ice or something, or he was told to lay low.  I provided him with the background of Aitchison, how I got to meet him.  I gave him all this information, I gave him the written document of what Aitchison wrote and on this page, I told him "give yourself any name", I did not mean James Bond, and he called himself "The Cleaner".  I then gave it to Mr Botha.  Mr Botha put it into the system.  I do not know whom he gave it to.
	At a later stage I made certain enquiries.  Mr Botha told me  that the people in the CCB told him that Aitchison cannot be used, and that he must not be used.  That is the last time that I heard about it.