JEFFERY T BENZIEN
Sir, as a policeman and I put it to this Commission today, in the unfortunate position I surely could have said no, but my task as policeman and upholder of the then law of the country, I had to prevent and I say it now in retrospect, I had to prevent deeds of terrorism.
	Because as I am being maybe judged today of using barbaric or unorthodox to put it lightly, methods of interrogation, my sole purpose was to (a) take the weaponry which consisted of mostly SPM land mines, mini limpet mines, SPM limpet mines, mini limpet mines, handgrenades, AK47's and what all, from the freedom fighters that were going to use those weaponry to the public at large, not just military targets, and the public at large were the innocent people in Cape Town.
That was my sole objective.   If it was unorthodox, we have to think of it in the context of the time we were living in then.  My greatest fear at that stage and I hope the people here could see the predicament that I was in, if a SPM limpet mine had to be detonated in the Golden Acre at that stage of which we had information, that would have been catastrophic.
	Cape Town, thank God, did not have the terrorist or freedom fighter actions of a Bloed Street, Church Street, Magoo's Bar and one of those places.  As I've earlier said that Cape Town as a whole as a result of a pure deed of terrorism, there was only loss of one life, which attributed to a mine and handgrenade explosion and that was one unfortunate Black man.
	I am not trying to condone my method of operation, I am trying to convey to the Commission the circumstances under which I was working at that stage.