Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-14

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: Well Sir to my recollection, as I said the Cobblers. Now if you are saying that perhaps these people were attacking backwards and I do not want to be facetious but it appears so that you are saying that people came backwards and therefore the repel order was given when they were coming backwards. Because I can only say how I saw it. I saw it; them attacking and they had reached up to the Cobblers which is the third shop from the corner, next to the take away, the fish and chips take away. That is when the order repel came and that is when I repelled.

MR DORFLING: I am putting it to you that on the video footage that is available the facts are indicative of nobody having been injured at that point in time or having dropped any of their weapons at that proximity.

CHAIRPERSON: That depends upon who took the video and where he took it from. He may have decided not to take it from where the Cobbler shop was. Because it is speculation as far as we are concerned is it?

MR DORFLING: Mr Chairman with the greatest respect the same portion of video footage actually shows a view from the position roughly where the guards were positioned at that point in time up in a northerly direction into King George Street. Mr Singaram I want to put it to you that there is also photographs depicting the scene of the incident and there is visible on those photographs presumably somebody or something underneath a pink cover, blanket or a similar kind of cover. And that it is quite clear from that video footage that the injured people or not from that video footage, from that pictures that the injured people and deceased people are lying to the north of that pink blanket. Do you agree with that?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: Sir as I said before the video footage was taken after the event so I cannot say where the blanket was or how it was because that is the way it was.

MR DORFLING: Can I move to your supplementary affidavit contained in at page 55c of bundle c. Just to put it in context Mr Singaram you first of all in your supplementary affidavit set out that you maintain that you were acting in self defence and then in paragraph 6 you go onto explain that your attention has now been drawn to some ballistic and medical evidence that would not be on all fours with the evidence you gave at the inquest.

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: That is so.

MR DORFLING: You specifically refer to the ballistic and medical evidence. Has your attention been drawn to any other evidence in the inquest proceedings that are in conflict with your evidence as to what happened at the time of the shooting?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: No none has except the ballistics and the medical evidence. But however there is some of the findings of Judge Nugent that I do not agree with.

MR DORFLING: May I draw your attention to the evidence of some witnesses that gave evidence in the Inquest Court, whose evidence is in direct conflict with what you perceived to have been happening and ask your response to that? Can I draw your attention to the evidence of Sergeant Gollach at page 4185 of the inquest record from line 25.

MR LAX: Sorry Mr Dorfling what was the surname Sergeant?

MR DORFLING: Gollach Mr Committee member, G-o-l-l-a-c-h. I am reading from line 25 from the said page, page 4185 where the witness responds as follows, Mr Singaram if you need some assistance with translating, this is in Afrikaans so if you do not understand it please feel free to just indicate. "Ja die gemoedere het hoog geloop die heeltyd. Dit was spanningvol en op 'n stadium het van die ANC wagte begin skiet op die optoogangers. Goed u moet probeer om so veel detail ten opsigte van dit aan die Hof te gee, want wat kan u onthou? Wie het eerste geskiet en wat het gebeur?" And the response is the following: "Ek kan nie onthou wie van die wagte eerste geskiet het nie maar wat ek wel kan onthou is dat die een met die AK47 het geskiet. Hy het op die grond gele." Do you understand that portion of the evidence?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: Yes but I can only say, tell you the things as I saw it and as I

CHAIRPERSON: Sir do you understand Afrikaans?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: I do.

MR DORFLING: Do you agree that, that portion of the evidence is in conflict with how you perceived the attack to have commenced?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: I do not get you. Which portion, can you please elaborate?

MR DORFLING: The portion I have just read to you setting out that a person with an AK47 positioned amongst the guards fired at the crowd?

MARAINSAMY SINGARAM: No Sir with due respect I went to the corner after there was general firing and this I have said many a times. I do not know who fired where but when I got there, there was firing already.

MR BERGER: Chairperson perhaps my learned friend, Mr Dorfling in all fairness should put to the witness what Judge Nugent said at page 132 of his judgment about the evidence of Sergeant Gollach. If I could just read what the judge said. He said: "Sergeant Gollach said that the ANC guards kept saying that they were going to shoot and that he kept cautioning them not to do so. He said that after the shooting broke out he shouted at them to stop shooting." And this is the important part; "We would hesitate to accept all his evidence at face value. I have already referred to the fact that there are material contradictions between his evidence and the statement which he made. What is significant too is that Constable Skippers in his statement purported to corroborate the evidence of Sergeant Gollach when it is clear that if he was there at all he was some distance away and was unable to hear what was alleged to have passed between him and the ANC guards. Sergeant van Grenan said that when the ANC guards assembled on the corner one of them said 'Let us kill some Zulus, they are going to attack Shell House.' In a statement which was taken from him 3 months after the event there is no mention of anything having been said by the ANC guards. When examined on this issue his answers were most curious." This is at the top of page 133 Chairperson. "He said that if the other policemen had not mentioned this in their statements then he was not sure whether it had been said. In his evidence Constable Potgieter also said that the ANC guards were saying that they were going to shoot and that he told them not to do so. This is in conflict with what he said in his statement 3 days after the event. In that statement he said no more than that one of the guards said he was going to shoot which he immediately did. And this was followed by shooting from the others." I am nearly finished Chairperson. "It is quite possible that there was some remonstration between the policemen and the guards but we do not think the evidence of the 3 policemen as to what was alleged to have been said can be taken at face value. It seems to us that much of this evidence, including in particular the evidence that the ANC guards repeatedly said that they were going to shoot is likely to have been the product of reconstruction a considerable time later." So it is quite clear that even on the findings of Judge Nugent the evidence of Sergeant Gollach was not regarded as particularly reliable.