Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-26

MR VISSER: Nothing, just completely decomposed.  It is quite clear, and as Mr Lax has pointed out, the obvious is that it belongs to another post-mortem report and it was typed as opposed to being in manuscript, but it simply says "completely decomposed" and that is it, it is in the Police docket, Chairperson.
	This particular page, when this record was produced, unfortunately was just turned around.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Ms Thabethe, I think then in the circumstances, if one can take a look at the Police docket and then get the correct page and then show it to all the people, and if we agree, we can substitute the correct page with this one.

MS THABETHE: I will do so.

CHAIRPERSON: Rather than just discard this one.

MS THABETHE: I will do so Mr Chairperson.  Mr Ismail, are you familiar with the post-mortem forms that were completed by doctors?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes, I am familiar, because I used to scribe them.

MS THABETHE: You used to?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: I used to scribe, because I see my handwriting on the original.

MS THABETHE: Okay, is it your handwriting?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: That is right.

MS THABETHE: Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, just while you are on that one Ms Thabethe, under what circumstances would you write the report, how would it come about, when would you actually do the writing?  If you could just tell us how it came about that you did the writing.  How did it come about that you put the information on the report?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: In fact, whilst we were doing the post-mortem the doctor dictates to me, and I used to write in my own handwriting and thereafter the hand-written forms were given to a typist and she used to type it.  After it is typed, the doctor is to see the original hand-written and the typed one, and then he used to sign the typed post-mortem report.

MS THABETHE: Thank you.  On page 71 of Bundle 2, there is this typed version, right.  Would you say it is the same form, it appears that this is a carbon copy, so we don't have the questions to these answers, but would you say it is the same form on page 68?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes, because when it was typed, it was typed in triplicate, two, on the first two we used the forms GW715 and the third copy was a blank page, which we just kept in our files for records.

MS THABETHE: Actually Mr Chair, I made a mistake, page 68 is the same as page 73.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ismail, if you take a look at your hand-written one, at page 67 through to page 70, save for that one we have spoken about, save for page 69, and then you look at the typed version, from 71 through to 73, one can see that it is not, the typing isn't the same as what you have written?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Actually I haven't compared my written ...

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because if you turn to page 67 for instance, take a look at page 67 and take a look at page 71, the first page of both.  Particularly at the bottom, you see at the bottom it says "cause of death" in your handwriting "completely decomposed" whereas it is typed "undetermined" and the "completely decomposed" is higher up on the typed page, but it is not there on the written page, so you can see immediately that it is not an exact typing of what you wrote.

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes, I have noticed that now, yes.

MS THABETHE: How does this happen, or how would you say this happened?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: The person who can answer that is the typist.

MS THABETHE: But there is a signature by Dr Chetty here?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Because normally after the post-mortem I hand this to the typist, my written form is handed to the typist and when a copy has been typed, she hands it to the doctor and he compares my written report to the one that is typed, and if he feels there is any mistakes, then he corrects them and he initial and then he signs ...

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying any difference might be at the instance, may have been of the instance of the doctor?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Possibly yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Or otherwise the typist was just using his or her discretion and putting in stuff that wasn't there?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: I can give an explanation but - normally most of the decomposed bodies, the cause of death is normally undetermined, so maybe when she came across that, so she just typed "undetermined".

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe?

MS THABETHE: Would I be correct though to say that even if she used her discretion and typed in "undetermined", Dr Chetty still had to check it and compare and then give his signature to the correctness of it?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes.

MS THABETHE: Now on page 72 of the record ...

MR LAX: Can I just ask something before you move on to something, would I be correct in saying that despite the additions and differences in the typing versus the hand-written, the form which the typing from page 71 to page 73, the form, in other words the form that these blank pages would have been slotted into is the same as the form starting on page 67, in other words GW715?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: That is right.

MR LAX: Okay.  So if we were to superimpose the two documents, we would be able to see what the original, that had the printed form, might have looked like?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes, because 71, the way I look, it is answers to questions on page 1 of GW715.

MR LAX: Yes.  I mean, if I hold it more or less in line with where the typing is, you can see that
"... to the Magistrate, Verulam.  I, Dr Chetty, at Verulam..."
etc, it all fits in quite neatly?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Ms Thabethe?

MS THABETHE: Thank you.   Would I then be correct to say as well that the typed version of page 72 would be an answer to the form that is on page 68?

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct)

MS THABETHE: No.

CHAIRPERSON: No, it wouldn't be.  Page 73 would correspond to 68, because its got the weight and the measurements at least.

MS THABETHE: Yes, okay.  Now I want to ask you about the decomposed that is on page 73 and the marks, you know.  What are these marks, what do these marks stand for, these exclamation marks?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: If you look at ...

MS THABETHE: Where is the original?

CHAIRPERSON: Exclamation marks, you mean the ditto marks?

MS THABETHE: The ditto marks, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That means, I mean that is just quite clear that the ditto marks mean decomposed, decomposed, decomposed, decomposed.

MS THABETHE: All right.

CHAIRPERSON: It is quite clear.

MS THABETHE: All right, now what I want to ask you is in this form, number 5 says on page 68, number five says  "skull", right?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes.

MS THABETHE: And the answer would be decomposed?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes.

MS THABETHE: ...(indistinct) contents?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Decomposed.

MS THABETHE: The answer would be decomposed?  Right through?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Right through to number 9.

MS THABETHE: Okay.  So would you say this is an indication that the skull, the inter-contents, the ...(indistinct), whatever, the mouth, tongue, whatever, the neck structures, from number 5 to number 9, according to Dr Chetty, they were all decomposed?

MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: At page 72 and 73 are in the wrong position, aren't they?

MS THABETHE: Yes, I realise that.

MR VISSER: It is placed in the wrong order.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because 72 should follow 73 and then all this, if you look at the types, it is decomposed, from top to bottom.

MS THABETHE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That would be in answer to the questions  appearing on page 69.

MR VISSER: Chairperson, the original one consist of four pages, one page fell out, this is three pages, and it is the second page that fell out.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Visser.