Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

MR WILLS: If the Committee would just bear with me for a couple of seconds.
	Mr Mbambo there might have been a lack of clarity in Mr Mkhize's evidence concerning the manner at which your or the information you'd been given that Sergeant Khumalo was an ANC sympathising policeman was in fact confirmed by yourselves and that arose as a result of a communication that you had with certain policemen.  Could you just briefly describe that to the Committee Members and the public?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: As I was a detective, my branch commander was Captain M.A. Masinga.  We used to usually parade in the morning and he would deliver a lecture to us and assigned us to our various duties.  On that very same day the same thing happened as well and on finishing leaving his office, he requested that I remain behind because he wanted to speak to me and I closed the door as he requested I do.  The first thing that I noticed that he was shaking and he then said to me that there is a rumour that at the eSikhawini Police Station that there were officers, two of them, who were members of the ANC and he wanted to know whether I had knowledge as to who those officers were and I told him that I did not know, I did not have any certainty but I also had people mentioning Mazini and Masinga, the other one, not the one that I was talking to at the time and he seemed not to believe what I was saying and he indicated that there is also something else that he had heard and he said that I'm a member of the hit squad and I denied knowledge of that and he pleaded with me after that and he pleaded with me saying if there is anything that I heard about him, I should rush to inform him about it because he did not feel safe and I indicated to him that should I come across something about him I would definitely inform him even though I didn't know how and I asked him where he got that information from and he indicated that Sergeant Khumalo had phoned informing him that he knew that in the Detective Unit there is a member of the hit squads and he informed him that that member was myself.

MR WILLS: Sorry, Mr Mbambo, I just want to ask a question relating to that issue.  It would seem to me from the outside that if a police officer was to receive information from another police officer that a certain person was a member of a hit squad, he would do something about it, possibly get the matter investigated.  Can you explain why it appears that Captain Masinga did nothing of this nature?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: It is because he had not investigated the matter in the first place and if he were to investigate it, he were to conduct it on his own to satisfy himself that I was indeed a member of the hit squad, because the officers and the entire police force knew that there was indeed a hit squad operating.  These officers were the only ones who were not involved and they did not exactly knew who these members of the hit squad were but they knew that there was such a structure called hit squad and therefore you were to attempt investigating following the police procedure, he knew himself that he would be calling for his death.  He was talking to ...[inaudible] been mentioned that if one of the officers was himself therefore he too was going to die and he was pleading with me and he wanted me to explain to him what was happening.

MR WILLS: Sorry, Mr Mbambo, you mentioned that Ben Mlambo was also involved in this incident.  Now I've been through your affidavit and you can take the time to go through it and correct me if I'm wrong but there's no mention of Ben Mlambo being involved in this incident.  Can you just check your affidavit and think carefully if your for whatever reason you raised that, if you could just describe that to the Committee Members?  I might be wrong, I can't recall him being mentioned in your affidavit.

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: He doesn't appear in my statements.

MR WILLS: Are you sure that you remember the incident now that he was in fact present?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes he was indeed present that night.

MR WILLS: Now you say that after you had this discussion with Captain Masinga you reported back to somebody is that correct?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.  I went to Dina Mkhize's office, his reaction unit office and I reported to him what had happened between myself and Captain Masinga and we then went to Mrs Umbiasi, also reported to her.  She then suggested that we go to Shlangawane Hall to make a telephone call the reason being that Mrs Umbiasi's home phone only received incoming calls and could therefore not make outgoing calls.  He phoned Brigadier Msemela and explained to him the situation and then dropped the phone and after a while another phone call came in asking for Mrs Umbiasi and after that, the person on the line wanted to speak to Dina Mkhize.
	Dina Mkhize was communicating to Captain Hlungwane on the phone.  It was on a Friday, I still remember very well and he made it clear to us that by Monday Mr Khumalo must be dead.

MR WILLS: You've indicated in paragraph 81 that you used - well I infer from paragraph 81 of your affidavit page 36 that you used Constable P.B. Dube's BMW for you transport surrounding this attack, is that correct?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.

MR WILLS: Now Mr Mkhize has basically said that you dropped off Matenja close to where Sergeant Khumalo's house was and then you proceeded and you sort of acted as a backup and then Matenja shot Sergeant Khumalo when he was talking to Mr Mabika and in the process Mr Mabika also got killed, is that correct.

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.

MR WILLS: Now you've heard obviously Sergeant Khumalo's younger brother and also Mr Mabika's brother asking Mr Mkhize questions and it seemed that one of the main questions they asked was why did you do this?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Let me start off the injury of Mr Mabika.  His injury was a mistake.  We did not know him and we were not instructed to kill him and we too did not intend killing him.  It was just unfortunate that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and that, for example if Dina had a way of stopping Matenja not to continue the shooting, maybe he should have done that but at a place where we were we could not see Mr Mabika.  We just heard at the police station that two people died there, Sergeant Khumalo and Mr Mabika and enquiring about this from Mr Matenja as to how it happened, he then explained that how they came actually, Mr Mabika came and spoke to Sergeant Khumalo and at that very same time he had his gun aimed at Sergeant Khumalo and he said because Mabika was outside the car whilst Khumalo was inside the car he just told himself he was going to hit only Sergeant Khumalo because the way Mr Mabika was shot is such that it hit Mr Khumalo, that is the bullet, hit Mr Khumalo and the same bullet hit Mr Mabika.
	That's the explanation he gave us so the death of Mr Mabika was an unfortunate accident but the death of Sergeant Khumalo was not a mistake, actually his death was long overdue until that date on which we were able to locate him the reason being that he was a Commander of the Murder and Robbery Unit at eSikhawini and there were dockets that he was investigating which dockets involved the death of ANC members.  It is said that Sergeant Khumalo took these dockets to discuss them with Mr Welcome Mthimkhulu who was a leader of the ANC at eSikhawini.

MR WILLS: Sorry, I just want you to pause there, you say it was said, it was said by whom?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: This is what came from the local leadership of eSikhawini and also it was confirmed by the hit squad hierarchy from Ulundi.  People like M.Z. Khumalo, Captain Hlungwane, Dalco Luthuli among others.  That is at the time when we were discussing the list that was formulated at the eSikhawini Shlangalane Hall.

MR WILLS: Yes you indicate that after the incident you went to Mrs Umbiasi's house, is that correct?