Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1996-11-27

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you Chairperson, that concludes the testimony from those families who are available at this stage to have testified at this event hearing.  There are two families who we have not been able to locate and ideally we would have wanted to give the opportunity to all five  the families to participate in this special event hearing,  although some of them have in the context of the general victim hearing, brought this particular matter to our attention.
There are the families of Zola Alfred Swelani and Themba Mlifi who both also died in this incident, whom we have not been able to locate and arrange to be here today and to participate in the event hearing.   Perhaps this will come to their attention and perhaps we can just repeat the invitation for them to get in touch with the Commission and for us to take their matters on board as well.
But that concludes the testimony from the families.
We will proceed to hear the evidence of Mr Rudolph Lazarro and I call him to come forward please - good day Mr Lazarro

MR LAZARRO: Good day meneer.

ADV POTGIETER: Do you prefer to give your testimony in English or  Afrikaans?

MR LAZARRO: I will do both ways.

ADV POTGIETER: Okay.

MR LAZARO: Ja.

ADV POTGIETER: That is fine, so welcome.   Thank you that you have come.  Before we listen to your testimony I am going to ask you to stand and to take the oath please.
RUDOLPH  PAUL DAVID LAZARO   Duly sworn states

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you very much, You may be seated.  My colleague Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela will assist you.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Chairperson and thanks Denzil.  Good morning Rudi and welcome again.

MR LAZARO: The same to you.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Just to give a bit of background into why you are here.  Our investigator have come up with an incredible amount of evidence and details relating to the case that came became known as the Guguletu 7.  And most -  a lot of their evidence, suggest -  of their findings, suggests an urgent need to re-investigate the case and to establish what exactly went on, on the day that we are talking about, the 3rd of March 1986.
You have come here to help us understand the way the police evidence was paste  together.  You are one of the people who are going to assist us and perhaps just have to mention the context in which you will help us peace - understand how the evidence was compiled. 
They found that when the inquest, at the inquest proceedings in November of 1986,  the signatures that were presented as your own at the bottom of the type statement did not necessarily agree with a signature that you had on an original  statement you gave on the 2nd on the 3rd of March in Mitchell's Plain.  Now we want to understand how that happens and you are going to tell us a bit more about that  discrepancy in those two signatures and the way in which your signature and why it was used at the inquest hearing on the Guguletu 7.
Now, could you tell us a little bit why you went to the police station on the 3rd of March and what was the nature of the statements that you left at that police station and  the statement that you remember having signed.  Can you tell us about that please?

MR LAZARO: I'll  make it very brief,  I was robbed,  I was robbed at Swartklip Road from five chaps and I went to report that at the police station - that I was robbed from my money and the battery of my vehicle and a generator.  And for insurance purposes I had to go and do that.  But then afterwards the police - the police and came and pick me up, CID's  came and pick me up and they took me to Bishop Lavis police  stasie  police station.
When we got there, they showed me photo's.  They told me, these are the people that have robbed you,  I told them no but  these people doesn't look like those people that have robbed me.  And even if it was those people that have robbed me, I don't think you can shoot up people like that, as you people have shot up this poor people.   They say - you must look properly, see if it was those people.   I said - no - this - these  are not those people.  They said - look properly,   don't you know one of them? 
I looked again, I saw two which I know - not to say they have robbed me, but I knew, because I am a Guguletu dweller myself.  I have been all the time in Guguletu myself.  I know all the children there.  Know more or less most of the children there who all came from Kensington and Windowmere and all those places, we knew each other.  We knew sometimes the father's faces or the mother's faces - the children are resembling to those - to those faces and I am a drinker myself,  I have been drinking a lot.   And I am still drinking and - and we went to shebeens, we met these youngsters in the shebeens.   It is not to say that they have been - they are the ones that robbed me.
 That is all I have said to them.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Did you get the impression that you were being pushed to admit that these people fitted the identity of the ones who had robbed you?

MR LAZARO: No, actually I didn't get that impression.  I didn't get that impression at all, because I was so astonished that they can kill people like that.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: What do you think the police at Bishop Lavis - police station were trying to do?

MR LAZARO: I thought they were trying to - to help me  to get those robbers, but now they killed them.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: When you say to  trying to get them - can you be a bit more specific?  I am sorry repeat -  to state the question.

MR LAZARO: They are trying to show me, it is those people that have robbed me.  And I have told them that it is not those people that have robbed me.  They asked me, I must look nicely,  I must look properly because - I say I can't look nicely, these people are shot up.
They are shot up and there is full of - full of blood and they have been cut up and I don't know what cut them up like that.  But the fact remains, they say - he  told me, the two that was clear - I told them, well, these two - these two I recognized their face, but not to say I recognize them as those robbers that have been robbing me.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: So, even though their faces looked a little deformed, you were able to state very clearly that they were not the ones who robbed you?

MR LAZARO: Definitely, they were not the ones that robbed me, because those are - look they looked like decent people, those people.  And those that have robbed me, I know them, they are not these ones.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: And did you - can you talk about your statement now.   You gave a statement for your insurance, for  insurance purposes - what was in that statement?