Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-10-05

MR DEHAL: Thank you Mr Chairperson, for raising it with me.  There appears to be a number of issues.  I want to begin at this level - I take ...(indistinct) negative aspersions on my professional calibre, attitude, etc.  I do not like it.  I think it must be addressed correctly, he started this - forgive me - irresponsible attitude and accusations towards me some time ago, and I think it must stop right here and now, I am fed up of it.  I must place on record quite correctly that I am the only person who would appear to have a record.  I told Mr Prior on the telephone when first I spoke to him and he enquired about the trial record, that I thought and I still know that copies of all the bundles are available at what is commonly termed death row, that is Maximum Security Prison.  I know that they are still there, he is the Evidence Leader.  I have a copy.  I managed to extract it from the archives late on Thursday, Friday was a holiday.
	Mr Richard has said I have failed, I have refused, he has constantly asked, he has not had it, this is a lie.  He has had it.  I have given the document to Mr Paddy Prior, he was the custodian at the time.  A weekend passed, that was Friday last week or Thursday last week and then Mr Richard had it with him.  The following Monday he mentioned to me and I say this in his favour, that he had not had the time to read them all and I accept that.  There is no difficulty about that, but against the background of him having had all those two Volumes of photographs and all the Volumes in the transcript, he cannot now say he has never had it.  This weekend he has called me personally to deliver these documents to him.  That means the trial transcript.  I went out of my way as to drive from a place outside Verulam, some 42 kilometres away and deliver it to him at the place he is presently resident.  I agree I did not give him all the Volumes, but that is principally because I am leading Mr McBride, I had to prepare.  Now I have been disadvantaged by giving him my Volumes, he is not the person who has to have all the Volumes all the time, I am also a legal representative in this matter and I have a duty to Mr McBride and I am endeavouring as best I can, to deliver that duty.  I am being prejudiced, Mr McBride is being prejudiced by me delivering those to him.  
	Yesterday he phones me just as I begin my consultation to say now these are the Volumes I have and these are the Volumes I don't have, when are you delivering them to me and I was equally fed up with that, and I told him that I am being prejudiced by not having some Volumes, I need what you had and seriously you need what I have.  Can we not approach Mr Prior and make some copies of these and let's put to rest this whole issue about whether I ought to deliver them to you or not.  I am trying as best I can, I am not the Evidence Leader.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I can see the difficulty of having only one record which is required by more than one party.   I must say to me it is surprising that there is only one record available, one would have thought that there would be various records, it is I take it fairly voluminous Mr Dehal?

MR DEHAL: Mr Chairperson, there are 15 Volumes and may I just say whilst it is fresh in my head, the inference that we are specifically refusing or failing to give to Mr Richard these Volumes containing Mr McBride's evidence so that he could not cross-examine etc, and find contradictions, is false.  He has had them.   I will make them available again as soon as I am over with Mr McBride.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  Mr Prior, this trial, was it held in Durban in the then Supreme Court?

ADV PRIOR: Mr Chairman, yes.  Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: Is there not any ...

ADV PRIOR: Mr Chairman, the enquiries made by the Investigating Unit of the Amnesty Committee as well as the Evidence Analyst and myself, we were unable to obtain any copy, full copy of the record at the Durban archives, the Durban court.  We were informed that the Maximum Prison had a copy, we made enquiries there, we never got it.   Short of personally going to the prison which I understood an Investigator did, I cannot explain why there wasn't a copy given.

CHAIRPERSON: So at this stage we are stuck with just one copy.

ADV PRIOR: We are stuck with Mr Dehal's copy which miraculously survived after all the years.  May I simply say that the court records were destroyed after I think four or five years.  They don't keep records beyond five years.  We also tried to track down from the Indemnity Committee in Pretoria, and we came out blank.  We were also informed that Gen Staedtler may have had a full copy of the record when he wrote his book, that also drew a blank.  So a number of enquiries were made, all drew a blank.

CHAIRPERSON: I am satisfied from what you have told me that steps have been taken to get a copy, unsuccessfully.  Mr Richard, from what I have heard, it would seem that there is a difficulty.  I certainly wouldn't express the view that there has been a deliberate sabotaging of your preparation in this matter.   I think we've got to be tolerant here, it might have unfortunately cost us more time in the future, but if we can make some sort of arrangement that this Volume, this one copy of the various Volumes be shared.  There is nothing else that we seem to be able to do, maybe copies can be made, depending - of certain parts of it.  I don't think there will be sufficient time to make copies of all 15 Volumes, but of the very important aspects which I am sure you might be able to identify and Mr Dehal might, we can make copies of that.

MR RICHARD: Another inference which is also apparent is that we are both pursuing the same Volumes at the same time.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR RICHARD: But as I have said earlier, I put it on record, I haven't yet read certain segments of the record.  I have done my best with the time available, but I will go through the others.

CHAIRPERSON: We understand the difficulty and we are not going to come hard down on anybody if somebody requires a bit of time to read some documentation, then so be it.  It will have to be done because of the circumstances.  There cannot be any blame apportioned to anybody.

MR RICHARD: Thank you Chairperson.  I suggest we proceed.

MR DEHAL: Mr Chairperson, just two aspects incidental to the issue.  The first is for the correction of the record, we did have a meeting, Mr Prior I think repeats that we did not have a pre-trial meeting, no, but in as much as we did not have a pre-trial meeting for good reasons.  We had a meeting which was held upstairs in these premises.  Mr Berger was present, his Instructing Attorney and all of us and at that meeting we discussed Volume A1 and Mr Richard did not at that stage say I want the trial record for he had it at the time.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, we know there is a difficulty and let's hope that we can just sort it out and share the record.  If there is any difficulties from anybody, if you could please just revert to us and we can see if we can smooth them over and let's get this done in the best way and the smoothest way, possible.

MR DEHAL: I agree Mr Chairperson.  Mr Chairperson, the second thing that I want to raise is Mr McBride raised the question of this list, I did not hear what the lady who came in, said.  I had my headphones on.  I don't know whether the question of that list has been appropriately addressed.  Sorry, Mr McBride is aware of pages 3 and 4 and the list of those persons. As I have mentioned earlier, we take issue with that list because it differs in number and names from the earlier list, but the basis for the request is to establish who in fact is opposing as opposed to the full list.