Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-04-15

MR CHASKALSON: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, before I do begin that, I've just been given an affidavit of Gavin Mark Reid Evans.  It's already in the bundle, it's bundle 5, page 62 to 68.  That original affidavit was unsigned and unattested to and at the time Advocate du Plessis objected to it and requested a signed copy.  We now have a signed copy.  I don't know if we simply replace it in the bundle or if you would like to call this Exhibit Q?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, perhaps it's best to give it a number, an independent number.  It might be difficult to get it into the bundle otherwise.

MR CHASKALSON: Then let's make that Q.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes Mr Chaskalson, there are some issues that you want to raise with the applicant?

MR CHASKALSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Arising from the re-examination?

MR CHASKALSON: Correct, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bellingan, I'm just going to remind you that you are still under oath.  There are some or other further issues that Mr Chaskalson will be raising with you.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: (s.u.o.)

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, I don't intend to be long with you, I'd just like to clarify a couple of questions in regard to Annexure O.  That is a document which is in your handwriting and which you have told us is a transcript of a meeting that you had with Mr Kjellberg on, I think it's the 7th of March 1997.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell us, does this transcript begin at the beginning of your meeting with Mr Kjellberg?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Practically yes, Mr Chairman.  I actually met Mr Kjellberg in the passage and as we walked the tape was already running, but it's indistinct, I can't make it out, up until I think counter number 11, on the counter.

MR CHASKALSON: And Mr Kjellberg was not aware that you were taping this conversation?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: That is correct, I presume he wasn't, Mr Chairman.

MR CHASKALSON: And does it conclude at the end of your meeting or does it conclude at the end of the tape and your meeting continued?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: I'm not sure how long the meeting went on after the tape finished, Mr Chairman.  I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think the tape being a half hour tape finished as we were finishing off the meeting, or perhaps the meeting went on longer.

MR CHASKALSON: Now you seem to be relying on certain comments made on page 3 of this document, and here I'm thinking in respect of three main quotes, there may be more and you will of course point them out to me, the one is
"I've needed the record of the proceedings of the Court to prepare properly my amnesty application."
And then you speak about the steps you've taken.  Then you talk about:
"I sent in a skeleton, then remember we were going to fill it in with Kobus step by step by step."
And then lower down you point out:
"But I realise there's more and more things that is not exactly the type of thing ...(indistinct) the skeleton.  To flesh it out is difficult."
And it goes on.  And if I understood your testimony correctly, what you were trying to say is that these show that at this stage there were no, there were the 
bare bones of an application before the Commission.  In fact pages 1 to 8 of the bundle with your hand-written notes, no annexure and nothing else?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Correct, Mr Chairman.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, if there was no information before the Commission, why did you say I needed the record, why didn't you say I need the record to prepare?

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: That is what we were discussing, the fact that we hadn't yet got it and Mr Kjellberg was undertaking to get these things, Mr Chairman.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, what I'm asking you is, you say
"I've needed the record of the proceedings of the Court to prepare properly ..."
My understanding of that is that you did prepare something, you did submit something, but you would like the record to complete it.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Quite true, Mr Chairman.

MR CHASKALSON: But then Mr Bellingan, if there is nothing in your application, aside from the bare facts, why do you not say: "I need these documents to complete my application"?  You put it in the past tense, Mr Bellingan.  You put it in a tense that leads me to believe that you have already submitted something and you will require this information to make it proper.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman.  At this stage I had already been needing that and I had already been trying to get it for some time and I still hadn't got it.  It was just simply a continuation of a need.
"I've needed the record ..."
... for example.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, I will argue that when you refer to a skeleton application, what you are actually referring to is the annexure that follows after your amnesty application, which contains information and that a skeleton application originally, in your mind, was an application that contains information but which requires further information to be complete, not an application which has no information in it.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: That's not very clear to me, but from what has already been said yesterday by Mr Chaskalson, I think we are in agreement that I've submitted a skeleton application and the TRC has acknowledged that, also by Mr Chaskalson, and then at a later stage I submitted the annexure, but that the TRC at one point in time via Mr Kjellberg, submitted the discussion document.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, let me be clear.  By skeleton application I am not referring to pages 1 to 8, I'm referring to other information which follows after that in the bundles, but which you might want to flesh out at a later stage.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: No, that's not the case at all and it's also not what Mr Chaskalson said yesterday.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, I agree with you that originally we received a simple document with no annexure, I accept that, but by the time this conversation takes place, I'm saying to you you have handed us further documentation.  Be that as it may, let's move on.
	Mr Bellingan, can you explain to us how you flesh out something when there is nothing?  Surely you draft something where there is nothing and you flesh out an existing document which requires further detail.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: No, what needed fleshing out is my so-called skeleton application, Mr Chairman, which is on the pro-forma, in my handwriting, of the forms of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and which are just simply not long enough and which I had to simply fill in to meet the deadline, by agreement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

MR CHASKALSON: Mr Bellingan, I put it to you that by the time of this meeting you were fully aware that you had handed in the discussion document to the TRC.  Whatever it's status was, be it as it may.  Conversations had taken place around that discussion document, and when you refer to fleshing out the skeleton application you are talking about fleshing out that discussion document.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: No, that is quite clearly absurd, Mr Chairman.  Anyone who would look at the discussion document will see that in my own handwriting there's names missing, it's not signed, the other, the typed version is not signed by me.  There is no possible way that that could have been sent by me as part of my amnesty application, Mr Chairman, and it didn't happen like that.

MR CHASKALSON: And Mr Bellingan, that is precisely why you needed to flesh it out, because you required the further information to insert details, for instance of the lawyer which remains blank, to insert details relating to the murder and to the other events.

MICHAEL BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, if somebody reads this transcript there's no possible way that you can reach that conclusion, beside from the evidence that I've given and the evidence that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has given.