Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1999-10-27

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Jamie.  Ms Patel, have you got any submissions?

MS PATEL: Thank you, Honourable Chairperson.  I wish to state that I support the submission made by my learned colleagues, Mr Williams and Adv Jamie and I believe that they have sufficiently ventilated the issues that I would have raised and I wish to take the matter no further.
NO ARGUMENT BY MS PATEL

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Ms Patel.  Mr Riley have you got anything in reply?

MR RILEY: Chairperson, I personally have nothing in reply to what has been said so far.
NO REPLY BY MR RILEY

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you very much.  Mr Yekwani, Mr Riley has indicated to us that there was something further that you wanted to say before we conclude the proceedings.  I'm gong to allow you that opportunity to do so now.  You can tell us what it was that you wanted to bring to our attention.

MR YEKWANI: Chairperson, what I wanted to say is this.  If I had intention to kill Pro I could have gone to his house, there was no reason for me to wait for him on the public road because one thing that made me to be sure that those were the police, it's because they left the road and they came to the place where I was.  Truly speaking, I did not see the car coming but I just heard someone telling me.  If I heard someone calling his name, I couldn't have fired because I was going to know that he was coming to pay attention to the people who were calling him.  That is all I wanted to explain.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Yekwani.

MR YEKWANI: I would like to apologise to his family and I want them to trust that what I am telling is the truth.  I have nothing to hide.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  That concludes the formal proceedings in this application.  The Panel will have to take some time to decide this application.  There has been a lot of material that has been placed before us, a lot of arguments, a lot of issues that have arisen and it is a matter of some importance, as most of these applications, in fact all of them are normally to the parties with an interest in the application.  This one, in particular, has enjoyed slightly wider attention than would normally be the case.  We have to consider everything that was said here very carefully and we have to decide the application against the requirements which are laid down in the law and we have to consider whether in all the circumstances, whether the application satisfies those requirements which are set out in the law and which we have to apply in every case, in an even-handed fashion.  It is the provisions of the law that apply to every single one of the amnesty applicants that appear before us.  So under all those circumstances, we would require some time to consider this matter.  We will make sure that all of the parties with an interest in this matter are notified as soon as a decision is available and our offices will then ensure that those interested parties are provided with the decision once it is available. So under those circumstances we would reserve the decision in this matter.
	Ms Patel is there anything else on the role?

MS PATEL: No unfortunately no, Honourable Chairperson, that's our role for today.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  There was another matter but perhaps we can deal with that once we've adjourned.  Yes, very well.  This concludes the matters that we had on the role for today.  The Panel presided over by one of my other colleagues will continue with the Hearings tomorrow, so under those circumstances we will then adjourn the proceedings until tomorrow morning.  We're adjourned.
Perhaps just in conclusion, I want to thank all of the lawyers, Mr Riley, Mr Williams, Mr Jamie, Ms Patel, Mr Toyise for your assistance in this matter.  We appreciate it.  We're adjourned.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS