Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-24

MR VISSER: Yes.  I will tell you why I refer you to this particular work, is because it contains inter alia a paper by Iskan and Loth, which deals with identification and that is what we are dealing with here.
	I am going to point out, if you will allow me, that there are certain strong comparisons between the article which you have sent us a photocopy of, and what they have to say and if you will allow me, I would just like to refer to certain points.
	The first thing is a question of age in this particular matter that we are dealing with, and as far as age is concerned, I would like to differentiate between the age at the time of death and the age of the skeleton since death.  What I want to ask you Professor is, did you run any tests or try to determine the age since death - let's start first of all, with the age of the deceased when she died.  Did you make any assessment of that aspect?

UNKNOWN: No, what we did was, we were instructed to actually carry out facial reconstruction.  We took it on face value, the information that we received regarding the anthropology.

MR VISSER: Yes.

UNKNOWN: We did not make any further assessments.

MR VISSER: Alright, and that age that was provided to you was 35 years old, if I am not mistaken?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

MR VISSER: Yes, alright.   If the actual age was - well, may I ask you the question this way, normally speaking, what would the age variation be to effect a noticeable change in your enquiry into identification and reconstruction of the skull or is that a difficult question?

UNKNOWN: Well, let's put it this way, when you do a facial reconstruction, you can only approximate to the appearance of a person in any case.  So there will be certain features, like details of the eyes and things like that, that you will not necessarily be able to get correct.  So as far as fine features are concerned, it will be difficult.  It is not that age sensitive a subject, so if we are dealing with say, somebody who is between 30 and 40, or even 30 and 50, I do not find any difficulty in being able to put a face onto someone within that age group.  But obviously when it is a bigger discrepancy of about 20 years, and depending at what time of their life that is, then obviously there is a difference, we do make some changes.

MR VISSER: Yes.

UNKNOWN: But I must stress that all we did here was we just did the reconstruction to assess the shape of the face in relation to the skull, we did not rely on that to actually do our identification.  Identification was done where we used superimposition.

MR VISSER: Alright.  Yes.  You see in your report under the heading, the second heading "Procedure Carried Out", the first numbered paragraph states
"... the skull was examined both to confirm the autopsy findings and the anthropological data provided."
and that is what made me ask you the question, whether you went into that kind of detail.

UNKNOWN: No, we didn't go into - well, obviously what we do is we have a look at the skull and if there are any obvious discrepancies between what we are provided with and what we have, then we will examine it further, but it seems to me as approximately stated to us by the Forensic Pathologists who sent the details in.

MR VISSER: Yes, speaking of obvious differences, this skull which you projected on the video which we obtained from you, Professor, would that be the skull that you received from Dr Naidoo?

UNKNOWN: That is correct, yes.

MR VISSER: And can you, have you looked at that video lately again, before today?

UNKNOWN: I have seen it in the last month, I don't know, I can't say I have seen it in the last week or so, no.

MR VISSER: Can you perhaps recall the condition of the top part of the skull, any fractures or wounds that you can remember, what it looked like?

UNKNOWN: Yes, I mean there appeared to me to be an obvious gunshot entry wound.

MR VISSER: Well, on the video it appears to be a complete fracture of the skull?  Would that be incorrect?

UNKNOWN: I would have to remind myself by looking at the video again.

MR VISSER: Yes, alright.  If you are at a disadvantage, we can deal with this in another way, but I wanted to give you the opportunity if you could contribute at all to this, because what we know is a skull was found with an orbital bullet wound at the top of the skull and what we see on your video is a complete fracture of the skull on the top, which seems to us as laymen, completely different from what was found.  But if you cannot give any opinion or make any comment on that, we can deal with that in another manner.
	Could you just excuse us a moment?  Alright, I am just told Professor, that we can show the video simultaneously and you will probably be able to see it.  I would have done so if we weren't time restricted, as we are, and if I couldn't do it in any other way, but I think I can.  In any event, if we cannot, we will come back to you on another day and take up some more of your time.
	In paragraph 2, have you got your report in front of you, Professor?

UNKNOWN: I am afraid, I don't.

MR VISSER: Oh my.

UNKNOWN: I don't have it with me, I am afraid.

MR VISSER: Oh my, that may be a bit of a problem, then I will have to read it to you.  In paragraph 2, at the first page of your report you say
"... it was then prepared for image capture, for reconstruction by replacing teeth in sockets and articulating the mandible."
	What I want to ask you about that is that we have been given to understand that not all the teeth were present when the skull was exhumed and certainly some teeth were removed for DNA testing, presumably before they were sent to you.  Can you at all recall what the position was as far as the teeth were concerned, particularly the anterior teeth?

UNKNOWN: No, I can't.  All I know is that some were removed, and whatever we had, we replaced by reconstruction.

MR VISSER: Alright.

UNKNOWN: As far as we were concerned, what you have to appreciate what we were doing, we weren't doing an odontological examination, we were basically doing a facial reconstruction for identification here.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Coming to that, well, just before we come to that, you say also in paragraph 2
"... standard methodology was then used to reconstruct a face onto the skull, using a 3D computer."
	When you speak about standard methodology, would that be the methodology referred to in the article of Shahrom, that you sent to us?

UNKNOWN: That describes our technique that we used, that article, as you can see, was obviously a little while ago and it combines reconstruction and superimposition as well, but that is the technique, yes and it is a technique that we have been using ever since.

MR VISSER: Can you give us the date of which this work was published, perhaps?  Would you have ...

UNKNOWN: It should be there on your, it should be there.

MR VISSER: Well, unfortunately it isn't.

UNKNOWN: I think it is 1996, I think it should say.

MR VISSER: Alright.   We can possibly check that here.  You see, coming to the question of the facial reconstruction, please stop me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that what you sent is a skull as well as a photograph or more, more than one photograph?

UNKNOWN: That is t, that is t.

MR VISSER: You must forgive me Professor, but I find that intriguing, because in terms of evidence in a court of law, I would suggest to you that a facial reconstruction would have value if you did the reconstruction and compared it later to a photograph and said "well, it compares" or "it does not compare", but here you seem to have had the photograph at the same time you were doing the reconstruction?

UNKNOWN: We were sent the photographs at the same time, we didn't look at the photographs, we did the skull blind, first of all, to produced the reconstruction and then looked at the photographs afterwards.

MR VISSER: Oh, I see.  And ...