Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1991-09-08

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, I don't know about that incident.

MR STANDER: Do you have any knowledge of the event where he'd been released from the Buiswater police station but shortly afterwards under the understanding that he would be taken home?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: The one I know he was at the hearse, he was in the hearse.

MR STANDER: I'm sorry Mr Chairman, I didn't hear that answer.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr interpreter, does he not say: "it is a hearsay", not has - hearsay.

INTERPRETER: Maybe he made a mistake, we thought it's a hearse - he said hearse.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is a hearsay - I heard that from somebody else.

MR STANDER: From whom did you hear this?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I learnt that from Sergeant Mamome.

MR STANDER: Did Sergeant Mamome also tell you that he'd been shot at, at that occasion?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, he didn't tell me about the shooting.

MR STANDER: Tell me, is it true that due to the fact that he'd been a Chairman of COSAS, the assaults on him were much worse than made on the ordinary activists?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is true.

MR STANDER: Is it true that on occasions he'd been simply accosted in the street and assaulted and left like that?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: Regarding Mr Norman Chani - I think it's item 24 on your list, page 141 of volume A.
	I understand that Mr Norman Chani was a qualified teacher at that stage.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: But that he was also a member of the National Education Union of South Africa?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: I have been instructed that he was arrested one night for distributing pamphlets, do you know anything about this?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: Is it true that his person on several occasions had been arrested, intimidated, assaulted and then released again, only to be re-arrested within a few days?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: I understand that as a result of these detentions he later lost his job, in other words that he was dismissed as a teacher.  Do you know about this?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: Was this part of the strategy?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct because there was an informer which was made that he should be - he should influence students that they should be against Norman Chani.  They were influenced - they were encouraged that he's in love with the school children.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I didn't quite understand your answer.  There was an informer as I understand, who said that he influenced the children - what did he influence them to do?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That they should be against Norman Chani and then to influence the students again that he is in love with the students where he was teaching.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: There was an informer in the school?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, the informer came from Vulamasango school.  He was a member of COSAS or she was a member of COSAS.  He or she was influenced so that he should go to that school where Norman Chani was teaching - that Mr Norman Chani was in love with other students at that school.

MR STANDER: I will now move to item 14 and this is the attempted murder on Makhubalo.
	What I can't understand, it sounded as if you'd received an instruction to kill Mr Oupa Makhubalo, is this correct?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: But when you finally found him after he was unable to run away any longer, you didn't shoot him.  I don't understand this, can you just explain please?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: We were shooting but no one bullet was able to hit the target - that is him.

MR STANDER: I'm hearing what you say but at one stage he fell and he couldn't run away any longer, why wasn't he shot then?

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I don't understand this, isn't this the chap who - I might be confused, is this not this person who was supposed to have - to be arrested in the killing of somebody else?

MR STANDER: No Mr Chairman, you will remember this person which they - the person they went looking for in broad daylight, they couldn't find him and eventually when they found him he was running away and they fired shots in all directions.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes, what I don't understand is, why do say to the witness that: "you went there to kill him"?  Did he not in his evidence say that: "we had been instructed to go and fetch him and if he tried to run away we should shoot him"?  You are surely not putting it correctly.

ADV DE JAGER: Could I perhaps assist, I think it's because of the wording of paragraph 14 - he's applying for amnesty for attempted murder.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes, but I don't that will justify Mr Stander's premise on which you - from which you depart in putting your question.  The witness did not in chief say that: "we got instructions to go and kill him".  I think he said: "we got instructions that we should go and bring that person back and if he tries to run away, we should shoot him".

CHAIRPERSON: But he agreed they did.  They question that was put to him was it sounded as if you received an instruction to kill him and the applicant agreed that that was correct.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes, I have problems in questions which are unfair, basically unfair and I don't have a lot of respect for an answer from a witness if the question had been properly put.

MR STANDER: It wasn't my intention to confuse the witness, if I managed to do this I apologise because it was not my intention.
	Could I continue on this basis, was the instruction put in such a way that if the person had tried to escape it wouldn't have mattered if you killed him?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR STANDER: And then this would also explain why he wasn't shot when you finally did get hold of him?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: They were police and then they have minds and then I had a mind.  When we started to chase him there were no people.  When they shot for the first time - that is Mamome, people converged to come to the scene where we were chasing Mr Makhubalo.  It was now difficult at that time, that when they were shooting they would ask themselves as whether - where the bullet would go.

MR STANDER: When the shots were fired at him, was it the intention of those shots to kill this person, or was it simply aimed at injuring him so that he could be arrested?

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I don't know ...[inaudible] evidence here.  Is it the witness who fired the shot, if it's not him how would he know what the other person had in mind?

MR STANDER: I think it is important to discover the intention and the way in which it was executed and you will remember that he specifically told us that the instruction was that if he ran away, he had to be shot.  I just wanted to make quite sure.  If the witness can't tell us then that's fine.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: What you want him to tell us whether that person who shot the firearm, whether that person intended to kill that person, is that the answer you want?  Well you can ask him that question if you that it has got any evidential value.

MR STANDER: The reason for this question, with respect is whether anyone - it sounds to me as if he was under orders from Mr Mamome and whether an order had been instructed to shoot this person if he tried to escape and this is the reason for my question.  May I continue?

ADV DE JAGER: Maybe I can help.  Are you trying to ascertain whether there had been shot to arrest the person or did it not matter, was the intention of the shooting to kill him?  You want to distinguish between unnecessary violence in order to make an arrest or the intention to kill?