Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-02

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: Yes, Stephen Radebe was then fetched.  I issued an order to some of our comrades to the effect that they should fetch him up, fetch him, bring him so that we could question him about his activities, and try to get the reasons thereof.  We brought him to office that is based at Nkosi Street.  Some of our fellow comrades left, I think 20 of us remained, and other were still outside eating.  The time was about the patrol time of the evening.
We asked him about things that we knew he was doing, and he admitted, you know, our brother admitted even to the cutting of private parts, and something else that he did, that I did not know, he said that he was involved in an attack at Polla Park in 1991, where four people died.  He said he too was involved, giving the, 'ntelezi'.  In other words he agreed or admitted to many things that he did within the IFP and lastly he ended up saying that we should forgive him because he did not know what he was doing, and he apologised to us that he is an Inkatha IFP and we are ANC people and he knew that we are going to kill him, he wanted us to forgive him.  Unfortunately, everybody who was present whether it was a mother or a woman or an older person, they would have killed him because they were doing many things and we were seeing these things happening as a community at Penduka.  I as a commander of Slovo did not have a choice, I therefore had to issue an order to the effect that he should be killed.  
We took him and we brought along an AK-47 and a handgun.  We went to Nkatiswe grounds.  One of our comrades shot at him and I too shot him.  I am the one who issued the order.  I partook in his killing.

MR SHANE: Who else partook in his killing?  Who are the comrades that you are referring to, that took part in the killing?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: Mzwake, Ernest Buthelezi, he is the one with whom I was involved in this matter.

MR SHANE: And did he also fire shots at Stephen?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: Yes, he too fired shots, and I later fired shots.

MR SHANE: You, what kind of weapon did you use?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: A palm gun.

MR SHANE: And where did you get that weapon from?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: We used to purchase these firearms from Polla Park, and Vosloo was at a shelter.  We used to buy them from there, bring them to the township for use.  I cannot be certain as to where these two firearms we were using came from.

MR SHANE: Were these firearms stored in your, in the house which you called the office?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: Some of these firearms were kept at the office, so that in case there is an attack from behind where the office was.  You see most of the time the Inkatha people did not come on their own.  They would be delivered by Caspirs so that most of the time it would happen that there would be killings at or behind us where we were not observant.  So that we wanted to have a situation where we could easily prevent such attacks from happening, and I used to order that each one of our people have their firearms within their group.  I had seven groups.  All of these groups had their own firearms, or should I say there was one firearm per group.

MR SHANE: And obviously none of your comrades had licences to possess these weapons.

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: No, no-one had a licence except for our chairman who had a licensed 357.  He's the only one I knew to have been having a licence.  He used to say to us that in case we lose one of our comrades and we had to bury him, he used to use that firearm where we were burying some of our comrades.  He used it for gun salutes during funerals.

MR SHANE: Who was this person?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: I only know his surname.  Mr Mazibuko.

MR SHANE: Were you the first person to shoot Stephen Radebe, or ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Does it matter?

MR SHANE: Actually not Mr Chairman.  Now, what happened after Stephen Radebe was shot?  What happened, do you know what happened to his body?  Do you have any knowledge?  What did you do after the shooting?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: We shot him and then we departed to - We left and we took these firearms back for storage.  I think we stored them three houses away from the office, so that I had to issue out orders for patrols.  We continued with the patrols, and the following day on observation I noticed that there were people who were sitting around the dead person.  In our cases black people, in the event of a person dying, the family would come and sit around the dead body.  And I noticed that these are the people who are so-called Umdwembe.  We used to use this name referring to Inkatha people, so that we could easily identify them if, in case we came across them.  I asked them questions, they didn't answer me, they cried instead, and I left.

MR SHANE: Now Stephen, as you said, Stephen Radebe was a person known to you who used to take part in recreational activities with you, like playing dice, as you said.  Did you know any members of his family?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: No.  I don't know a single member of his family.

MR SHANE: Now we are dealing with the other murder that you've applied for amnesty, that is Beki Khanyile.  Is this the same person that Vusi Mbatha murdered and applied for amnesty yesterday?  Are we referring to the same deceased?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: Yes, that is correct.

MR SHANE: And is it correct that this person Beki Khanyile was murdered on the same day as Stephen Radebe was murdered?

VICTOR WANDA MUCHACHO MABASO: That's correct.  Beki Khanyile was the first one to be killed.

MR SHANE: Can you please explain the circumstances as to how he was murdered.