Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1996-05-13

N JACK MENERA: Yes the five of us.  We went to the shop and we went into the shop and I asked Susan Phelane, where is your husband.  That is the question I asked her, and she said, my husband is not here, he is at the station to help his son Pirate and while asking that question accused No 2 Nicholas Mayani went behind the counter and he attacked the words.  He said, we are not going to discuss anything with an informer, an informer has to be killed, and he took a bar and he hit her.  Myself and Patrick followed suit. We stabbed her, I had a jungle, a big knife in my hand and Cheetah also had a weapon, and we started chopping her. Bench went outside to the switch and he switched off the lights and we were left in the shop, the four of us. We stabbed her and then we chopped her.  That is Mr Phelane's wife.  She fell.  I don't want to lie before this Commission that she died immediately, or we left her in a state of dying, I do not know.  We stabbed her to such an extent that she would never survive.  I can as well say she was killed by our attack.
	After stabbing her I went to the kitchen at the shop, I tried to get hold of something that will make the fire. We wanted to do our things so fast.  As I was trying to pull a gas cylinder that was in the shop, I heard a cry next to the office. That is next to where we stabbed Susan.  It was just a few minutes or just two minutes after stabbing Susan, I heard a cry in the shop and I went back to investigate who was crying.
	Accused No 3 Patrick Maluwisani was stabbing someone on the floor, it was dark in the shop, I couldn't see who this person was and I asked Muthlatsi, who is this person you are stabbing, and he said to me it's a dog belonging to Modern.  I said, wait a minute and I took matches and I lit the matches and I said, this is a child, and this was Patrick Phelane.  Muthlatsi understood me and he stopped his attack.  I myself took Patrick, I dragged him out of the shop because I knew we going to burn the shop down.  We wouldn't like him to burn inside the shop.  I dragged him outside at the kitchen door and we started burning the shop.

ADV DE JAGER: You dragged Patrick out?

N JACK MENERA: Yes Patrick.

ADV DE JAGER: Or did you drag the child out?

N JACK MENERA: The child's name is Patrick.  He was eleven years old, this Patrick was dragged out of the house and he was stabbed by Patrick.

ADV DE JAGER: One of your co-assailants was also, his name was also Patrick?

N JACK MENERA: Yes you are correct. Patrick the co-accused stabbed Patrick the son of to Mr Phelane. Now Patrick the co-accused was stopped by me to leave Mr Phelane's son who is Patrick and I then dragged Patrick outside the shop and we started now burning the shop.  After burning the shop, we realised that the fire was so strong that nobody could stop it, then we left the shop.
	We knew that Modern Phelane must be somewhere in the car and he is pirating and his son was doing the same, he was on the road pirating.  We will catch them on the road. And we knew that his gang was a group of drunkards, we're going to get hold of them nicely after having beer.  Now on our way we saw a car belonging to his son Edward Phelane.  It was parked next to the tavern.
	Because the plan was already in the pipeline, we went into the tavern and we got hold of him.  I personally grabbed him on the neck, he was wearing a black leather jacket.  I grabbed him by his leather jacket on the neck and he was talking to a security lady at the tavern and I pulled him.  And when he looked back as to who was pulling him I took out my jungle knife, the one I used to kill his mother, the same jungle I used to stab him.
	During the stabbing he was not even defending himself.  You know if a person hits you with a fist you try to stop but Edward was not stopping me as I was busy stabbing him. At that time he was busy taking out his 9mm gun that he hid somewhere and he wanted to shoot me with this. I realised that this is a gun that this person is pulling out. When I realised that this man is having a gun in his hand I threw away my jungle knife and I got hold of his hand. He was holding a gun with his two hands and I used mine to grab his and we fought over this gun. With God's help until the gun was in my hands and I thanked God that the gun was now in my hands. At that time he got a chance to run into the tavern. 	I realised that leaving him would be a danger because he was the most dangerous person in the gang. And I didn't feel anything forcing me to withdraw from this action.   went into the tavern with his gun and we were told by the people in the tavern that he used the back door and he ran away.  When I got out of the tavern, I saw my co-accused busy.  His car was already burning.  When I got out of the door his car was already burning, and the person who was at the car was Patrick Maloyisani and Mayani and Ou Bench.  I said to them while the car was burning, I said, Comrades, we have done this here at the tavern, let us leave this area, let us not be close to the tavern.  
	We went back to Mandela Square.

UNKNOWN: What did you do after you went to Mandela Square, did you remain at Brandfort?

N JACK MENERA: I told my comrades, I said comrades, we have committed this act, it is better to run away and immediately then and there we ran away, we only left behind Christian Bosman, Myself, Patrick Maloyisani, Nicholas Mayani and Ou Bench left.  We went to spend a night 10 km out of Brandfort on route to Welkom.  Four o'clock in the morning we woke up in the veld and we started hiking to Welkom.  It was at about four to half past four when we got a lift and we were dropped off at Welkom. At Welkom I left the three comrades, Maloyisani, Cheetah and Ou Bench, I left them and I went to Johannesburg.  I went to Winnie Mandela's and I was told she's at work, and I went to Shell House where she was working and I found her and I related her the incident.  I told her the reasons of my presence in Johannesburg, I told her what we did in Brandfort.

JUDGE WILSON: Did you tell her that you had killed these people, you had burned a house, that you'd stabbed a 13-year old child?

N JACK MENERA: I didn't leave anything behind, I told her everything.

UNKNOWN: Is the Chair finished?  Thank you Mr Chair.  And what was her reaction when you told her these things?

N JACK MENERA: There was no reaction and there was nothing at all, and I was not asking her, I was telling her what we did, I was not asking her as to how she feels, I wasn't asking for her advice.  I was telling her that we, the ANC in Brandfort committed an act.

UNKNOWN: I don't know how the impression is interpreted to you, but let me try and put the question in a different way.  Did she say anything that indicated that she approved of what you did or say anything to show that she disapproved of what you had done?

N JACK MENERA: She did not show any sign of being against this, but she was concerned about our safety, because she said, if we were still in the country after committing this, she said we should leave the country, we must be outside the country.  In other words we were supposed to go in exile. And I didn't see it necessary to leave the country for exile because there was nothing I couldn't do at that time. Because I didn't want to leave for exile just to waste my time, I considered that even if I'm in the country, even if I get arrested, there is no problem because what I did, I did not hide myself, I was Jack and in future when you met me you would see me and you'd say, I saw Jack committing this act.  I was prepared to be killed by the government, I was prepared to be sentenced but the government was supposed to know the reasons behind our action.  That is why I got into the tavern with a gun, I knew that there's a policeman inside the tavern.

UNKNOWN: Now Mr Menera ...(intervention)

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Can I, do you want to move on to something?