Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-16

ADV SANDI: Sorry Mr Richard, just one thing which is not very clear to me.  There seems to be two signature appended to the statement.  The first one, it appears to be the signature of Tshabalala.  Are you able to say anything over the second one?

MR RICHARD: I cannot give any comment on my knowledge as to the second signature.  I've looked at it and, I can't take the point further.  Right, now, we return to your statement there at page 10 of the bundle.  There's a sequence of events that you set out there, which goes basically this way if I understand your evidence as read with this.  My recollection, and I'm happy to be corrected, is that you say that Sicelo Dhlomo was fetched from his parents house that Sunday morning, if I remember correctly earlier this morning.

MR DUBE: I did not say that.

MR RICHARD: Where was he fetched from?

MR DUBE: What I said ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Did he say he was fetched from anywhere?  You said he arrived at the house.

MR DUBE: ...(indistinct)

MR RICHARD: I'll leave it.  So where did Sicelo come from?  How did he arrive in your company that Sunday?

MR DUBE: He found me sitting at Clive's home.  I was with Clive at the time.

MR RICHARD: Do you know where he came from earlier that day?  Do you have any idea?

MR DUBE: No, I do not.

MR RICHARD: Now where is Clive's house?

MR DUBE: It's at Emdeni in Soweto.

MR RICHARD: Now, is it near or far from where the deceased lived?

MR DUBE: I can say that it's not that far, you can actually walk from Clive's home.

MR RICHARD: Now, what time was this?

MR DUBE: As I said before, I'm not certain of the time.

MR RICHARD: Was it daylight or night time?

MR DUBE: It was just before dusk.

MR RICHARD: Now, at paragraph 5 page 11, after you searched him you say you took the transmitter and left him.  What do you mean by that statement?

MR DUBE: What I was explaining here was that, after I had removed the transmitter I just moved it a little further away from him, and then I threw that transmitter on the floor.  That is what I meant, not that I left him.

MR RICHARD: But then in the next sentence you say
"...I immediately ...(indistinct) to the three cell members in Emdeni"
So that means they weren't with you.

MR DUBE: What I meant to say here, as I wrote this, was I was in Emdeni together with Clive, but I did not write that here.  I was with Clive at Clive's house, also to be able to tell Clive to phone the other cell members to come.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did you write something that was completely wrong?  Why did you say
"...I immediately rushed to the three cell members in Emdeni"?

MR DUBE: As I've already said that I think it's I attribute this to the way I phrased and constructed my sentence in English, that is a mistake, or was a mistake.

MR RICHARD: So you then say that this paragraph gives the wrong impression, it's not correct.

MR DUBE: You mean when I say what?

MR RICHARD: When you say you left the deceased and then rushed off somewhere else to the three members, to the three cell members.  You say that this is incorrect?  You stayed with the deceased.

MR DUBE: What appears here, you mean what appears here?

MR RICHARD: Yes.

MR DUBE: As I said, this is a mistake.  What I wrote here is a mistake.

MR RICHARD: Now, you then proceed in the same paragraph to say
"...I found them also having suspicions about Sicelo Dhlomo."
What were those suspicions that they had, not you had?

MR DUBE: First of all Sicelo had disappeared from us.  We did not know his whereabouts or where he was.  Now that brought a series of questions to us.  We did not know the position.

MR RICHARD: Now, I've established that you knew very, very little about Mr Dhlomo, and you certainly knew nothing about his activities, so when I say to you he was readily available and easily findable in Johannesburg, do you have any comment?

MR DUBE: I will not dispute that, because I have no knowledge regarding that.

DR TSOTSI: Just one question I want to put to you.  Is it possible that at the time that you missed Sicelo, he was in prison?

MR DUBE: I don't know.

DR TSOTSI: But is that possible?

MR DUBE: It could have been possible.

MR RICHARD: Now, when you say you missed him, what was the period of that year that you found him not available?

MR DUBE: As I said earlier on, that after his arrest in October, subsequently he disappeared.  He disappeared until around January when he presented himself back to us.

MR RICHARD: Because, for the benefit of the Committee, I can say he was not in detention in October, November, for any lengthy period.  But the period of long detention was earlier in the year, when it appears that was June to November.  During that period there was a three month period of detention, in 86.

CHAIRPERSON: Is the position now ...(intervention)

INTERPRETER: Please activate your microphone.

CHAIRPERSON: Is the position now that he had had no dealings with you, Sicelo Dhlomo had had no dealings with you for three months, you or any other member of this group?

MR DUBE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: If he had wanted to give information to the police he could only have given information that was three months old.

MR DUBE: That I don't know.

CHAIRPERSON: If he had given information to the police they had had three months to act on it.

MR DUBE: Yes, that is true.

CHAIRPERSON: And yet you now, when you suddenly saw him after this gap of three months, decided you must kill him immediately.  Why?

MR DUBE: As I explained earlier on that during this three months of his absence, we've been looking all over for him.  We did not know as to where he was, and the condition he appeared in was questionable.  He also had a transmitter in his possession.  Those are things that led us to suspect and suddenly got me to decide that he must be killed.

CHAIRPERSON: If you suspected why didn't you suddenly decide that you would have nothing further to do with this man, and that you would warn all other members about him, before he could learn anything that might cause you any harm?

MR DUBE: Here I will address the fact that I was the one present, and a commander as well of the comrades that is, and this thing happened in front of me, in my presence, in my hands as well.  It would have been quite difficult for me to give up on him and let go of him like that, because this includes many other things.

ADV SANDI: Just to follow up something on this.  You had mentioned Mr Dube, that you saw Sicelo at Diepkloof.  When was that?  Was that during the three months period he had disappeared?

MR DUBE: No, that happened prior to that, as I explained.

ADV SANDI: Was that before he was detained and released?

MR DUBE: This happened before the October incident of his detention, as I explained this morning.

ADV SANDI: You went on to say he was hiding himself.  What did he do, how did you go about hiding himself when you saw him there at Diepkloof?

MR DUBE: When you appear as a person and he would realise that I have already seen him and he will disappear and hide, go into hiding.

ADV SANDI: Did you call him to, did you say to him he should come and talk to you?

MR DUBE: There's been a time where I approached behind him, but I never even once called him.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you never ask him to explain?

MR DUBE: I once asked him.

ADV SANDI: What did he say he was doing there?

MR DUBE: The answer he gave me was he had gone there to see a certain friend of his.

ADV SANDI: You seem to be quite suspicious about the circumstances in which you had met him.  What kind of place was this Diepkloof?  What is happening there?  Who else was there?  What time of the day was it?  Why were you suspicious about seeing him there?