Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-05-15

MS THABETHA: I don't know because I didn't assist Mr Motsamai in filling in this form, but I was given this form on our last hearing at (indistinct) to consider what the evidence that is on the form, for purposes of amnesty applications.  So I wouldn't know the answer to that question unfortunately.

ADV DE JAGER: Could your client kindly try and assist us?  I don't know whether you are in possession of this form.  Would you kindly assist us as to how did your client, who requested him to complete this form and how did it come that he completed this form?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chair, I will do that, but at the same time, I think I have the difficulty that at the end of the day we must consider whether we are going to now perhaps condone the irregularity in the filing of the application and whether or not we are going to allow, if we deem it to be the correct procedure, to amend these things.  It does not seem to ... (intervention).

ADV DE JAGER: You are correct, we will decide that at the end of the day, but could you kindly give this information to me so that I could consider whether this should also be included in the amnesty form or not, if we allow it at the end of the day.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chair, the applicant ... (intervention).

JUDGE WILSON: (Indistinct - microphone not switched on).

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not on.

JUDGE WILSON: (Indistinct).

UNKNOWN: As the Chair pleases.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

JUDGE WILSON: Right.  Are you able to tell us how your client, who got your client to fill in that form?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairperson, my learned friends are not here and they are asking for amnesty in default.

JUDGE WILSON: I don't understand you.  Amnesty is not granted in default.  The applicant has to make out a case for amnesty.

UNKNOWN: As the Chair pleases.

JUDGE WILSON: I took it that they were not here because they had abandoned it and they had left no papers here?

MR WAGENAAR: We do apologise, Mr Chairman.

JUDGE WILSON: Are you appearing in this matter?

MR WAGENAAR: In the Motsamai matter?

JUDGE WILSON: Yes.

MR WAGENAAR: Yes, Mr Chairman.

JUDGE WILSON: None of your clients at the moment have been mentioned - yes, they have, two of them have been.  All right, can you inform us how it came about that your client made this first statement, the declaration and the brief description of the violation of human rights.

UNKNOWN: My instructions are that he approached an official of the TRC and informed the official that he was - he intends making an application for amnesty, and he was given the forms to complete. The name of the person is unknown to the applicant.

JUDGE WILSON: Your client does realise the importance of telling the truth, doesn't he?

UNKNOWN: He does, I suppose, M'Lord.

JUDGE WILSON: Perhaps I should read the beginning of paragraph 2 that he wrote out.  You say now he approached somebody at the TRC and said he wanted to apply for amnesty.

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: Paragraph 2 says
"I knew the applicant, Nelson Ngo, from school time."
That is not an application from him for amnesty.  That is informing somebody what he knew about another applicant. Is it not?

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: So the version you have just given us of your client is not true.

UNKNOWN: No.  No, M'Lord.

JUDGE WILSON: If he was applying for amnesty, why on earth should he say "I knew the applicant, Nelson Ngo"?

UNKNOWN: At the time he was aware that Ngo had made application, an application for amnesty and Ngo had implicated him and the official responsible was aware of this fact and apparently ...

JUDGE WILSON: Who told him that?  That Ngo had applied for amnesty and had implicated him?

UNKNOWN: He was served with notice, I am told, M'Lord.

JUDGE WILSON: And then as an interested party he went to make a statement?

UNKNOWN: He was applying for amnesty.

JUDGE WILSON: He had already applied for amnesty and had filled in a form, which he had attested two weeks before, on the 11th of March he had sworn to the correctness of his form and then handed it in to the TRC.  He could not have believed that this other form that he filled in was an application for amnesty, when he had seen the correct form two weeks earlier, less than two weeks, 11 days earlier.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chair, my instructions are that he applied for amnesty.  At the same time he was called upon to attend a consultation at Pretoria as an objector to Ngo's application.  At some stage it was discovered by the legal representatives of the police that he had in fact had applied for amnesty and they then disassociated themselves with him and they left him in the hands of the TRC.  The TRC then took the statement from him.

JUDGE WILSON: Yes.

UNKNOWN: He was invited then to make a statement again.  So at that stage he made a statement with the understanding that he was assisting in his application for amnesty.

JUDGE WILSON: But did the application ...

UNKNOWN: And the prelude to the - the reference to Ngo was in response to questions put to him, about whether he knew Ngo and so on.

JUDGE WILSON: That is obvious, I said that (indistinct - microphone not switched on) and what Ngo had said he did.  He was asked to make a statement about Ngo.  It is quite clear.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chair ...

JUDGE WILSON: And as you have just said he was asked by the TRC to make a statement, which he did.

UNKNOWN: Yes, Mr Chair, but now I don't understand how you - why you would come to the conclusion that he was not applying for amnesty, because it then says things that are not related to Ngo at all.

JUDGE WILSON: Because he had filled in an application, an amnesty application form.  He is an intelligent man.  He had filled in a form. He knew what they looked like.  He knew what was contained in them. He had sworn to that form 11 days before. He could not have believed that this was the same form.  Could he?  He knew what the form looked like.

UNKNOWN: Now Mr Chairperson, he was applying for amnesty. If a person is applying for any other purpose, he doesn't say - he doesn't say that I know of violations of human rights by other people.

JUDGE WILSON: He is, he is being asked, if you look at the whole form he is being asked - he starts, the first declaration he makes, is - read it
"I solemnly declare that the information I am about to give the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to the best of my knowledge true and correct.
			If you are called to a public hearing, will you be prepared to appear."
And he puts a ring round "yes".  No mention of amnesty there.  He then fills in details of his own. He says he is going to tell the Commission about - he is not going to tell the Commission about what happened to him.  He is going to tell the Commission about what happened to someone else, if you look at the bottom of the page, where he circled "no" and "yes".  And then he makes a statement.

UNKNOWN: Now Mr Chair, I am tempted to say that if you look, you have to determine whether this document was intended most probably for application for amnesty or was intended for anything else by the applicant, and I believe that we will find that intention by looking at the contents of his statement, which is headed "brief description of the violation of human rights". Now on that statement he describes not human rights violations that were committed by other people, but he describes human rights violations that were committed by himself.  In a sense he is confessing to having committed human right violations and we have to ask ourselves why and we know that he has previously entered an application for amnesty.  We know now, as I have told you, that the legal representatives of the police disassociated themselves with him, because he had applied for amnesty, and handed him - made him available to TRC officials, and the statement was made immediately thereafter or within that context.