Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — UNKNOWN

MR COOK: So they didn't actually take your clothes off, I'm speaking of physically undressing you?

MR PEDRO: I physically undressed myself.

MR COOK: And on the same page 246, line 20 I read
"After the policemen moved in and out Benzien undressed me"
That contradicts your evidence now?

MR PEDRO: Now let me put it this way, what I told here of what happened in that room is the following.  I arrived there, I sat there and when they started questioning me, in fact I was standing, he asked me to stand up straight and he was actually quite rough with me and he asked me to take my clothes off and I wanted to ask him why and then he started taking off my jacket and he started handling me very roughly and then I took my clothes off.

MR COOK: Is it correct that you pointed out the members of the cell, the other members?

MR PEDRO: Yes.

MR COOK: And the other members are of course extremely unhappy about that fact, isn't that so?  They see you as a traitor?

MR PEDRO: No.

MR COOK: Not?

MR PEDRO: No.

MR DONAN: May I repeat my objection, this has nothing to do with the torture at all, this is a blatant attempt to make the witness look bad and make it more difficult for other people to come ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: What is the purpose of this questioning Mr Cook?  Is it to prove that he's an untruthful witness or what is the purpose?

MR COOK: Yes I am trying to discredit the witness.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you trying to discredit the witness, are you going to say that he wasn't tortured by Mr Benzien?

MR COOK: No, what I am going to say is that Mr Benzien denied that certain things were done to this man.

CHAIRPERSON: Put that to him.

MR COOK: I am getting to that.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes put that to him, because to get various points of contradiction between his evidence today and a statement he made some time ago on side issues can't take this inquiry very much further.

MR COOK: Who actually hit you?

MR PEDRO: Benzien.

MR COOK: How did he hit you?

MR PEDRO: Using his fist.

MR COOK: Where?

MR PEDRO: On my body.  He also hit me in the face.

MR COOK: Using his fist?

MR PEDRO: He slapped me in my face.

MR COOK: Were there any marks?

MR PEDRO: No.

MR COOK: No marks?

MR PEDRO: No.

MR COOK: You were later examined by the District Surgeon and high-ranking officers?

MR PEDRO: Correct.

MR COOK: And there were no marks which you could point out?

MR PEDRO: No there were no marks.

MR COOK: In your trial subsequently did these assaults actually come to the fore?

MR PEDRO: Are you talking about when I was on trial?

MR COOK: Yes.

MR PEDRO: Yes.

MR COOK: And what was the finding made by the Judge regarding those assaults?

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Cook may I put this to you.  It is common cause that those assaults were actually covered up, they were denied, now if the Judge had two versions of evidence and we have an admission by people that they assaulted people but we denied it and we misled the Judge, what is the relevance then of asking what the outcome or the finding of the Judge was?  The outcome could have been that he spoke the truth and he wasn't believed.

MR COOK: Once again I am testing his credibility based on proved facts.

JUDGE WILSON: Proved fact that the State witnesses committed perjury, are those the proved facts you are relying on to discredit him, because as I understand it that is what we have just heard, that policemen lied about assaults they had committed during interrogation and it appeared the Judge may have believed the policemen.  He may have been deceived by the policemen.  How can that affect the present credibility test?

MR COOK: It may well be but that doesn't mean that this witness spoke the truth then, he could also have been lying.

JUDGE WILSON: But does it prove anything except waste our time to go on when it is admitted that the applicant, the custom of the police force was to lie when they had assaulted persons, to commit perjury during the trials, we have heard that evidence from the witness you have just called haven't we?

CHAIRPERSON: Well you have heard that from Mr Benzien himself who admitted that in court he denied having tortured people, we have had that on the evidence as it is.

MR COOK: That is so, I don't have a problem with that Judge, my problem is, it does not mean that if my client did not speak the truth then that this witness must just be believed.  My client is denying everything which this witness says was done to him.  In cross-examination you will know that he denied that he pushed a stick into his anus, so the mere fact that this witness says that it actually happened, and the fact that my client lied in those days during the assault, that does not lead us to the inescapable conclusion that this witness must now be believed.  They could also perhaps have been economical with the truth.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Cook is your client asking for amnesty for this Niclo Pedro assault?

MR COOK: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: But he's not asking for amnesty for the assault as told to us by this witness?

MR COOK: That will emerge later during the argument stage.
	Mr Pedro you say that he put on surgical gloves and he inserted his hands into your anus?

MR PEDRO: Correct.

MR COOK: And he also took the broomstick and also inserted that into your anus?

MR PEDRO: Correct.

MR COOK: Once again I am going to read to you from page 248 of the record, right at the bottom, Mr Donan never mentioned these surgical gloves, he only mentioned a stick and today you come and mention these surgical gloves.

CHAIRPERSON: That might be a matter of detail that might have escaped parties.

MR COOK: Yes but I would like to put it to the witness because that is a contradiction between my client and this witness.  You said that whilst you were pointing out your colleagues' homes your head was covered, is that correct, Mr Pedro?

MR PEDRO: I was wearing a green jacket, thick jacket, and it had a hood.

MR COOK: Do you know why your head was covered?

MR PEDRO: I assume that he didn't want  people to see me.

MR COOK: Exactly.  I am once again putting it to you that my client denies that he used surgical gloves.  He secondly denies that he inserted the stick into your anus.  He says that the stick which he used was the stick he used to actually poke into the excrement afterwards, and he testified to that.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR COOK

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Brink are there any questions you wish to put to this witness?
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BRINK

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Donan any re-examination?

MR DONAN: Yes thank you if I may please Judge.

MR DONAN: There has been a suggestion by my learned friend of a recent fabrication, a contradiction between what I put and what Mr Pedro has deposed to today.  May I in the traditional way hand in a privileged document, Mr Pedro will waive the privilege, the instructions which he gave me at the time of the trial, with my handwriting on, my handwritten notes, and I'd like to ask Mr Pedro to identify this document.  I unfortunately don't have any copies of it.

MR COOK: I am objecting to this,  I am objecting to this normal rules of evidence which is applicable is actually the rule against self-corroboration which is applicable here.  I don't know to what extent the law of evidence applies here, but in my view it's impermissible.

CHAIRPERSON: What is the purpose of handing it in?

MR DONAN: I know this is not a trial, Judge, but as I understand the law of evidence when a recent fabrication is suggested the answer to that, the proper answer is to put in a document which precedes the recent fabrication and deals with that.  One can't put in, I am not putting in a document to prove the consistency of what my client is saying, I am putting it in to rebut the recent fabrication which has been suggested by my learned friend, the contradiction between what I put to Mr Pedro on the previous occasion, which I read from this document, and what he has said today.