Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-03-30

GEORGE BIZOS: We will deal with that, and also for instance, the condition under which Mr Biko was in when he arrived in Pretoria.  That was the evidence of the prison officers was accepted at the inquest, we put to this person what it was, he said well, he was outside and he didn't see it.
	But we, for the purposes of arguing the probabilities, we will want to refer to what the Colonel's evidence was to Siebert, why did you bring me a person on death's door to put into my prison, so that I can possibly take the responsibility for him.
	Those are the sort of things that we would like to refer to in order to assess the probabilities.  Anything of course which has not been touched upon with the witness, we would be very careful to submit that and also of course, that he actually heard all the evidence which was given by his colleagues, we submit that this is a separated hearing - in so far as we can draw attention to contradictions of what his colleagues, between his evidence and his colleagues' at the other hearing, we will submit that that is admissible to be taken into account in relation to his credibility.
	We do not want to loose the advantage that he may gain by having separated the hearing.

CHAIRPERSON: Deal with that in your heads.

GEORGE BIZOS: We will deal with that, we will deal with that with chapter and verse in our heads in order to show whether there has in fact been full disclosure by all five applicants who are represented by the same parties, and who had made common cause in their applications where we will actually draw attention to the fact that much of what they had to say in their applications, was carbon copy material.

CHAIRPERSON: We will await those heads.  Will both counsel for both parties then pay attention to the following please.  With respect of the application that relates to Mr Jones, that quite apart from the question of credibility, what the position of the applicant would be in terms of his version, there is not victim because they've got mutually destructive versions.
	We need an argument on that, what we should do and what approach we should adopt.  That is quite apart from the credibility factor.
	Secondly, in respect of Mr Biko, this applicant says he assaulted Mr Biko with a piece of hosepipe, he doesn't think that it contributed to Mr Biko's death.  The question is was there a crime in that?  
	The third question, the applicant's version amounts in common terms to an accident, infliction of the wound led to his death.  Does that in fact comply with the political requirements of the Act?
	Fourthly, the omission relating to medical assistance or timeous medical assistance, in the applicant's own version he said he did not do so because he only followed orders.  (a) has a crime been committed, (b) if so, does it comply with the political requirements of the Act, (c) can the applicant rely on the political motivation with such omission and such omission and political motivation being that of another?
	If his superiors had political reasons for not affording Mr Biko medical assistance, would this applicant be able to rely on that political motivation?
	Mr Booyens, as Mr Bizos will deal with the value of the co-applicants' evidence in the other application, we would like you to deal with the value of that evidence as well.

ADV BOOYENS: Yes, Mr Chairman I would also like to point out that we obviously reserve our rights as far as evidence that were given in different hearings, and if I talk about different hearings, I am talking about the inquest.
	What value you can attach to that.

CHAIRPERSON: That is precisely why I asked you to deal with that.  That seems to bring this matter to an end.

ADV BOOYENS: May we see you perhaps in Chambers to discuss when we should file the heads Mr Chairman.