Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR PRETORIUS: Mr Moolman testified that he heard Mr (indistinct) firing on automatic at the corner.  Now you and Mr Moolman was standing practically next to each other or in each other's immediate vicinity.  Is that not so?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: Can you offer an explanation why Mr Moolman could hear it and you not?

NEO POTSANE: I really wouldn't know what explanation to give to this committee why Moolman, because Moolman says he heard them and I did not hear them but to say that - to comment on that I wouldn't really know what to say to this committee.

JUDGE NGCOBO: All you heard is just gunshots?

NEO POTSANE: That's correct sir.

MR PRETORIUS: When you thereafter stood up and you fired a shot at the marchers, did you see any firearms amongst the marchers?

NEO POTSANE: No.

MR PRETORIUS: And you still maintain today that what you saw were marchers charging forward in an attacking mode towards Plein Street.  Is that correct?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: During the inquest you were confronted with the fact that the people, that the four people in particular that died at the corner of King George and De Villiers Street were from shotgun wounds, were all shot in the back.  Can you recall that?

NEO POTSANE: Yes.

MR PRETORIUS: Can you then recall that your reply thereto was or your conclusion thereto was that then your shot must have missed.  Is that correct?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: Is that still your conclusion today?

NEO POTSANE: Yes.

MR PRETORIUS: Originally a draft supplementary Affidavit, that is one that you didn't sign, was handed over to us by your legal advisers.  That particular draft Affidavit had a certain paragraph 7 in it in which it was stated that you were advised that you may have shot without justification.  Are you aware of that fact?

NEO POTSANE: Yes I am.

MR PRETORIUS: At a later stage the signed Affidavit was handed to us and in the signed Affidavit that particular paragraph then was deleted.  Are you also aware of that?

NEO POTSANE: Yes I'm aware of that.

MR PRETORIUS: Am I therefore to conclude that your legal adviser advised you that you may have shot without justification but you didn't accept that, that is why that paragraph was deleted?

NEO POTSANE: No that is not correct.

MR PRETORIUS: What is the correct position then Mr Potsane?

NEO POTSANE: The correct position is at the time of the inquest I had already applied for amnesty regarding this incident and it was not a matter of which my legal adviser told me later on after the inquest or it was already like, I've already applied.  When I was aksed at the inquest whether I've already applied for amnesty I replied in the affirmative.

MR PRETORIUS: Mr Potsane I think we may misunderstand each other.  I'm referring to the supplementary Affidavit, that is the one that was handed to us yesterday by your legal advisers.  Do you understand now to which Affidavit I am referring?

NEO POTSANE: Yes I do.

MR PRETORIUS: Now originally there was a draft which was supplied to us with a paragraph in in which it was stated that you were advised that you may have shot without justification.  You said you were aware of that draft.  Is that correct?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: Now the signed one which we received yesterday has not got that paragraph in and you also said that you're aware of that.  Is that also correct?

NEO POTSANE: Yes that is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: We're referring now to the supplementary Affidavit and there's no misunderstanding so the question I pose to you therefor is this, am I therefore to conclude that your legal advisers advised you, as was set out in the original draft Affidavit, paragraph 7, but because you didn't accept that advise, that paragraph 7 was deleted and that is not contained in the Affidavit that you signed.  Is that conclusion I must come to?

NEO POTSANE: My conclusion about that is that after consulting with my legal adviser I then asked my legal adviser whether it was relevant to put that section on that supplementary Affidavit because that was already common knowledge that I'd already applied for amnesty and to apply for amnesty does not - when I actually said I'd applied for amnesty it meant that I could have omitted, made an ommission of an offence.

MR PRETORIUS: What is the position today.  Do you say you shot with justification or without justification?

NEO POTSANE: With justification.

MR PRETORIUS: Your evidence also is to the effect that you fired only one shot and that was at charging marchers.  Is that correct?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

MR PRETORIUS: If your evidence therefore is correct, it means that you could not have exceeded the bounds of self defense, on your evidence because you are firing one shot at charging marchers.  Do you agree with that?

CHAIRPERSON: Legal argument isn't it?

MR PRETORIUS: It also relates to the facts as was stated to him Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well he says that as far as he was concerned he fired at the charging marchers.

MR PRETORIUS: Yes and it was put to him Mr Honourable Chairman that if that is correct then he could not have exceeded the bounds of self defense.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that your understanding in your mind, that you didn't exceed the bounds of self defense?

NEO POTSANE: Well I think that I can explain that if the committee may give me a chance?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes please do.

NEO POTSANE: Whilst I believe and still maintain that I was justified to shoot and I shot at the charging crowd, and I still maintain that, but in that confusion of that day and more importantly, that there is ballistic evidence which came to my knowledge later that all - I mean not, no I'm sorry, that is the medical examination of the post mortem of the board, that all people who died they were shot from the back, of which I remember that I still maintain that I shot at the charging crowd but in a situation where there's pandemonium and you look at the situation where people are charging at you may not - it's difficult to say like maybe of two people or among ten people, let's say twenty people are charging and about two or four people have turned back you know, you will not be aware of that so in that respect I would say no, that could have been the situation that some people might have turned back towards - I mean facing De Villiers and I still do maintain that the people whom I shot at were charging forward.

JUDGE NGCOBO: Do you have an idea roughly how many, approximately how many people were in that march, how big the group was?

NEO POTSANE: It could have been a group of fifty to one hundred you know.

JUDGE NGCOBO: Where were you positioned in relation to this group.  Where you positioned in the front or in the middle of this group of the marchers when you shot at them?

NEO POTSANE: To answer that question Mr Chair, I think I said earlier on that, and I want to repeat even today that when this group was surging forward I did not claim to see the first group or the front of the group.  I did indicate that some of that part of that group might have already went under the balcon because this part is a kind of a balcom where you cannot see underneath and that I cannot say you know whether it was the first group.

JUDGE NGCOBO: But your fire was directed at the group that was - into the group, is that right?

NEO POTSANE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, do carry on.

MR LAX: Can I just clarify something.  I'm a bit puzzled by your earlier answer, you said - the question was how big was this group of marchers, you said fifty to one hundred people.  We've heard other figures of up to fifteen hundred people.  Do you mean just the people that you could see at that moment or do you mean the whole group?  I just want you to clarify that for us, I'm just a bit puzzled.

NEO POTSANE: I'm referring to the people I saw at that particular moment when I was firing the shot.