Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1998-01-29

ADV MEMANI: I should then qualify it that they did not know him at all, except until Ngo introduced them to him. They wanted to pretend as if Ngo - Venter was not their friend but a friend of Ngo's, and my submission is he was their informer as Ngo has told us.
	 Mr Chairman, there is corroboration which arose during the evidence of Mr Erasmus. Ngo seemingly did not know where Mr Venter worked but he knew that he was working with the Railways Unions, Railways and the Unions. And Mr Erasmus confirmed that Mr Venter was working with the Railways. 
	As far as why Ngo would have been the person chosen by the police to kill Mr Venter, is concerned, my submission is that Ngo was the most suitable person to do the job. Ngo was known to Venter. Venter trusted Ngo, Venter would have given Ngo access to his house at any stage and would not have been surprised by his arrival.
	Mr Chairman, again, in an attempt to deny that the police had anything to do with Mr Ngo, it was put to Mr Ngo that he was suspended at the time when the incident occurred.
	We waited and waited and waited and nobody came to tell us that Mr Ngo was suspended. He raised the issue under cross-examination and he said, 'Who said I was suspended? I was paid until I was convicted. I was never called before any inquiry where I was told that I was ...[intervention]

MRADV DE JAGER: I think Mr Venter's sister in her letter said she attended the trial and it was clear that he was suspended at that stage because he had been involved in other criminal incidents.

MR VISSER: Page 56 of bundle B, Mr Chairman and page 72.

MRADV DE JAGER: I would like to know from Mr Memani what is the status of that letter?

ADV MEMANI: I am trying to look at page 72. Yes, this allegation that Mr Ngo was suspended was based on B72, not on the letter.
	Mr Chairman, it was clear in the evidence that Mr Ngo was denying that he was suspended at the time. It was then required of the objectors to come and say that, this is the evidence that we have that he was suspended. It was also clear that I did not accept these documents as proof of what they contain as indeed some of these documents have been shown not to be entirely correct.
	What I would say then is that we do not have any evidence before us that Mr Ngo was suspended. What you have is something which says 'Application for transfer' before you, We don't know who the author of that was and where it came from. My understanding is that if a witness disputes something which is contained in a document, then you have to call the author of that document and you have got to call others who might support that evidence, Mr Chairman.
	The letter, I think it is Mrs Gadiski or whatever, the letter was also not accepted by me. I objected to his sending it in and a member of the Committee reminded me that all that can be said is that a letter had been sent in, and if the person is not called to testify, the matter ends there. As matters stand, we do not even know that the letter was in fact written by Mr Venter's sister. All we know is that we've got which is alleged to have been written by Mr Venter's sister.
	Mr Chairman, this must be then weighed against the evidence of Mr Ngo who is adamant that he was not under suspension. In fact, there is something odd about the claim that Mr Ngo was suspended at the time because the very objectors sent a Mr Kojo to come and tell us that, 'no, I worked with Mr Ngo until he left'. That Mr Kojo would not say that Mr Ngo was suspended at that time. And that Mr Kojo, it turned out, had last seen Mr Ngo around July, on his evidence. In his evidence he had said that Mr Ngo had deserted him and it turned out that he could not then explain how he could say that he was with him at all times and how, if Mr Ngo had deserted him on the 21st July 1988, that on 22nd July 1988 he was already working with Ramala.
	In my view, Mr Chairman, that totality of evidence shows a conspiracy to deny that Ngo was a member of the Security Branch and was working with the Security Branch, and was instructed by members of the Security Branch to come and kill Mr Venter.

CHAIRPERSON: How was he instructed to go and kill Mr Venter? To go there on his own with the SA Mutual form, or was it Old Mutual form?

ADV MEMANI: Yes, Mr Chairman, although it is not on his own as such, it is a quite involved operation. I think two policemen, I think Tsoametsi and Ramosoeu, if I am not mistaken, took him there.

CHAIRPERSON: But he was to go in by himself, on his own?

ADV MEMANI: Yes, because he is known to Mr Venter and he is capable of shooting him alone.
	Mr Chairman, it also seems probable that Mr Ngo would have come in handy for the purpose of killing Mr Venter. Besides the fact that he would have easy access to Mr Venter, he was at the time based in Pretoria and those involved would have been in a position to deny any involvement and probably, if things had not gone wrong, Mr Ngo would have had some reasonable safety from prosecution.

MRADV DE JAGER: It is recorded that he had been in hospital and there were operations on him; 'since August until December you've been in a hospital here in Bloemfontein, being involved in a car accident'. The papers would show that in fact he was in Bloemfontein.