Amnesty Hearings — Aliwal North — 1998-04-20

MR PRIOR: Scorpion gave chase, shot one, the other one disappeared.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the one who got shot was Schroeder.

MR PRIOR: So, the white man hiking, sorry I was under the impression that the white man hiking was, was ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Schroeder.

MR LAX: It could be the third, it could also be someone else, we don't actually know what happened to that person, sorry.  What I'm trying to say in order to clarify this is it doesn't help to take it any further.  He doesn't know who this person is,  the applicant doesn't know this.  He assumed it might be that person that ran away, but it could just as easily have been anyone else hiking on the road.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes, that's it.

MR PRIOR: I, I understand now, and I accept that, I don't pursue the matter.

CHAIRPERSON: It seems to me extremely improbable, but if it was another passenger in the bakkie who was hiking along and had escaped, that he didn't go to the Police and make a full report to them.

MR PRIOR: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman.  I just need you to describe in a little more detail how you shot Mr Schroeder, and I think we must accept that it is Mr Schroeder that you shot in the back of the head.  Could you maybe just describe to the Committee what, what happened there?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: As I was approaching him, I find him to be, he was lying there on the road and I think his head was in my direction and when I come to him and he was motionless, and I took the rifle with using my right hand side and I shoot him on the head.

MR PRIOR: You see, why I ask you that, Mr Dolo, is that at page 31, it's not a very clear copy,  it's the post mortem report on Mr Schroeder, and in (v) the pathologist recorded that death had occurred, sorry, that the cause of death was, "where the wounds passing from the neck into brain", that looks like causing,

MR LAX: "Causing severe brain damage"

MR PRIOR: "Caused death."  Understand what I'm putting to you?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes, I understand.

MR PRIOR: So all the other injuries were there on the body, the shot wherever he, we know he was shot elsewhere, but it seems that the cause of death must have been your gunshot as you say, on the back of the neck here, in the head, which penetrated his brain.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: That may be so.

MR PRIOR: Do you accept that?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I don't have any problem with that.

MR PRIOR: That, that it wasn't a question of him being dead already, or you not being sure.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I just thought it that to finish ...(intervention)

MR PRIOR: Finish him off?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Prior, there are two wounds here that you can see.  One goes straight through the neck, he's not sure, but he says, if you look at page 35, he says "wound through the neck" and he points to the one that goes through the neck.

MR PRIOR: Yes.

MR LAX: There's another one that passes through into the back and he points to this one that goes into the brain.  You see that?

MR PRIOR: Yes, I see that.

MR LAX: Different injury.

MR PRIOR: Yes.

MR LAX: So there were probably a number of injuries.

MR PRIOR: Okay.  Is there any reason why you did not go down to the vehicle that had left the road?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I finded that there is no need.

MR PRIOR: But from you vantage point you said you could see that the driver was dead.  That you say in your affidavit.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I presume.

MR PRIOR: No, you said in paragraph 10 "when we arrived at the bridge, we found the driver of the taxi and a white woman dead".

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I'm not a doctor.  I just presumed that they were dead.

MR PRIOR: But you were close enough to see the driver, who the driver was.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Not so enough.

MR PRIOR: Did you see that he was a black person?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes.

MR PRIOR: And?  Was that also part of the plan?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: As I stated it that it was not part of the plan.

MR PRIOR: Was it just his bad luck that he was there on that day?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: It was his bad luck day.

MR PRIOR: And it would seem on your version and what we know that this gentleman Mr James Tsemane risked his life as he, well then, gave his life, to assist people who you were attacking?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: So what is your question?

MR PRIOR: Was that not the reason why you killed him, is because he was assisting your target?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: The time he was making the U-turn I was in the position not to notice that he was a black person or what.

MR PRIOR: You said it in your affidavit it was a taxi.  How could you have made that mistake.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I, a taxi in this case, I didn't mean to the kombi.

MR PRIOR: What did you mean?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I mean a car, just a ordinary car.

ADV SANDI: Why do you call it a taxi then?

MR PRIOR: And not a bakkie?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I take it maybe he was using it as a, as a taxi as he helped those people.

ADV SANDI: What was your attitude to him trying to help the people you had shot

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Which one?

ADV SANDI: The black man Mr Prior has referred to.

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: The time of the shooting I was not in the position to see him.  I was not in a position to see him, that I was shooting at one of the occupants was a black person.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't care whether you say him or not, what was your attitude towards the driver of this vehicle who was picking up the people you were attacking?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: After I saw that it was a African person, then I feel pity for him.

ADV SANDI: Did you, did you wish anyone to try and help these people you had shot?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: It was not in my mind at that stage.  I was not think about that, that someone come and help them.  I didn't have any thoughts about that, whether I wish or I don't wish.

ADV SANDI: Yes, but if one puts it to you that he was shot because he was assisting these people, would you dispute that?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I would say I was shooting at the car to kill the white people who were inside the car. That there was also an African person that was come later to my knowledge.

MR LAX: So in essence you were making sure these people you attacked did not get away?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes.

MR LAX: And if someone appears to be picking them up you were going to stop them no matter what?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I was trying to kill the white occupants who was inside the car.

MR LAX: Yes, but whether it was a blue, black, brown or yellow person in that car would have made no difference to you?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: You mean the driver of the car?

MR LAX: Yes, would you have held your fire if you knew that was a black person?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I think so.

MR LAX: And you would let the whites get away?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I would have change, maybe we would try, as I was shooting at the car I concentrated on the tyres of the car.  But it happened then that I, the driver of the car was get hurt.

MR PRIOR: Well you used a lethal weapon, a high powered rifle, a military rifle, an R4 that shoots a high explosive bullet at a vehicle that was very close to you?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: It was not very close.

MR PRIOR: Well estimate for us.  When you were shooting at Mr Tsemane leaving, who had just picked up Mrs Brummer and they had done a U-turn.  How far was that vehicle from you?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I'll take it to be +- 100 m, meters.

MR PRIOR: Isn't the truth of it, Mr Dolo, that you just didn't worry who you killed on that day?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: That is not the truth.

MR PRIOR: And you saw this white woman who was now getting away from you, and that was you actually shot at the vehicle to stop her getting away?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: I learn about that it was a white woman when I saw, I was passing her to the bridge that one of the occupants was a white woman.

MR PRIOR: And you were intent on killing her?

PHILA MARTIN DOLO: Yes.