Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-26

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, just one point Mr Wills, while you are talking about it.  Was there any particular reason for the remains to be taken to Stanger, why I ask is, you had asked Dr Aiyer to go and attend the exhumation and it was to everybody's mind and intent, that the body would go to Pinetown for examination?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Why then to Stanger first?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Unfortunately the doctors, medical people, don't have the logistic ability to transport corpses, we had to rely upon the police, and since this is the Stanger area, Stanger mortuary area, it is the Stanger mortuary, police, that would do the transportation.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Wills?

MR WILLS: Yes, and I just want you to refer to the exhumation report, that is 82 of Bundle 2.

CHAIRPERSON: What page?

MR WILLS: Page 82(a), Mr Chairman, and in fact from page 82 and in fact, I will start from 82(a) where it is clear that Charlottedale cemetery is in Groutville, and I am referring to the site?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, that is correct.

MR WILLS: And also if Ms Miller's memo is correct in the fourth paragraph, she refers in I think the fourth sentence
"... the deceased was buried at Charlotte cemetery in Groutville."
	So that would support your contention that Groutville reflected the geographic area from which the body was exhumed?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, exhumed, yes.

MR WILLS: Yes.  Now, just also, I refer again back to your report, where you again on page 25, you refer when you describe the dress, you refer to it as being a nylon dress, in the first line of the second paragraph.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR WILLS: Was that an assumption or are you pretty certain that it was nylon?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, it is an assumption.  It was nylon like, you know, not being a fabric expert, but it is an assumption.

MR WILLS: Yes, and obviously that assumption would also be based on the fact of your knowledge that a natural fabric being subject to the elements for a long periods of time, would disintegrate more quickly than a synthetic fabric?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Very true, yes.

MR WILLS: Looking at the injuries, you indicate that you are of the view that the only injury, well, you say that you cannot be sure that the injuries that you noted to the skeletal remains weren't anti-mortem, but you thought that in the circumstances, they were post-mortem injuries?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.  There is very little, one cannot really confidently make a finding there.

MR WILLS: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: It is an impression one gets and, by looking at these remains, and using the experience that you have to make the finding, that these are likely post-mortem.  I don't want to get too technical about why I thought so, because it might just confuse the matter.

MR WILLS: Yes.  But as I understood your evidence, I am not wanting you necessarily to get technical, but as I understood your evidence, and I think you said so in as many words, that you couldn't definitely, positively, exclude the fact that some of those injuries might have occurred anti-mortem?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, no you cannot exclude that.

MR WILLS: So if we have a situation here where I think it is common cause that the woman was assaulted with a sjambok and it is possibly not common cause, the intensity of that assault, you cannot definitely exclude the fact that some of those injuries arose from that assault?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.  One cannot make an exclusion, except that it would be a little unusual to find an injury to the pelvis like that, in a common assault.  The ribs and the forearms, the rib fractures that Dr Aiyer commented on and I found, could be due to assault, but the forearm could also be, it is not an exclusion, but because of the defects on the arm, on the sleeve, I thought it was likely to be predation.

MR WILLS: Yes.  But just, for argument sake, if someone's arms were not bound and as seems to be one version of this assault, somebody was putting up her arms to ward off blows by people who were whipping her with an object which has been described as a sjambok, you cannot exclude that that right arm might have been injured in that way?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, except that a sjambok would not, probably not produce the kind of defects in the clothing, but I hear what you say.  You cannot exclude the injuries, you cannot in fact exclude fractures of the bones, forearms, for example in warding off the blunt blow.  But the defects in the clothing would, and as was ably demonstrated, all on the right side, we all accepted that, portrays that pictures of predation.
	But here again, I cannot exclude it.  There is one other possibility though, that if the right arm had wounds on it, and they were bleeding, the attract predation.  They attract predators to it.  Blood is an attractant, so that may also be a possibility.

MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Wills.  Mr Samuel, do you have any questions?

MR SAMUEL: No questions, thank you Mr Chairman.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR SAMUEL

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Ms Thabethe, do you have any re-examination?

MS THABETHE: No re-examination Mr Chair.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax, any questions?

MR LAX: Thank you Chair, just one.  In instances of predation, one sometimes find marks compatible with that on the bones?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR LAX: Did you see anything like that?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No.  Nothing at all.  Nothing that I could clearly say were predation.

MR LAX: Thank you Chair, I have no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Adv Bosman?

ADV BOSMAN: I have no questions, thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Was Dr Aiyer present at all during your examination of the bones?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Not that I can recall, independently recall, or recorded, but it is common practice that we all work together in one establishment.  Our work is done together, in fact, I may well have called the others to come and have a look at this case.
	There must have been four or five doctors working at one time in the mortuary.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  And that body bag, the blue one, the one that was used after the exhumation, is that still extant, does it still exist?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I don't, no, I don't think so.  I think that would be destroyed.

MR LAX: Just one last question Chair.  The plastic, what has been referred to as "the other bag", inside the blue bag, that the remains were in,  Dr Aiyer suggested that that might be the lining of a coffin rather than a body bag?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes?

MR LAX: He said that, he said that, his recollection was that it wasn't a body bag per se, but it was just what the remains were in?

CHAIRPERSON: Because he did say when he was at the exhumation, he, when the grave was dug, there appeared to be the remnants of a disintegrated coffin, chips and wood and stuff and he thought that that bag was actually the lining of a coffin, rather than a body bag as such?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That may well be.  I am inclined to agree with him.  Let me just look at my report,  I just called it a discoloured plastic, I am afraid I cannot say more into that, but I am inclined to agree with him.

MR LAX: If it was a body bag, you would have named it as such probably, or would you not have?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: If it was a body bag that required an opening for example, it had the pocket like we have on the edge, the slide in body bag, or the one that zips around the side and flops open to form a sheet, that I would in all likelihood have made a note of.

MR LAX: Yes.  And what kind of body bags, if you can remember, were you using in 1987?