Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-26

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: Yes, that is what I thought.  If I was in a similar situation, I will not want to fight.
	Whoever has pointed the gun at you first, has a better chance of getting you.

MS THABETE: What did you want to get, what did you want to obtain from this pension pay out, was it the money, was it the arms, what exactly did you want to obtain?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: We wanted firearms.

MS THABETE: Somewhere in the judgement we are told that you also took an empty steel trunk.  Why did you do that if you only wanted firearms and not the money?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: Firearms are normally stored in trucks, in the steel trunks.

MS THABETE: Can I interfere there?

MR LAX: Sorry, just finish your answer.  You were saying firearms are normally stored in steel trunks.  What were you going to carry on saying?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: They are normally stored in this steel trunks, so this trunk, we just thought that there may be guns inside, because we did not open it at that time.  Therefore we took it.

MS THABETE: Mr Hlengwa, I find that very hard to believe.  You are a policeman.

MR LAX: Before you go on.  You saw the steel trunks, you thought there were guns in there, that is your evidence, isn't it?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: Yes.

MR LAX: What did they carry the money in?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: I heard at the trial that the money would normally be carried in a briefcase.

MR LAX: The money was in the trunks Mr Hlengwa.  You knew that, it was part of your planning.  You knew that the money would be in trunks.  You saw them carry the money in at the other places, not so?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: No, that is not so.  I saw them carrying it in a briefcase, not in a trunk.
	That was a big trunk.  I did not think that there will be money in that trunk.

MS THABETE: Mr Hlengwa, I was still saying that I find that very hard to believe because the main aim of the police going there, was to give out pension monies.  I don't understand why they would carry guns in a trunk.  What were they going to do with guns there?
	There were there to give out money to pensioners?  What were they going to do with guns there?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: As far as I can say, I think those guns would have belonged to other members of the Police Force, but as far as I knew, the money would have been in a briefcase, and the money would not have been left in the vehicle when the paying out of the monies happened inside the shop.
	If it was money that we were after, we would have taken the money, because even the people who were inside, who were issuing out this pension money, were no longer protected because they had either fled or some of them were dead.
	We had all the weapons with them.  If we were after the money, we could have gained entrance into the building, we only took that which we were after and left.

MR LAX: Let me just correct one thing, I made a mistake.  The money was in a suitcase, not a briefcase.  And the suitcase was in a big bag.  That is what they said at the trial.  Not a briefcase, we are talking about R200 000 - R300 000.
	Not in big money, but in small money, so it couldn't have been in a briefcase.  It was a lot of money, correct?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: I would agree, but I did not see the money.  What I had concentrated on, was what I was after.  Therefore I would not agree or disagree if they say it was a suitcase or a briefcase.

MS THABETE: Mr Hlengwa, remember this was the third pension pay out you had visited that day.  You saw the procedure in the first two ones, I assume.
	When you came to the third one, obviously it is a lot of money, and according to the indictment on page 338, the steel trunk had money, it is where the money was transported into.
	Wouldn't it be correct for me to say that you took that steel trunk because you thought that there was money in it, unfortunately it was empty?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: I will deny that because I knew that there was no money in that trunk.  I still maintain they would not leave the money outside when the issuing of pension funds was inside, happening inside the store.

MS THABETE: Be brief please.

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: They arrived first and we only arrived after they had set up, therefore we were not aware just exactly where the money was, because that was not what we were after.  But what I know is that they would not leave the money outside, if they were going to use that same money to pay the pensioners.

MS THABETE: Unfortunately, that wasn't the case because you see, they carried the money in the trunks, and this one was empty because they had finished dealing with the money that was in the trunk.  It is not true that it carried firearms, but let's proceed.

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: I was not aware of that.

MS THABETE: Tell me something, when you saw that there was a shootout, because one of the people in the queue also got shot, why didn't you retreat?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: In a shootout, it happens constantly, rapidly and there is no time to stop and think what happens.
	When this person was shot, I did not realise at the time that there was a person shot.  I realised it in court and I am not even sure who shot this person because this person, or the policeman who was using the sub-machine gun was firing at random.
	I also retreated, I moved along the wall, but I could not flee because I was with my colleagues, and I had to see it to the end.  I could not desert them and see how the mission was going.

MS THABETE: My question was here you were with your guns, here were the police with their guns, you started shooting first, they shot back, it was a shootout.
	What I was asking is, after you realised that there was a shootout, instead of shooting back again, why didn't you run away to avoid exactly the situation where innocent people would be caught up in the cross-fire?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: Let me just explain what happened.  I did not fire my gun.  I realised that there was an exchange of gunfire, because when the firing started, everybody was caught by surprise and it happened spontaneously and it all happened very quickly.
	There was nothing further that I could do, except to just move back and not fire.

MS THABETE: Okay, there were guns that you managed to take away, isn't it?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: Yes, we took them.

MS THABETE: What did you do with them thereafter?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: One was taken by Dlamini.  We left the other three at K Section.  The police found one of them.

MS THABETE: Where at Section K?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: At Mgululego's home where he used to reside.

MS THABETE: Whereabout did you leave them, did you leave them with someone, did you hide them somewhere?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: We left them with Mgululego and he was supposed to hide them.  These were the firearms that were going to assist in the fighting.
	People from K Section used to hide firearms in a certain field and they would remove these when they went to fight.  When we gave him these weapons, we knew that they would be safe, so that when we also needed them from our Section, we would be able to get them.
	Unfortunately we did not get them afterwards.

MS THABETE: When did you get arrested?

LUCKY JAMES HLENGWA: On the 29th of March 1990.

MS THABETE: And how did you get caught?