Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1996-04-15

CHAIRPERSON: We invite Mr Karl Webber to take the stand please.  Please do be seated.  We would like to welcome you very warmly to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Do you wish to take the oath or to make affirmation?

KARL WEBBER: (sworn states).

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Webber, five years ago will stand for ever in your memory, not only in your  mind and in your spirit, but also on your body. It was a very tough and difficult time for you and many others.  We are grateful that you have come to us because we still don't know who did this to you and why, and we're hoping that your presence here and the evidence that you lead will be of some assistance to you. Mr Ntsiki Sandi will lead the evidence and I'll ask him now to take over, thank you.

MR SANDI: Hello Mr Webber.

KARL WEBBER: Hello.

MR SANDI: How are you today?

KARL WEBBER: Fine thanks.

MR SANDI: Mr Webber, you have made a statement to the Commission in which you set out what happened on the First of May 1991 when you were on your way home and you visited High Gate Hotel.

KARL WEBBER: That's correct.

MR SANDI: I will ask you to tell us briefly about yourself. What your life entailed, where did you work
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before, what sort of work you were doing, then I'll go on to ask you about the actual events, as you have related them pertaining to the First of May 1991.  Now I start off asking you about your personal life.  What were you doing before this thing happened to you.

KARL WEBBER: I was employed at the Animal Health Organisation in East London for nine years, where I worked as a senior inspector to the cruelty of animals.  At the time of the accident I was employed up until May 1993. Then on the first of May 1993, I went to the East London Airport to pick up a friend of mine that had arrived from Cape Town to spend a weekend in East London on business.  I arrived at the airport at approximately 08H30 that evening where picked him up and took him down to the Dolphin Hotel in East London where he was going to stay during the course of his business that he had to do during his stay in East London.
 At approximately a half an hour to an hour after that, we decided that it was time for me to go home where my residence was in a suburb on the northern side, Summer Bride, East London.  On the way home we, myself, him and two other friends, stopped at the Highgate Hotel to have a refreshment.  We were sitting there, ordered our first drink and we heard what sounded like automatic firearms which was in the bar next to us which was the mens' bar, and long after that we heard a bang as if a hand grenade or something had gone off. At that time someone shouted that we were under attack. We then realised that we were under attack but before any of us could fall sown or take cover, this guy was standing by the entrance door , he had an AK 47  on his hip and he was swinging the firearm around and sprayed bullets throughout the bar. 
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 At that time we had both fallen down, not realising who had, what the injuries were, and I had fallen down next to the friends of mine and I fell down with my head facing the door where I was watching this guy all the time. After this he stopped for a moment, I don't know if he was going to reload or what but as I turned around I could see he was busy with a magazine.  He then took another magazine, reloaded the AK 47 and started shooting again. It carried on for some time, a couple of seconds or a minute, whatever it was, and at this time, I was still looking at this guy, I could see that now he had now done what he wanted to do. I couldn't identify the guy as he had a sort of a bluish overall on with balaclava, with doves on his hand.  After he'd finished shooting he took this AK 47, he slung it over his shoulders and he folded the but up and he threw a canister of tear gas into the bar.
 After that time I he'd realised that there people were seriously injured and wounded in this. I was lying there realising that I couldn't move but with the tear gas I couldn't breathe, so I asked them to cut my clothes off me.  After they had taken the clothes off me and I was just lying in underwear, everybody, the police and ambulance people had already arrived at the scene and they had started to give treatment to the injured people, and then after that I woke up in ICU in Frere Hospital East London.

MR SANDI: It was yourself and your friend.  Were there any other people around?

KARL WEBBER: Were there any, I'm sorry.

MR SANDI: Were there any other people around at the table where you were sitting?

KARL WEBBER: Yes there were, he was killed with five other
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people who were sitting in the ladies' bar with us.

MR SANDI: Is there any one of those people here today?

KARL WEBBER: There are two people that have come to the secondary hearing.

MR SANDI: Did the police do anything about it.  I suppose the police took a statement from you, what happened, were there any investigations?

KARL WEBBER: Well as a result I lost my left arm, it was amputated from the elbow, below the elbow, I've got 60% use of my right arm plus three fingers are not in operation and there were statements taken from us by the Murder and Robbery Unit in East London at the time while I was in hospital.  Still up to this day we've had no contact where no one has come forward to say that a guilty party had been arrested or been found.

MR SANDI: Do you think you would be able to recognise the people who did this thing to you if you were to see them?

KARL WEBBER: No, as I say the gentleman had a balaclava over his head.  It was as if this attack was planned and they were well prepared and dressed so as not to identify the guys, the one guy.

MR SANDI: Mr Webber, you were working, you were a man who was leading an ordinary life and all of a sudden you find yourself in this sympathetic situation. How do you feel about this, if I can ask you an awkward question. How do you feel about this?

KARL WEBBER: Well my life was changed overnight, being a disabled person and it's taken some time.  One has to sort of, accept, I've accepted it and I have to carry on with the daily routine of my life.  It's not something that will be forgotten about and it's something that I think justice
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should be done about. I'm not speaking on behalf of myself, 
I'm speaking on behalf of the other victims that were there, and living, financially with a disability grant of R410, I don't think anybody can see or live on that amount.  Where I was an employed person, had my own privacy, now I have to rely on charity and friends to look after and help me.  So it's a change overnight and it's...

MR SANDI: Are there any people who are dependant on you and what has happened to those people now?

KARL WEBBER: I have got a daughter, I'm not married, that is at school. Financial wise, I've asked for assistance from the State and have had no correspondence from anybody to try and sort a way out financially wise.

MR SANDI: If you had to meet the people who did this to you, what would you tell them?  Do you have any lesson or moral lecture that you would give them?

KARL WEBBER: You know, there's law and order in this country, it's not for me to decide to take the law in my own hands.  This is why I approached the Truth Commission, hopefully it will be investigated further, and from there it's the justice that will have to be done and to see it.  It's not for me to decide what I would like to do to the perpetrators or the people that did this to me.

MR SANDI: Can you tell the Commission more about the medical operation you've had to go through and the financial implications of that?