Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1998-01-22

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I want to explain this fact.  I did not have a subpoena to appear here but because I had people whom I worked with whom I love and I worked with, I saw my name appear on the subpoena's wrongfully.  Then I felt that I should not keep quiet, I should come here and satisfy myself because this thing is hurting me a lot.  That is why I went to the lawyers, then I said I should meet with my legal counsel because there are steps which I want to take.

ADV MEMANI: Did the lawyers tell you what the allegations against you are?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I read those allegations on the subpoena of my colleagues whom I worked with.  Even if I'm not able to read I saw that my name is mentioned there, then I was hurt.

ADV MEMANI: ...[inaudible] against you?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I'm going to come in here, with great respect, I expected this.  Mr Chairman, in terms of our constitution and in terms of procedure, a well accepted and well founded procedure, an accused person who is being accused of something is entitled to be told what he's being accused of.  My learned friend Mr Memani, appears for two applicants here who have applied for amnesty, various incidents, they've been placed in dispute.  There's an enormous amount or evidence Mr Chairman.
	It is unfair and unreasonable to expect this witness to say: "Well, I am implicated in exactly this, that and the other", because with great respect Mr Chairman, we are confused ourselves as to what precisely the applications are about.  Let Mr Memani put his case to the witness Mr Chairman, it is unfair to ask him what he's been implicated with.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, I would have thought you called clients because they had been implicated, to deal with the implications and I would certainly assume that you consulted with your clients before you called them and said: "This has been said, what have you got to say about it"?

MR VISSER: That is true Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And that is what Mr Memani is asking him.  "What have you been told you have been implicated in"?  Isn't that what you asked him Mr Memani?

ADV MEMANI: That is correct M'Lord.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't know if you understood the question.  The question that counsel was putting to you was simply: "Do you know what allegations, have you been told what allegations have been made involving you in the matters for which amnesty is being asked"?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: This allegation says, I don't remember the year well but when I read I found that these years which were mentioned, I was in Bloemfontein.  That is to say he was in Botshabelo.  I gave him a van, a 4 X 4, then he went to a particular place where I pointed out to people.  In January 1986 I started working in Bloemfontein under the command of warrant officer.
	I was working under a white person in Bloemfontein, there were other people working under me.  Because this thing has happened after I'd left, then I said to myself I should go - it troubled me, then I said to myself I should go to my legal counsel.  This 4 X 4 lorry that has been mentioned, I don't know where it came from.
	All these things which I read, they purported to have happened, I was not there.  There was not a day where I returned to Botshabelo, I was permanently working in an office.

CHAIRPERSON: Tell us what you've read about yourself Mr Mbanjani.

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It's not a long thing.  It says:  Ngo left here to Botshabelo.  When he arrived at Botshabelo that is where cars are parked.  I don't know as whether it's this car which makes him to be in danger.  I took a van and gave it to him, which is spoken about, then he went with this lorry.  He'd found two people - he don't even - those, what kind of location is that but those were the new locations.  Then he returned the van to me and he left.  Those are the things I do not know.

CHAIRPERSON: So, are you saying the only thing you have been told you were involved in, is that you gave a van to Mr Ngo and that he then returned it?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It's not a long thing, it appears there.  I request that it should be placed on record and be read.  It's a short thing which has been written about me, it's not a long thing.  The major issue is the van which he says I gave to him, which is a lie.  And even those people he mentioned, those two people whom I do not know.

ADV MEMANI: Is it unlawful to lend a van to a person?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: You lent somebody - the state property is not your property.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Really I don't know whether this witness was here, whether he heard Mr Ngo's evidence or the allegations Mr Ngo levelled against him or not.  Why don't we just tell this man what the allegations are against him and then he should deal with them.  After all, this whole purpose of - in fact the specific purpose of calling implicated people is to enable them to answer these allegations.  He wasn't there when Ngo testified and why can't we just put these allegations to him and then we deal with them?

CHAIRPERSON: ...[inaudible] In his affidavit which he signed some time ago, it refers to the fact that Ngo alleges he was concerned in the murder.  Now he's not saying a word about it, he appears to be deliberately avoiding any reference to a murder, he keeps just talking about a truck.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman you see, this is the objection which I made or which I tried to explain just now.  This man is accused of being implicated - and I'll tell you in a while where he's implicated, he's implicated by Ngo in an alleged pre-arrangement with Mamome to store the stolen car of Mr Venter at Batu Police Station.  My learned friend doesn't know that.  Why must this witness tell you that: "This is where I'm implicated".  There are witnesses here - Mamome for example is implicated in virtually every incident here, they haven't been attending the trial.  It is grossly unfair Mr Chair, in my respectful submission, to ask him: "What are you accused of"?

CHAIRPERSON: You called him to clear his name and I do not think it is doing so when he's not telling us: "I was implicated in this, I had nothing to do with it".  Where he just in the most general terms says that: "Like a washed shirt I had nothing to do" ...[intervention]

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, with great respect, it is certainly not the duty of the witness or either of him or myself, after he has made himself available, to field any questions or allegations against him under oath, to take him through the whole record and to show ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: I didn't suggest that for one minute Mr Visser, what I suggested is that he could simply say: "It was suggested I reached an agreement with Mr Ngo to allow him to park the car of the man he murdered, I did not do so".

MR VISSER: It's obvious that he doesn't understand the charge that way, it's for my learned friend to put it to him Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Mr Visser, is he being called as an implicated person, and he's being called - he's coming out of his own free will, he need not come, that's correct.  Why is he coming?  In order to tell the world that: "I'm being wrongly implicated".  And in that sense, isn't the sort of onus to say - I don't say onus in the ordinary sense, but isn't he coming forward - "I want to tell the Commission, this is what they said about me, it's wrong".  Now he's coming and saying: "I'm folding my arms, I've done nothing wrong" and we don't know in what connection.  But if he as a witness comes forward and says: "I want to clear my name about this what is being said about me", isn't he the one who should tell us on what issue does he want to clear his character?

MR VISSER: Must I reply ...[End of tape 2B - no follow-on sound]

CHAIRPERSON: It will save an enormous amount of time if they can simply say: "Dealing with this, I didn't do it".