Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

MR VALLY: ....going to lead evidence regarding what we believe is the interference with witnesses on the part of Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.  Maybe they will take for themselves.  Mr Pigou is a contract employee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Mr Kurt Schillinger is a journalist, maybe Mr Pigou could begin.

MP PIGOU: Thank you Chair.  On the afternoon of Friday last week I was approached by Mr Schillinger who asked me what efforts have been made to find a Mr Michael Siakamela who had been named as the driver in the Lolo Sono incident.  Mr Schillinger later on passed a telephone number to me and because I was busy preparing for our security branch witnesses I said I didn't have time to deal with it and he indicated that he would make a phone call.  He did make a phone call and came back to me and said he'd made some contact and I asked whether it would be possible to meet with Mr Siakamela and Mr Schillinger made another phone call and an arrangement was made to meet with Mr Siakamela on Saturday morning.
 At 8:30 on Saturday morning I was picked up by Mr Schillinger and we went to Soweto and we went to Mr Siakamela's house, arrived there at about 9:15.  We entered the premises and spoke to Michael Siakamela.  At the beginning of our conversation with him we just wanted to know who he was and so forth and we wanted to know what his relationship was with the Mandela household and he indicated, and this is the only note that I took of the whole meeting and I will tell you why just now, he indicated that his brother Oupa Johannes Siakamela had been involved in the Mandela household since I think about '76 and he had been a boyfriend of Zinzi Mandela and that they had had a daughter Zoleka together.  Almost as he was telling us that there was a telephone call from, we were told later by Michael, was his brother Oupa and Oupa said to his brother in terms of the conversation that came back to us, that he was not to give us a written statement, that he was going to arrange a lawyer, so we put our pens and paper to one side and said can we have a chat and he said, ja, sure.
 So we began to talk to Mr Siakamela and ask him about the events relating to the disappearance of Mr Lolo Sono.  He told us a version which to all intents and purposes corroborated large sections of Mr Nicodemus Sono's testimony to the fact that he had taken Lolo Sono in a badly beaten state from the Mandela household to Mr Nicodemus Sono's house and present was Mrs Mandela, not sitting next to him in the front seat but just behind him, and various other members of the team and in particular a Mr Guybon Kubheka who was sitting on the back seat holding Lolo Sono.  
 He indicated that he took them all back after altercation or some sort of discussion with Mr Sono in which Mr Sono tried to get back his son and he took everyone back to the house and he was relieved of his duties that day.
 Mr Siakamela had told us that he had been working as a driver for a couple of weeks for Mrs Mandela and shortly after this incident, because he got a parking ticket outside Westgate court Mrs Mandela apparently, according to Michael, had blown a fuse with him and he said I am not taking this anymore, I don't need this kind of grief, he had been taking the kids, I think Zinzi Mandela's children to Woodmead to school and so forth.  
 He then indicated to us that shortly after this Lolo Sono incident he had been picked up by the SAP, although he couldn't identify who they were, said a bag had been put over his head and he had been taken to an unidentified place and questioned about Lolo Sono.  He then told us that the following day, having been taken home, he was taken to Protea where he gave a statement to a Mr Dempsey and in that statement he basically corroborated and re-told the story that I have just related to you.
 We made an arrangement or an agreement with Mr Siakamela that he would contact us either later on on Saturday or on the Sunday to find out what the situation was with regards to lawyers we had indicated, or I had indicated Mr Schillinger can't speak on behalf of the Commission in this regard, but I had indicated that the Commission would be able to make an attorney available to him and in fact we would prefer an attorney to take a statement from him because of the compromised position that the investigation unit was being put in with regards to taking statements during this hearing.  Mr Siakamela indicated that there wouldn't really be a problem with that, although in my opinion, there was an increased degree of nervousness because of the fact that his brother now knew that we were there.   I gave him my old TRC investigation unit card when I used to be a fulltime member of the investigation unit and wrote on the back the cellphone number that I was using and I think the word "consultant", and I made it quite clear to Mr Siakamela that I was working as a consultant and that I was not fulltime employed with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission anymore.  Mr Schillinger and I then drove back in to Johannesburg having made contact with Commissioner Ntsebeza discussing the importance now of obtaining the Lolo Sono investigation docket 236/11/88, the Meadowlands docket which we had been trying to obtain.
 I was, during the course of Saturday afternoon and Sunday busy with a number of other and related matters, and I will go into those if the Commission requires me to, but Mr Schillinger basically was in the meantime phoning, on Sunday, I don't know about Saturday, but on Sunday because we were in contact with each other, he was phoning Michael Siakamela's house to find out what he had decided he wanted to do. I understand he didn't get through and I didn't try to get through to him. 
 I did, however, try to get through to him this morning, I phoned his house.  I was given another telephone number to phone which I then phoned, the young lady answered the phone, I asked to speak to Michael, Michael eventually came to the phone and I asked him, are you alright?  And he said "no".  I said did you get a visit?  And he said, "Oupa and Mummy had contacted him".  I then indicated to him whether the nature of the visit meant that he wasn't going to - I asked him whether the nature of the visit meant that he wasn't going to give us a statement in this regard and he seemed to be somewhat flustered, somewhat confused.  
 I then said that we can talk about witness protection.  I can get a senior commissioner to talk to him about this and he said he was going to town and I should phone him back in two hours.  About 15 minutes later, having discussed this with Commissioner Ntsebeza I then phoned again to that house and Michael was put on, I informed him that I had Commissioner Ntsebeza next to me and that this would only take a short period of time.  He indicated no, I need to get out of the house, I need to go to town, I must phone him back in a couple of hours.  I said but he's standing here, it will only take 30 seconds, he said "no" and put the phone down.  I have been trying subsequently through the course of the afternoon to get hold of him and he seems not to be available.

MR VALLY: Thank you Mr Pigou.

MP PIGOU: Thank you.

MR VALLY: Mr Schillinger do you have anything you want to add to what Mr Pigou has said?