Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-26

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 9 is a frontal view of the skull, slightly oblique frontal view.  Figure 10 is the view of the vertex, that is the top looking at it from the top, before cleaning.  While we are there, we can see that there appears to be, there appears to be, or there probably is some remnants  of scalp hair although I am not too sure, on the surface, very discoloured surface.
	Figure 11 is a right sided oblique view.  These two, figures 10 and 11 is simply to show the state of preservation mainly of the bone.

CHAIRPERSON: That is also before cleaning, is it?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Before cleaning, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Figure 11?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is correct.  The cleaning I would employ here is simply dry brushing.

CHAIRPERSON: Brushing?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: But that is before that?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Before that, yes.    If I may say that on figure 11, even before cleaning, one can see the circular, neat circular defect on the vertex, small localised defect.

CHAIRPERSON: On figure 10?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: On figure 10.  Sorry, on 10.

CHAIRPERSON: That is that black, that black spot?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.  The black circle.

CHAIRPERSON: Round spot, circle?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: There appears to be no figure 12.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we go from 11 to 13, and then we have a bigger jump after that, to 17?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Okay, yes.  Figure 13 ...

MR LAX: Just before you go on, Ms Thabethe will you endeavour to get the complete set from the doctor, so we can check what 12 might have been, if there was a 12?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and then also 14, 15, 16.

MR VISSER: Chairperson, they are not in the docket, we checked, unless at the time when we checked, they were removed and replaced later, I don't know about that, but you will observe the first two photos that are missing, are reproduced in your Bundle 2, but the others are not reproduced there, so we don't know what they are at all.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Visser.  Sorry Mr Naidoo, if you can turn to page 58 of Volume 2, although it is not a coloured photograph, we have a figure 12.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 12, just again the left sided view of the skull, slightly oblique and underside.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 13 is the view now after cleaning of the defect of the top of the skull.  One can see quite clearly the well ...(indistinct) neat hole at the top of the skull and I've got two diagrams, hand drawn, next to this figure which the lower one, the adjacent diagram shows the defect on the diagram and then the upper diagram shows trajectory, the presumed direction of the gunshot.

CHAIRPERSON: Will you be getting back to this bullet, well, this hole later in your evidence, or not?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I assume that I will be led to speak about it.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because, I was just wondering, have you seen bullet holes in skulls before?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And this neat, no cracks or shattering?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: On the outer table of bone Mr Chairman, yes.  It is typical of a gunshot wound of bone that enters at right angles, not oblique and from the side.  It is a direct, 90 degree, well, almost direct 90 degree entry angle, square on the skull.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 14 and 15 ...

CHAIRPERSON: That I think we will have to then revert to page 60 of Volume 2, because it is not in the coloured portfolio or album.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 14 and 15 shows the inside of the skull cap, so what we did was the skull was cut open, across, in a manner of a cap and the cap was turned around, inverted, to look at the inside of the defect.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is what we are looking at, figure 14 and 15,  a magnified view.

CHAIRPERSON: 15 is a magnified view?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 17 is a close view of the front of the skull, concentrating on the dentition, making a good presentation of the way the teeth would look in a smile for example.
	Figure 18 is a view of the lower jaw, from an angle and this was to show clearly the irregular or mal-positioned lower teeth in the front, because I thought it might be a special identifying feature for this particular person.  Figure 19 is a close up view of the front of the pelvis, which we saw in an earlier figure, showing the fragile nature and fragmentation of bone.

CHAIRPERSON: Is there any way from what you observed, I might just be anticipating what you are going to say later, as to whether the fracture of the pelvis was pre-death or post-death?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Will you get to that?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I was of the impression that this was more likely post-mortem, after death, as a result of the fragility and porosity of the bone.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Figure 20 and 21 on one page, show just two views of that substance or the structure that fell out of the skull, the bottom of the skull while I was examining the skull and this turned out to be a bullet and two little fragments.

CHAIRPERSON: Two little fragments of what, doctor?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Of perhaps denaturing or tarnished metal or lead.  Or in fact it might be fragments of soft tissue, because I have written here "bullets and fragments" as a title to that page, "bullets and fragments from the core".  What happens is sometimes the core is hollow and it traps a bit of soft tissue that dries up, soft body tissues.

CHAIRPERSON: Dried up soft body tissue that hasn't completely decayed?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, that is right.  Figure 25, having found that structure that fell out of the base of skull, and not being able to clearly confirm its nature as a bullet, although it was very suspicious, as one can see from the original colour photographs of that structure, that it was really a bullet, I placed it against teeth and bone to show up differing densities, on the scanner, on that photograph, you can see the very high ...(indistinct), strongly dense, appearance compared to teeth and bone.  That was clearly metallic, or strongly radio opaque.

CHAIRPERSON: That is figure 25?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MS THABETHE: Thank you Dr Naidoo.  Coming back now to your examination, I want us to go through your findings on each part that you examined of the skeleton.

MR LAX: Just before you do, can we safely assume that 22 to 24 are missing?  If there is a photograph, oh, you've got those?

CHAIRPERSON: We haven't got, yes, we've got ...

MR LAX: He's got a photocopy here, may I just have a look because we don't have these in our Bundles.  It just says "different views of bullet head", 22, 23 and 24.  We don't have it in our Bundles, but we could easily make a photocopy of that.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  They seem to be very similar to figure 21, so basically ...

MR LAX: They are just different views of the same thing, is that right?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is right sir, because I just wanted to show up and in fact it is on those views, one can confidently confirm that it is a bullet.

MR LAX: Thank you.  Please continue.

MS THABETHE: Would you know what happened to the original photographs of these photocopies?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I submitted the original in a Bundle together with my report, at the very beginning, to the Truth Commission, I have no idea who has got it at the moment.

MS THABETHE: All right.  Whilst we proceed, Dr Naidoo, I want us to proceed to talk about your conclusions when you examined each and every part of the remains, starting with the skull.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MS THABETHE: Can you tell us what your findings were when you examined the skull?