Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1998-01-29

ADV MEMANI: Let us assume then that it was on a working day. One, you will recall that most of the assaults and most of the group were assaulted on the 6th, so most of the noise would have been on the 6th. Two, we haven't been told that there were - the buildings were so close to each other that the screams would have necessarily reached the other building. Three, we haven't been told about the positions of the various windows. Four, we haven't been told that these people ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: What do you mean 'the various windows'? I'm afraid I am not with you, Mr Memani.

ADV MEMANI: The windows of the various buildings Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: At Fountain, the police building, we have been given a plan showing every window.

ADV MEMANI: But then, Mr Chairman, it might happen that the Attorney-General's offices side which is next to the building does not have windows facing the ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: It faces it across the road, we were told, it is not next to it.

ADV MEMANI: Mr Chairman, we were not told across which direction; it was just said, across the road.

MRADV DE JAGER: Mr Memani, I think you've made your points in that regard and I have listened to it, and I think it should seriously be considered, all the factors. It might have been that the screams were not so loud that it could be heard elsewhere. We will take that into consideration.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair pleases.
	The next incident is the incident involving Mtsabelo. I am told that it is 2.14, Mr Chairman. There is no version on how this incident occurred excepting Ngo's version, and all the objectors have denied any knowledge of the incident. However, Mr Ngo finds some corroboration from Mr Motsamai about the fact that the incident did take place. Mr Motsamai says:
"Mr Ngo does implicate me in this, but he is mistaken insofar as he says I tortured people. He was amongst the group of people who were torturing people and they passed them on to us for interviews".
So then this incident did occur and the only version we have about the incident is that of Ngo. Again, Mr Chairman, what I can say is that we cannot say that it must be found as a fact that all the people that he implicates were present. But we can find that some of the people he implicates must have been present.
	One has some form of corroboration of this incident from the fact that people like Warrant Officer ...[indistinct] who were in command in the area, deny knowledge of this incident and do not seem to have taken steps adequately to ensure that Ngo is correct or is not correct.
	Mr Chairman, you must remember that Mr Ngo's lifespan as a policeman was very short. He was a policeman only for about three months and I am sure that although people were arrested during those years, surely we will not find perhaps more than two big groups in three months being detained at one time. So that if steps had been taken seriously to go through the books, something would have been found that would have indicated that certain people were arrested during that period. What further ...[intervention]

MRADV DE JAGER: Just to be clear: you said Mr Ngo was a policeman for only three months?

ADV MEMANI: During 1986.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Sorry, Mr Memani, can I interrupt you? You said that they denied knowledge of this incident. I am not so sure whether that can be said with regard to all of them. My impression was that they said that they did not recall the incident. It seems to me, you are putting it a little bit too strong in saying that they denied the incident. I thought that they said, 'well, many people were arrested during that time, and so forth'. They said they did not seem to remember that incident which, if that gives you some comfort, would to some extent corroborate Ngo in saying - well, perhaps not corroborate but certainly not a serious dispute against Ngo that it did not happen.

ADV MEMANI: That is correct, Mr Chairman. I agree their evidence was in fact that they did not recall the incident.
	The next matter I would like to deal with is the matter involving the bombing of the clinic, that is 2.4. Mr Chairman, Mr Ngo again finds some corroboration in his description of this incident from Motsamai who says that on the occasion when they went to bomb the clinic, along the way to Brandfort he saw Ramoseou's car parked in the - facing in the direction of Brandfort. That is some corroboration for Ngo who says that he was with Ramosoeu and Bester in a vehicle and they were there to make sure that the house, the clinic was bombed.
	Mr Chairman, I do not want to add anything this to application unless of course there are some questions about the evidence regarding the bombing of the clinic.
	The next incident that I am dealing with is 2.16, the conspiracy to murder Khotoi. Mr Ngo, as I have already pointed out, was only with the Bloemfontein police as a policeman for a period of three months. He would not have had intimate knowledge of their affairs outside Bloemfontein before that, and the fact that he knows about the two persons, Pitso and Ntsoabole, whom he says were informers of Ramosoeu, tends to strengthen his evidence. That must be seen in the light of the fact that Ramosoeu was not in Bloemfontein but was in Brandfort. Ngo tells us that these people were informers.
	Ramosoeu had told us that no, he never keeps informers but he only kept contacts. However, he then said, when confronted about these two people, Pitso and Tsalo, 'no, I only tried to recruit one of them as an informer'.
	Mr Chairman, it is clear that Mr Ramosoeu was not being truthful about whether he kept informers or not. It was pointed out to him that a contact is not a person who gives information deliberately, but someone who is somehow tricked into giving information. And his answer was not in the negative; it was a matter of saying, 'well, I don't know that'. Mr Chairman, he is an experienced policeman, he should have been able to say that no, a contact is not that type of person but a contact is this and that type of person, or that we don't have any name for that type of person, but he did not do that.
	Ngo would not have known or have the slightest idea that Ramosoeu even tried to recruit this person as an informer because Ngo was not working in Brandfort on his version. because Ngo never worked with him so how could then Ngo have come to know that Ramosoeu in particular had something to do with Pitso and Ntsoabole? The evidence of Ramosoeu compel us to accept the evidence of Ngo.
	Mr Chairman, I now wish to deal with the matters 2.9 to 2.12 - 2.8 to 2.12. These I have lumped as the Mamelodi incidents. On all these matters the only evidence which we have about how the houses were burnt is that of Ngo. There has not been any denial that the houses were not burnt.

MR BRINK: Mr Chairman, my recollection is that at the pre-hearing conference item 2.11 was withdrawn. That related apparently to an attack on his girlfriend's house.

ADV MEMANI: That is indeed correct.

MRADV DE JAGER: That being the case, we have got evidence that he attacked and burnt his own girlfriend's house with no political motive. How could that impact on the burning of other houses?