Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-08-30

KHOZA MGOJO: They were all African.  When you say African men you mean black?

WITNESS:   That's correct, ja.

KHOZA MGOJO: In your statement you also speak about an old man who was stabbed.  Can you say something about that?

WITNESS:  Well, the old man that was stabbed - I didn't know the man, I didn't see the man, but once I had been taken to the trauma unit at the hospital my parents - my mom came round to see me, and while she was sitting in the waiting room a very old lady, she must have been in her eighties, came in and she said to my mom, "Ah, you know, I've got a call from the hospital to say my husband's here."  She says, "I just wish he could go to the bank without tripping and falling or something, because it always happens that I've got to go and collect him from the

KHOZA MGOJO: /"doctor

KHOZA MGOJO: doctor because he's so clumsy, and he's probably fallen and hurt himself quite badly."  And it so happened that this man in fact - you know, he had not fallen or he had not been ill, he had actually been stabbed in the shoulder.  He was pretty helpless, an 80-year-old man which, you know, can't do much.   He's a pretty peaceful person.  And he consequently died of the situation.

KHOZA MGOJO: Okay, thank you, Aline.  And you say that these people were about 20.

WITNESS:   At the time it seemed like it was about 20.  It appeared like that.  I may have been that, you know, I misjudged or miscounted, but if I think of a group of 20 people standing around me then yes, it seems like they must have been a group of that size.

KHOZA MGOJO: What was happening in the area during that time?  Was there anything happening - or in the country?  Can you remember?

WITNESS:   Well, in South Africa as such at that particular time was when South Africa first started going through our phase of - from transformation from the old to the new, so yes, there was - historically, yes, there was a lot of things happening in our country at the time.  But on that particular day, in that particular area where I was walking, it was a normal Tuesday morning.  That was it.

KHOZA MGOJO: Was the matter reported to the police?

WITNESS:   Yes, the matter was reported to the police.  It was in investigated.  It so happened that some of the perpetrators were arrested at the actual site of the incident, and they were consequently obviously put in prison for a short period of - for the period of time until we could in fact actually trial - you know, go through a trial.  But it so happened that the man that stabbed my friend Ryan was injured, I think he was shot four times, and it so happened that they were both in intensive care unit, and something which was quite shocking to all of us is that both the victim and attacker lay in beds next to each other.

KHOZA MGOJO: And did they die?

WITNESS:   No.  Neither Ryan nor the attacker - no, neither of them did die.  Only the one man died, which is the old man.

KHOZA MGOJO: The old man died.

WITNESS:   That's right.

KHOZA MGOJO: If you remember, how many people were stabbed on that day?

WITNESS:   Eight people.

KHOZA MGOJO: All whites?

WITNESS:   That's correct.

KHOZA MGOJO: During the investigation was it ever discovered to which political grouping did these people belong who stabbed you?

WITNESS:   Well, it was Mr Ngcobo who was the perpetrator of the group.  He apparently was a member of the Pan-Africanist Congress, and that was at the time what was said.  That's what he admitted to, but apparently the actual incident had not been an organised attack by the Pan-Africanist Congress, it was a member of the Pan-Africanist Congress that actually did this.  Apparently what happened was that he gathered a whole lot of youths the night before the incident and he promised them food and a place to stay for the evening.  But what was said during the trial is that there was a shopowner who was in the area that had been told of the incident months before, and he had circled it on his calendar, and he knew that it was going to happen because this man had told him that they were going to do this.  The youths at the time that carried out the attack with Mr Ngcobo apparently had no knowledge of what they were going to do.  It was said that some of them said they did know, some of they said they had some sort of idea, but weren't quite sure.  But the motive for the attack was that Mr Ngcobo said that he was doing this in order to show the rest of the white South Africans that Africa was here for the Africans, and that they wanted the white people to leave.

KHOZA MGOJO: Do you know what happened to Ngcobo?

WITNESS:   Well, once we actually had the - once the trial was carried out, and the whole proceeding went through, they said that Mr Ngcobo had a - I don't know if you want to call it a psychological problem or a mental problem, but he was tried and he was put into - he wasn't - how to say - for example he wasn't put into prison, but he was going to go to a place where they would assess him.  I don't know if it's sort of like a mental prison or whatever.  But the actual youth that attacked me, and destroyed my life, was let off the hook.  He was - you know, I don't even know if that man was ever found.  No one ever said to me - no one ever approached me and said to me, "The man who did this to you, or the boy who did this to you, you know, this is who he is, this is why he did it, and this is what's going to happen to him."  The proceedings in the - we went to court.  Firstly I had to go to Westville Prison to testify - not to testify, to go to an identification parade.  They contacted me and asked me - or told me I needed to come, and they said to me at the identification parade I'd be sitting behind a glass window, I need not to be afraid.  If I just saw anyone that I recognised or knew all that I needed to do was to point them out.  Well, I spent the entire day at Westville Prison, and by the time I actually got to go and do my identification of the so-called perpetrators I had to walk through the actual prison itself, and I went into the chapel at Westville Prison, and to my absolute amazement there was no glass window.  I was standing face to face with a group of 50 men, which I had no idea who were the people that had attacked me.  I did not see my attacker's face.  All I knew was that he was young and he had a peach shirt on.  So I recognised Mr Ngcobo.  I saw him standing there, he had a blue robe on, but at that time I was in such a state, because they had told me that I wouldn't worry about having to be seen, and I went in there - I didn't have - I had the support of a policeman I didn't even know, and I went in there and was faced with all these people.  And I started to cry because I was afraid, and I wasn't prepared for this, and as I started to cry so the prisoners started laughing and throwing - and shouting comments, and so that was - it was a waste of time because I couldn't even look at the guys and try and see who the man was.  But we did go through the prosecution, and unfortunately Captain Hurter, who was the detective at the time, was killed in a car accident.  I don't know how it happened, or what happened at the time, but once he actually - once he died it just seemed the case just kind of took a back seat.  It went through to proceedings, I testified, and afterwards - I'm sure you all have probably seen in the papers that there were two men that were found guilty, and Mr Ngcobo himself.  But those were only three men.  What happened to the other five?  There were eight of us stabbed, not three, and the perpetrator who - the man who attacked me and did what he did to me, why should he get away - why should he get away with it?  He may have

KHOZA MGOJO: /said, "Yes,