Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-26

MS THABETE: Okay, I am coming there.  When you were still discussing, I am sure you must have discussed the fact that either he would say yes, I was there when Sandile Biyase was killed, or no I wasn't there?  When you were discussing it, did you make decisions what you were going to do if he denied or admitted?  What you were going to do to him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: The decision came at the end when he had admitted, we had not actually discussed other questions.

MS THABETE: No, I don't understand you.  What I am saying is, you were discussing with your friends, right, that you were going to go to Mr Zulu and asked him whether he was involved in the killing of Sandile Biyase.
	Surely when you were discussing it, you would have considered what would happen if he admits, what you would do to him if he admits, or what you would do to him if he doesn't admit?  Surely you must have discussed that?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We did discuss that.

MS THABETE: So you did discuss that?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes, we did.  I thought I had mentioned it before.

CHAIRPERSON: What was your resolution when you discussed it earlier, in the event of him admitting that he was an IFP member, what did you decide at that meeting?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We discussed that if he admitted that he was involved in the incident of killing our comrade, we would also do the same thing that he did to our comrade.

MS THABETE: So what you are telling me is that you decided that if he does admit, you will kill him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes, that is correct.

MS THABETE: So would it be correct for me to say that your intention was not only to question him, but it was to question him and then if he admits, to kill him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes, we would first question him.  If he denied it, we would not have done anything to him.  But if he admitted, we would kill him.

MS THABETE: Did you go to Mr Zulu's place in Noqwega village?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes, we did.

MS THABETE: What was he doing there?

MR NGUBANE: Sorry, maybe just to put the - as far as I understood the applicant, he was in Ixopo now.  They went to Ixopo.

CHAIRPERSON: I think Mr Ngubane, if you could just clear up exactly where he was, because at one stage I got the impression that he was in his new place, that he went to, in Ixopo town, but then later he said that when they spoke to them, they were in Noqwega and he ran into his granny's house.  If you could perhaps ask him precisely where did they confront the deceased.

MS THABETE: Precisely where did you confront the deceased?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We left Ixopo with him, and we went to Noqwega.

CHAIRPERSON: So you met him in Ixopo, that is the town, and then you took him back to your place at Noqwega?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And his old place?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes.

MS THABETE: If I may ask right there, how did you meet him at Ixopo and what did you tell him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: The person who could talk to him was Mgunezi, who managed to get him into the car.  They actually bought liquor.

MS THABETE: Okay, and then you went to Noqwega, where?  At his place, at your place, at whose place?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We were on the road, but it was near his home.  Near his grandmother's home.

MS THABETE: So where did you question him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We questioned him there, near his grandmother's house.

MS THABETE: In the car?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: No.

MS THABETE: You say he admitted to the fact that he was there when Sandile Biyase was killed, is that correct?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes.

MS THABETE: Was he armed?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: When?

MS THABETE: When you were questioning him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: No, he was not armed.

MS THABETE: So you decided to kill him because he admitted?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes.

MS THABETE: What did you want to achieve by killing him, what was your objective?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: As a person who grew up in the area, who knew it inside and out, when he defected to an organisation that was an enemy to the community, he would have been a danger to us as he had already admitted that there were other planned attacks against our area.
	Moreover he knew us as people he had grown up with.  He knew that we were organisers and activists in the area.

MS THABETE: Mr Cele, isn't it strange though that the applicant, sorry the deceased was once an ANC member, you fetch him, you question him whether he attacked Sandile Biyase together with other IFP members, and you also question him whether he was an IFP member, isn't it strange for him to admit that to you, being ANC members?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: When you ask questions, you should ask them in a manner that he is satisfied and that he is free to answer them as honestly as possible.  That is how we approached him.  We did not enquire from him when he had left our organisation, but we just asked him those questions and he admitted to us.

CHAIRPERSON: When he admitted to you, had you started the assault upon him, the physical assault upon him, before he admitted to you or only after he admitted to you?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: At that time, we had not yet started assaulting him, we were just talking to him.

MR LAX: One thing is puzzling me.  You said you managed to get him into the car by buying liquor.  Just explain that to us.  Did you carry on drinking liquor with him and then question him, or what was the story?  I am just a bit puzzled by that.

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: We met him in town, I don't know whether he had been drinking, but Mgunezi is the one who bought liquor and he is the one that they were drinking with.

MR LAX: Are you saying that the deceased had been drinking liquor with Mgunezi?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Yes.

MR LAX: And so, did he appear to be intoxicated?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Although he did look like he was drinking, but he was not drunk.

MR LAX: Carry on Ms Thabete, thank you, sorry.  I just wanted to clear that up.

MS THABETE: Maybe you can clarify this for me, I don't quite understand.
	You say you picked him up in town whilst he was drinking with his friends.

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: No.  He was not with anyone, he was alone.  Mgunezi called him and asked him to get into the car.  We did not physically carry him to the car.

MS THABETE: So all you said to him was, come, we want to speak to you?  What did you say to him to influence him to come with you to Noqwega?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: Mgunezi called him and when he got into the car, we said the car should just go because we wanted to go and question him.
	It was not easy to question him in town, because there were many IFP people in town.  If they had met us, or if they had found us there, they would have shot at us.
	The town was divided into two, the bottom part belonged to the ANC and the top part belonged to the IFP.  IFP members were free to carry their weapons freely whilst we were not.
	Therefore we could not remain in town for quite a long time with the deceased because people could come upon us and kill us.

MS THABETE: My last question to you.  If the deceased had admitted that he was IFP or he has changed to join the IFP, but was not involved in the killing of Sandile Biyase, would you still have killed him?

TULANI FILEMON MOSES CELE: There would have been no reason to kill him then, because that would have meant that he was not involved in the attacks in the area.

MS THABETE: Last, last question.  So there is nothing wrong, is that what you are saying, there was nothing wrong as such with him changing from being an ANC member to being an IFP member?