Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-09-10

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, you are quite right.  That is the basis on which I am putting the question now, because, you see, if he said, if my note is correct, that he said we would go and collect the file and go and collect the person, it would appear, and if he said that is the case, I said that, I would have taken it further to say, well, look, if you collected the file then what did you with it, did you read it, etcetera, but that falls away now, because he says, no, I did not even say that.  I did not say I went to collect the file and you are quite correct, Mr Commissioner, because, clearly, on the hypothesis which you just put to me, if the man went into the room and he saw there are two files, there could be one or two scenarios.
	One is I took the file, I collected it, which he now says he did not say and, obviously, that he would have read it.  The next scenario would be I saw the files, I was told it was the file of Musi and China and that is the end of the matter.  So, the first scenario has now fallen away.  I am now back on the second scenario, Mr Chairman, in which he says I saw the files on the table and I am just going to ask him one question.  I think the Chairman has already made that quite clear, but just in fairness to the witness, I would ask him the last question on this issue and then I would like to step off it.  
	Mr Motsamai, ... (intervention).
MR MEMANI OBJECTS

ADV MEMANI: But, Mr Chairman, I think Mr Visser is not entirely correct.  As far as I understand, the evidence is that on the occasion when Mr Musi was killed, Mamome had the file on the table and then again, he then tells us about the general practice that you would go into an office and you would see a pile of documents and you would not read those documents.  You would then go and arrest people.  It is different.  They did not go and collect Musi, they went to kill Musi and I do not know what, why Mr Visser proceeds like this while, at the end of the day, he is going to have problems with his style of cross-examination, because eventually there will not be any weight to be put to it.  If he thinks he can, you know, he can use such lousy strategies, so to speak.

CHAIRPERSON: He did not say it was on Mamome's table.  He said, in his evidence in-chief, when he was being led by you, that after he was fetched from where he was drinking tea as usual and had been told the command they had been given, they went to the office where they found Coetzee and Shaw.  On Coetzee's table there were two files.  He referred to them as he spoke to us.
"... I asked Mamome whose files they were and he told me they were China's and Musi's".

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair pleases.

MR VISSER: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  I think you have made the point.  I am not going to labour the point.  Mr Motsamai, is it correct that you said that your instruction from Coetzee was
"... Boysi, you must be very careful, you are going to commit a murder."
Is that what you told us?  Do you remember that?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Yes, that is correct.

MR VISSER: And then you added that Coetzee said,
"... sometimes this boy China stays with him."
referring to the old man.  Do you remember that?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR VISSER: You know, what I would like to ask you, Mr Motsamai, is on, well, first of all.  Did Coetzee say anything else?  Was the instruction more refined, made more refined or defined better than what you have just heard me read to you here, your evidence was?  Did he say anything else?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, Sir.

MR VISSER: Well, then, pray tell, how did you know which of these two people that were mentioned you had to go and murder?  The old man or China?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That was China and the old man, if China was in that house.

MR VISSER: Oh, is your evidence now that your instructions were to go and murder both China and the old man if you found them together in the same house?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR VISSER: And you went there, on your evidence, with Mr Mamome?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR VISSER: And he showed you a firearm with six bullets, a 38 special?

CHAIRPERSON: You have information that it was a 38 special, have you Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: I am sorry for the word "special".
"He showed me a 38 small firearm, a small firearm which uses small bullets."
A small 38 firearm?  You knew that there was a firearm, Mr Motsamai?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct. He found a firearm from Coetzee.

MR VISSER: Now, that is brand new evidence, Mr Motsamai, and I am going to treat it as such.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is not so.  That is not brand new evidence.

MR VISSER: Well, I challenge you to say when you told this Committee either on paper or in your evidence, at any time whatsoever, that Coetzee gave Mamome this firearm.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I said Sergeant Mamome told me that he got the gun from Coetzee.  We were in the kitchen.

MR VISSER: And I put it to you that is also brand new evidence.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is not brand new evidence.

MR VISSER: Yes.  You see, Mr Motsamai, I am going to suggest to you, and I am already doing so, that you make up your evidence as you go along.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that is a being a little unkind, Mr Visser.  You will recall that he said that Motsamai, Mamome came into where he was drinking tea and said he had received the command that they must go to China's place.
"He said come along, we are going to commit murder there and he showed me a 38 firearm and he told, took them to Coetzee's office."
Now, he did not directly say he said he had got it from Coetzee, but is that not a very reasonable inference?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I here what you say, but we will argue otherwise.  Here he is implicating a man far more than he does so before and one would have imagined, in such a serious incident as a murder, there would have been left no doubt in his evidence in-chief if that was, in fact, the facts and that is why I am putting it to him on that basis, but I will leave it there, Mr Chairman.  Fact of the matter is at the very least, Mr Motsamai, on your own evidence you went there to murder China and if he were there, you would have killed him.  Is that what you are telling us?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: There were two people, China and the old man.  If China was present he would have been killed ... (intervention).

MR VISSER: Yes.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: ... according to the command we received.

MR VISSER: Okay.  You also told the Committee yesterday that if you had found any other person, a third person, in the house you would have shot him also.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR VISSER: But you never told us that you received any instructions to do that, did you?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is so.  We would also kill the third person and afterwards they would stand by our side if there was a mistake.

MR VISSER: May I enquire from Justice Ngoepe, who seems to be following the interpretation, Mr Chairman, whether the interpretation or the translation is done fairly accurately, because I am not getting answers to my questions from the witness.  I am not sure whether you are following the translation.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Occasionally I do and on occasions where I feel, perhaps, it is grossly out, I think I make occasional remarks, but having said that, Mr Visser, I think that, really, it is also incumbent on the attorneys for the applicant to make sure that they listen for the interpretation themselves and to make sure that their clients version is being interpreted, Mr Memani, ... (intervention).

ADV MEMANI: As your Lordship pleases.