Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

DJ MKHIZE: We then went to Chief Mathaba.  We knocked on the door.  He opened it and as planned at Mrs Mbuyazi, he let us in.  The Chief then asked one of his ndunas who was also his praise singer, Manxele - his surname is Manxele, I don't know his first name.  Because we didn't know where this nduna that we were supposed to kill, resided.
	We then left the VW Golf that we had been travelling in and got into another car, Chief Mathaba's car, the Toyota Cressida.  We got into the car.  We were armed and Manxele showed us a place, a sugarcane field where we parked the car.  We went through the sugarcane field on foot with Manxele.
	He then pointed out the house to us where this nduna stayed.  His name was Mzimela.  We asked about the situation in the nduna's house and he showed us the room or the hut where he slept.  Manxele had information that the nduna slept alone in his hut and indeed, we found him alone.  The house that the nduna slept in was a two-roomed hut.  And there were other huts around it.
	We knocked on the door and the nduna responded from inside and inquired as to who we were.  We told him that we are police and we want to search the hut.  He refused to open the door for us because the situation wasn't safe and we asked him why is it not safe, and he told us that there is a rumour, a bad rumour around the place and he wouldn't open the door; we should come back the following morning.
	We begged the nduna - myself doing that - assuring him that I was a policeman; we just wanted to search the hut because we had information that he had weapons in the hut.  He then looked through the window.  He wanted us to show our appointment certificates that we are indeed policemen.  I had agreed to do this.
	He opened the curtain to really ascertain that we were indeed policemen.  As he was doing this, Zwele's brother fired a shot.  The shots missed the nduna but it hit on the edge of the window.  When Zwele hit the edge of the window, he hit a wooden edge of the window which caught fire and the curtain also caught fire.
	We realized that the people in the other huts would identify us and were then forced to kick the door open; and we did this.
	There could be something that I'm forgetting.  We had been informed that the nduna had guns in his hut, and we did believe that he had them, although we didn't see the guns.  Because when he was refusing to open the door, we heard a noise inside and we thought that he was readying his guns.  And when he wanted to see our certificates, there was a noise like a gun being loaded.  But when we got inside the hut we didn't have time to check if there were really guns inside the hut.
	Because when we kicked the door open Zwele's brother stepped inside first.  He was carrying a shotgun, carrying it at the ready.  As he entered the nduna grabbed the shotgun and they struggled, and we couldn't get any closer because it had become dark.  The fire had turned out.
	We didn't know how to get any closer because they were fighting, both grabbing the gun and we didn't know if one of them was going to squeeze the trigger at any time.  So we didn't know what to do.
	As they were fighting, Israil Fangwane went down on all fours, crawling towards them.  And he went behind the chief and shot him in the head at close range.  The nduna fell down and then Zwele Dlamini's brother and Israil fired several shots at him.
	After that we didn't look for the guns which were supposedly in a trunk.  We just fled.
	In that pandemonium a shot was fired and Israil thought that he had been hit on the knee.  It appeared later that he wasn't really hit, but his jean was.  When we left the scene we were carrying him to go to the car because we thought he had been hit.
	When we got into the car, we sped off.  When we arrived at Chief Mathaba's house and there was light, we realized that he was not hit.
	We then told the Inkozi that we had done our job well and we got into Jerry's car and we left quickly because we were afraid that the police might be called at any time.

MR WILLS: Were any of you prosecuted or arrested in connection with this matter?

DJ MKHIZE: No, none of us was prosecuted or arrested for that crime.  As usual I made a report after the instruction had been carried out to Captain (indistinct).

MR WILLS: Just incidently, was Jerry Ndanda, a Caprivi training?

DJ MKHIZE: No, he was not trained by us but by the African National Congress.

MR WILLS: Yes.  I want you to turn now to pg 120, your para 91 concerning a matter which essentially amounts to you obstructing the course of justice in relation to the releasing of persons found in the unlawful possession of fire-arms.  If you could just briefly go through this incident.