Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-26

MR VISSER: Yes.  Doctor, in your experience, when you did a post-mortem and you thought that the person had died of unnatural causes, would there be a special procedure which you would have to follow, or that you followed in that event?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Well, once it is unnatural causes, you record it as such.

MR VISSER: Yes?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: And you must submit a report, because it should naturally follow towards an inquest.

MR VISSER: That is right.  There was no inquest held as far as you can tell, on PM1155?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, I don't know.

MR VISSER: Nor does it appear that there was one held on PM580?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I have no idea.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Chairperson, if you are interested, it is the inquest at 58/59 and it is Section 2, "duty to report deaths", which speak of unnatural causes.
	Do you have any personal knowledge of the burial of corpses in paupers' graves, or does that not fall within your knowledge?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, it doesn't fall really within my understanding or ambit, yes.

MR VISSER: All right.  Have you ever heard it being said that more than one corps is buried in paupers' graves?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Well, I haven't heard of a particular instance in which it happened.

MR VISSER: Would you be surprised if somebody said so?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Not completely, it would be surprising, because I think there is an Ordinance, Burials and Cremations Ordinance that probably provides for, it is a Municipal Ordinance that a single body has to be in a grave.  It will be surprising, but you know, today, what is surprising?

MR VISSER: You say there is a Municipal Ordinance?  We will check on that.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I think it is a Municipal Ordinance.

MR VISSER: What would the normal depth of a normal grave be, do you know?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, idea.  All I know is the proverbial six feet.

MR VISSER: Six feet?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: You wouldn't expect to find a body buried at 1 metre for example?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: In the few exhumations I have done in proper cemeteries, they usually were at a good enough depth.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Because I should have said I am talking about a proper cemetery where there are people in the employ of the municipality or the burrow or the State or whoever.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: And they work, presumably, according to the regulations and the guidelines, whatever, they are told what to do.  They are told what to do, how deep to go and so on.  That is the situation I am talking about.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Thank you.   Have you heard of Dr Susan Loth?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I have heard of her.

MR VISSER: Have you read any of her papers?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Not a paper, but I came across her name associated with Jassar ...(indistinct), they worked together or he was her mentor and she was his student.  I think she is well qualified now.

MR VISSER: If Prof Vanezis considers her as an expert in the field of forensic anthropology, would you agree with him?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Oh, I wouldn't disagree.

MR VISSER: Have you heard of a Prof Maryna Steyn?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I last knew her as doctor, she has been promoted, that is very nice, yes.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I heard of her from the University of Pretoria.

MR VISSER: Yes.   And would you regard her as an expert?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I don't know her very well, she is well thought of I would think.

CHAIRPERSON: What is her expertise, Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: As far as we know Chairperson, Forensic Anthropology.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I think she is an Anatomist.

MR VISSER: An Anatomist?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: With an interest in forensic anthropology.

MR VISSER: I may stand corrected in that regard.  I am not going to refer you to any of her views, I am going to confine myself to Dr Susan Loth and where necessary, then to Mr Iskan as well, Prof Iskan as well.  I am sure you have heard of him too as well, I think you have already said so.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I use his work, I have a book of his as well.

MR VISSER: Dr Naidoo, I want to ask you, are you saying that on what you observed, you can positively identify the skeletal remains PM1155 as belonging to Ntombi Kubheka?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, I cannot say so positively.  What I can say or - would you like me to continue?

MR VISSER: Yes please.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: What I can say is that given the characteristics of the unknown person and given the findings that I made myself, plus with the added cranial facial investigations, that the two areas match in very many respects.
	In fact, to say that there are no points of non-matching.

MR VISSER: Well, we will talk about that a little later on.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: All right.  Can we just go through these identification issues?  The first thing is you would have heard me asking Prof Vanezis whether he agreed that as far as identification is concerned, there are basically four categories.  The one is not really a category, the one is a rule out, but if you want to, you can call that a category, but the other two are indeterminate, possible and positive.
	Do you agree in general, with that?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I would accept that, yes.

MR VISSER: And what Prof Vanezis said and I am quite aware that you are basing your opinions on other things that he didn't have in front of him, but leaving that aside for the moment, but what Prof Vanezis told us is that on what he was busy with, he cannot make a positive identification of the skull which he examined, with Ms Kubheka.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, and the same goes for myself.

MR VISSER: And the same goes for yourself?  Now he said that there is a strong likelihood or something like that, highly likely, highly likely that it was, but he added that that doesn't place it in the category of positive.  Are you also in agreement with that?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Your evidence here today doesn't take that issue further, the question of the likelihood or does it?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No, it doesn't push it into a further category.  Any other further category, yes.

MR VISSER: Of positive?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Thank you.  You see, let's immediately say to each other that we are not concerned about race or sex, particularly in this case, because it must be accepted that the person that you had on the table before you, must have been a Negroid female person, so leaving that aside, coming to age and you have spoken about Dr Spears and I am not going to spend too much time.  The only thing is I wish to differentiate as far as age is concerned, the age of the person to whom the skeleton, 1155, belonged at the time of death, as opposed to the time of the skeleton since death.  Now, what has happened in your case is that an attempt was made at establishing age by both yourself and Dr Spears and you made it clear, of the living person, in other words at the time of death, that would be correct?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Was any attempt made at establishing the age of the skeleton since death that you know?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: No.  What you must understand is that any age determination that we do on skeletal remains, refers to an age at the time of death.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: The age determination that we make, doesn't refer to post-mortem ...(indistinct), that is a separate aspect.

MR VISSER: Yes.