Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-09-02

CHAIRPERSON: As I understand the position, counsel appearing for Mr Ngo is not present today, due to a misunderstanding as to his instructions.  I wish to make it clear that those are not the instructions that he was to derive from an attorney, but from the Legal Aid Board or the Deputy State Attorney, acting on behalf of the Police Force.
	There is a second problem, and that is that a Mr Motsamai who is also due to appear before us to seek amnesty later this week, was told that he need not be here till Thursday, despite the fact that the evidence given during the course of Mr Ngo's application, may be extremely relevant with regard to his application.
	Is that correct, Mr Mthembu?

UNKNOWN: That is correct, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I further understand, having discussed the matter with the legal representatives and the evidence leader, that it will not be possible to make arrangements to have those people here today, it is possible that Mr Motsamai may come later, but it is no more than a possibility and I do not think it right that the members of the public who have already wasted the whole morning sitting here, hoping for proceedings to start, should have to wait here longer in the expectation of something happening which may or may not occur.
	In these circumstances, we have decided that we will adjourn the hearing till nine o'clock tomorrow morning in the hope that by then the missing Advocate and applicant will be present and will be ready to proceed.
	I understand that all the other parties who are present, who have been here throughout the morning, will be ready to come back tomorrow, as will certain other attorneys who have already communicated with us and indicated that they have instructions to appear but in the light of what happened today, they would not be of any relevance till tomorrow, they will also be here.  So we now adjourn this matter, till nine o'clock tomorrow morning.
COMMISSION ADJOURNS

CHAIRPERSON: Does anyone wish to say anything?

UNKNOWN: Not from my side, Judge.

UNKNOWN: Not from my side, Judge.

ADV MEMANI: We have nothing to add Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: What stage have we reached - who will  now be leading evidence or what?

UNKNOWN: The evidence will be led by a Mr Memani who is appearing for the applicant.

CHAIRPERSON: It will be recorded that we are now starting this hearing at 09:30 on Tuesday, the 2nd of September.  The Committee consists of myself, Andrew Wilson, Judge Vernon Ngoepe and Mr Chris de Jager.  Will the parties appearing, please announce themselves.

UNKNOWN: I appear as evidence leader for the Committee Mr Chairman.

ADV MEMANI: I appear on instructions from Mr Mthembu on behalf of the applicant, and my name is Adv Memani.

UNKNOWN: I am Mr Mthembu, the instructing attorney for Mr Ngo.

MR STANDER: I am Hennie Stander, I am appearing on behalf of Shadrack Oliphant, a victim.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, may it please you.  I am instructed by Messrs Wagener, Muller & Du Plessis of Pretoria.  I appear for a list of people implicated and who have an interest in the matter, which list has now grown to 22.  Perhaps I could quickly place that on record, I believe that I should do so Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And your name, I don't think you've placed that on record.

MR VISSER: My own name is Louis Visser, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman I appear for A.H. Coetzee, J.P.P. Erasmus, T.G. Shaw, L.S. Lesale, L.A. Letseho, M.S. Mamome, Z.P. Mbanjani, P.K. Mininqwa, M.D. Morakile, R.M. Mtyala, T.H. Ramoseu,  D.S. Sesedinyyana, J.P. Tsoametsi, and the new ones that I added since we arrived here in Bloemfontein this week Mr Chairman, are L.M. Jantjie, D.D. Thula, L.D. Sefatsa, H.J. Bester, M.A. Mokalake, K.H. Somela, P. van den Berg, M.J. Mmelesi and S.P. Kopi.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR BRITZ: Mr Chairman, my name is Willem Britz, I am from attorneys Strydom, Britz incorporated in Pretoria.  I appear on behalf of two implicated persons, it is Colonel Flip Loots and Sergeant Hendrik Bokaba.  Adv du Plessis of the Pretoria bar will join us a bit later this afternoon.

CHAIRPERSON: Does that conclude the introductory portion and can we now proceed Mr Memani?

ADV MEMANI: Mr Chairman, this is a continuation of the application of Mr Ngo.  Mr Chairman, you will recall that at the conclusion of the previous hearing, it was directed that a pre-hearing meeting would be held.
	The pre-hearing meeting was held at Pretoria on Monday, the 18th of August 1997 and was chaired by the Honourable Member of the Committee, Mr De Jager.  I believe that you have minutes of the pre-hearing before yourselves and I wish to refer you to page 3 of the minute.
	The offences referred to under paragraph 2 therein, that is 2.1, the murder of Mr Venter and 2.2 the kidnapping of White Mohapi, have been dealt with and completed.  At the time of the adjournment we were busy with the application in respect of the offence listed as 2.7, the murder of the UDF activist Papie.
	We propose that it would not be practical to simply continue from where we stopped and that we should just proceed de novo with this application as if no evidence was led at all.
	We have also singled out offences 2.5 and 2.6 as being non-gross violations and we propose that no evidence be led here in respect of these matters and that you hear these matters and determine these matters in Chambers.
	There is of course the difficulty that it is denied by certain members of the police who would have given these instructions, that these instructions were given within the course and scope of duty and we do not know then how you would deal with that as the Committee.

CHAIRPERSON: Would it not be more convenient to deal with them here if there are disputes in fact, as to the instructions?  Can that be dealt with in Chambers?

ADV MEMANI: I am in the hands of the Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I think they should be dealt with here as they will be the same as I understand it, the same conflict in respect of these as in respect of the other cases where the applicant states that he received instructions to commit the acts.

MPHITHIZELI NELSON NGO: I suppose you may, if that would be convenient for you in that regard if there is a number of them, you may perhaps just dwell on the question of -on the disputed aspects when you deal with them.  That is the instructions.
	What I don't understand though, if I could go back to 2.7 is, I don't understand, what should happen with previous evidence on this aspect?  What is the status of the previous - why are we to hear evidence again in respect of the same thing?  We have the evidence on record surely?

ADV MEMANI: The difficulty is that the witness can't recall where he stopped and it is just difficult for him to continue where he stopped.
	We are not saying that the evidence should be disregarded as if it was not led, what we are saying is that for practical purposes, we will start afresh.

MPHITHIZELI NELSON NGO: But didn't you take some notes?

ADV MEMANI: Yes, we did Mr Chairman.  But when we consulted it seemed the better thing to do to sort of start with  him afresh.

MPHITHIZELI NELSON NGO: I see.

ADV MEMANI: Yes.  Mr Chairman, then after the Papie matter, we will ...

CHAIRPERSON: That evidence was led on the 15th of May, wasn't it?

ADV MEMANI: Yes, but my instructions were that we did not finish dealing with Papie.

ADV DE JAGER: Evidence was recorded on the record on page 132 up to page 136.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, if I can be of assistance.  If you look at page 136 of bundle A, it appears that Mr Memani on that day had some problem with the papers, he said he was battling.  It was partially dealt with - this aspect of the application is partially dealt with.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on from the stage, he had given evidence as to how they killed the man.