Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-25

MS THABETE: Thank you.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Sipho, are you in a position to make submissions?

MR SIPHO: Yes, I am, thank you.  I submit that the killing of the deceased in this matter, was politically motivated and I seek support for that submission from the judgement which is before you at this stage.
	You will note from the summary of substantial facts, which is set out at page 190, that this actually begins with an introduction of the accused as members of amakubani, that is the comrades, which was aligned to the African National Congress in the Greytown area.
	I know that some of the accused, when they gave, or some of the applicants, when they gave evidence this morning, didn't seem to know very much about different structures and so on, but I think what was common through out in respect of each and every one of them, was that they had in fact aligned themselves with the ANC.
	They all regarded the IFP as an enemy.  If anybody had gone along onto the other side, they were regarded as somebody that should be dealt with.  I think that was fairly common knowledge amongst all South Africans during the period when this incident took place.  
	The statement goes on to of course describe the deceased as a member also of the ANC, and it also describes the compound at which the deceased was seen, as a place frequented by the members.  It was also - the State also sought to prove that the deceased's name was on a list of persons supporting the IFP.
	All of that suggests very strongly that what the State had set out to do, was to prove that there was a political motive for the killing.  It led evidence to establish this motive, and also led evidence to align the applicants with that motive, and having established that motive, it then found that all the accused were guilty of this offence on the basis of a common purpose.
	The common purpose being the political motive to kill this person.
	That prevailed, even though the Judge at page 281 found that there was no evidence that actually, that accused 5 actually participated.  He found them guilty on the basis of this common purpose, which was a political motive.
	I also then want to refer the Committee to various parts of the judgement from which I also seek to draw support for this submission that it was a political motive, which inspired this killing.
	If one looks at the record, from page 202 at line 20, the Judge sets out facts which he said were either common cause or were not seriously disputed.  If I could just turn to page 202, you will find that at line 20, the facts which he said were common cause, where a township is largely inhabited by members and supporters of the African National Congress, Mr Msolo is an influential member of the township and he is charge of the youth movement of the ANC in the township, that the HLH compound is inhabited by members and supporters of Inkatha Freedom Party, and the deceased lived in the township.  On the 28th of September 1991, was seen in the compound.  He then sets out the two witnesses there who were members or supporters of the ANC.
	And that it was their duty to fight, duty of the ANC to fight the enemy that is Inkatha.  That was either common cause or it was not in dispute.  That was basically the basis upon which this whole case was founded.
	I submit that the Judge throughout was very much alive to these facts.  So much so that they have all been enumerated here.  I submit that it will be artificial for us now to look at other extraneous factors to find that maybe it wasn't politically motivated.
	I submit that even though some accused appeared as if they might have been too drunk to have known what they were doing, this, the evidence that was before the trial Judge, took place shortly after the offence itself was committed, and in regard to the question of the intoxication, at page 290, the Judge said that accused - page 290 - the Judge said that accused 5, 6 and 8, don't consume liquor.  1, 2, 3, 4 and 7, he said that liquor had some effect on them.
	I submit that that evidence was led before him, some time, possibly in 1992 and a lot of things might have been a lot clearer at that time, than they were now to the accused, who is basically thinking back and there were certain questions about how much he drank and so on, on that day, without him realising where this was getting to, obviously.
	It looked as if he may not have been aware of what he was doing at the time, but I submit that the overall impression was that they knew one thing, and that was that they were ANC members and the other side was Inkatha, and somebody had gone across and they were also aware of the fact that information was being passed on to the other side, which resulted in the death of a number of people belonging to the ANC.
	In those circumstances, it would seem that they believed that a killing in those circumstances, would be justified because not only had people on their side been killed, by that by killing this person, they might put a stop to further killings in the area.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, there doesn't seem to be much other motive for the killing.  It has been alluded to that maybe there was a romantic link between the deceased and one of her assailants, but that hasn't really come out?

MR SIPHO: Sorry, yes, I think that was actually put to try to dispute the version of I think it was, accused 2 in the trial, because he was being called upon to give some explanation of what he thought the assault on the deceased was about.
	At some point he said he thought it was a lover's quarrel.  And I think that is where that idea came from.  I don't think there is much support for it anywhere else.

CHAIRPERSON: It has just been mentioned, it hasn't been grasped at all at any stage.  Besides that, there doesn't seem to be any other motive, such as personal gain, robbery or there wasn't any indecent assault or anything like that at all, either.