Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

MR MKHIZE: Firstly I would like to express my pain and the hurt that I feel what I did to your family.
	I will answer your question by - I don't know whether you were present here yesterday when I explained about how your brother was murdered.  I explained that when we left Umhlane Pumatenja with the gun, the AK47 which he carried, we left the scene.  At that time Sergeant Khumalo had not really approached his gate, we had overtaken him on the way and dropped Umhlane Pumatenja ahead.  I am trying to show that when Khumalo actually arrived at his gate, myself and Romeo were not at that scene, we had already left the scene.  We then hurried to a dusty road to park our car near the dressmaking school that I mentioned yesterday.  Therefore, when Khumalo arrived at the gate, we were not physically there where he was going to be shot but there was only Umhlane Pumatenja whom we had left at the scene.  
	Therefore, Umhlane was that had shot him - when I as a commander did not really have control over him, I could not tell him anything at the time because I was not at the particular spot that he was in, I was in the opposite direction.  I mentioned yesterday that we later realised that we were also in Umhlane's line of fire because we were opposite him and therefore the decision to shoot Sergeant Khumalo regardless of the fact that he was speaking to other people who were no longer our targets was made by Umhlane.  By this I'm not trying to shrug off my responsibility, I'm not saying that I was not involved in the death of your brother, I in fact killed him.  His death is amongst the many I am responsible for but what I'm trying to say is that I could not have given any instruction to Umhlane Pumatenja maybe to stop because the opportunity was not right but I had already given him the instruction to shoot Sergeant Khumalo therefore the crime of the murder of your brother rests upon my shoulders.
	I understand perfectly well the situation that I have put your family in and I am very sad about it.  I explained that God has at last returned by conscience to me.  I want to say that in whatever way that you can put me in contact with your family, I will give you all my particulars in prison.  You can even come to the prison with the family and I will tell all and say everything to the family.  I can even make statements to the effect that you had nothing to do with the death of your brother so that the family can trust you again.  You did not know anything about it and your brother was not involved with the political activities nor the objectives that we were carrying out at the time.  We didn't even know your brother, he was just unfortunate to be present at a time when a person who was targeted was being shot but I am willing to meet your family to explain that I don't know you and I didn't know your brother but it happened.  What happened, happened as I've explained it.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you have any other questions, Mr Mabika?

MR MABIKA: No, I think the applicant has covered what I also wanted to say because I would like him to meet with the family because my situation at home has deteriorated.  If there were means or there are means of him and the family to meet I will be very pleased so that he can tell the family what really happened.
	Even at work there were a lot of people who were implicated about this.  I would be pleased if arrangements could be made for him to speak to those people as well so that the situation could be cleared.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mabika, I'm certain that any assistance that you may require will be provided by the Commission to arrange a meeting between you and the applicant or you and members of your family and the applicant.  Yes, thank you Mr Mabika.

MR MABIKA: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Hewitt, do you have any questions you wish to ask the witness?

MR HEWITT: Mr Chairman, we elect not to put any questions to this applicant at this hearing.  Our failure to put questions to this applicant at this hearing must not be construed as an admission or an acceptance by those persons whose interests we represent as an admission or an acceptance that his evidence in so far as it implicates them is correct and we place on record that those persons whose interests we represent and those persons whose names we've placed on record already, deny vehemently that they were involved in any of the conspiracies or offenses to which this witness testified.  That is all we wish to state Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Hewitt.
	Mr Wills, do you have any re-examination arising out of questions that have been put to your client by the various legal representatives and other persons?

MR WILLS: Yes thank you Mr Chairperson.

MR WILLS: Mr Mkhize, I want to go back to the incident of Nati Gumede.  I want you to tell the Committee whether or not you believed if Romeo was involved in the theft that he was charged with, the theft of the motor vehicle.

MR MKHIZE: I believe wholeheartedly that Romeo had not been involved in the theft of that car.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Wills.  Mr Mpshe, I was going to give you an opportunity afterwards when the panel gives, but I don't know if you want to do it now, it might be more convenient if you want to ask questions at this stage prior to re-examination or at that stage because after the re-examination I'm going to allow the members of the panel to put any questions and at that stage if you want to and then they can have questions arising out of that I think.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Thank you Mr Chairman, I don't have questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Sorry Mr Wills, you can continue.

MR WILLS: Thank you.  Can you answer that question that's what was the, your belief or your knowledge regarding the theft charges against Mbambo?

MR MKHIZE: I was just saying that the allegation that Romeo had stolen the car was something that confused us especially within the syndicate.  We thought of many possibilities.  If I can just explain where Romeo stayed in J2, he resided with another policeman known as Mogikosi Dube who was also stationed at eSikhawini.  This Mogikose owned a cream BMW.  Romeo himself eventually bought a BMW car which is also cream white in colour.  There are references, details of where and how or where the car was bought.  One was bought by cash, that is Mogikosi's car, but Romeo had paid a R20 000 deposit on his car and he used to pay of the rest in monthly instalments.  They were almost similar.
	I am trying to explain to the Commission that such an incident gave us an impression that maybe there was a car that went missing somewhere as it had emerged that Zuma's car was missing and those who suspected that Romeo had stolen a car, since Romeo had previously been seen driving Bonkosi's car.  But the car that was missing, that is Zungu's car, was charcoal in Bonkosi Dube's car was cream white.
	I am trying to explain that there were a lot of possibilities that we looked at to try to explain why there were these allegations that Romeo had stolen a car.  Our main concern was to find a motive behind this allegation.

MR WILLS: Mr Mkhize, sorry, just to sum up your evidence, basically what you're saying is you were convinced that Mbambo hadn't stolen the car and it was as a result of that, that you looked to try and find why somebody else had put these charges, trumped up charges against Romeo is that correct?

MR MKHIZE: Yes that is correct.

MR WILLS: And is it not also correct as the record reflects that you were, or Romeo was acquitted, Mr Mbambo was acquitted for that charge and that you and Mr Hlungwane were also acquitted for any involvement in that robbery charge.  Is that correct?  I'm referring to count 2 in the indictment.