Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — UNKNOWN

MR BOOYENS: The previous time they went to the expense of actually getting you with a white hat on a roof so that they could fly over with a helicopter.  But this time they were so stupid that they didn't even ask you the address.  Is that what you are suggesting.  You said Guguletu and they left it at that.

JIMMY MBANE: I told them that one of the houses is the home for one of the boys.  I think the address was already in his possession.  They didn't ask me, I assumed that they knew the address.

MR BOOYENS: Did you tell them which of the boys?

JIMMY MBANE: I didn't tell them.

MR BOOYENS: You tell them, one of them, there were several of them staying in Guguletu, not so?  Is that correct?

JIMMY MBANE: I can't remember how many of them were originally from Guguletu.	But most of them were staying in Guguletu.

MR BOOYENS: Yes, exactly.  So you tell them, Oh we are staying at one of the addresses of the people in Guguletu.  And they didn't ask you which one.  Is that your evidence, Mr Mbane?

JIMMY MBANE: That's my evidence.  They didn't ask me.

MR BOOYENS: And you didn't tell them say, we are staying at Rastaman's address, or whoever's address it was.  Or Chris Piet's address, or whoever's address it was. You didn't bother to tell them that either.

JIMMY MBANE: That's correct.  I didn't tell them.

MR BOOYENS: In fact, I may be mistaken but I think when I asked you the question just a while back whether you informed them that you have moved to the address of somebody, you said no you didn't, you didn't think about it.  Now you say you did. 	I may be wrong there, my Lord, but that's my recollection.

ADV J MOSES: My recollection is, my Lord, that he said that I just told them that we had moved to Guguletu.  I think my learned colleague must just be careful not to put words in my client's mouth.

CHAIRPERSON: You see, he first of all started off saying he didn't know the addresses, then he changed that to say it was the address of one of the boys, do you recollect that, Mr Moses?

MR BOOYENS: Now, at that stage, your group consisted of nine, call them recruits, and you two, that is you and Maluleka.  Is that right?

JIMMY MBANE: When they started there were nine and the others were informers.  They were shot and killed.  The eighth one was a Mozambican guy who came to join us.

MR BOOYENS: Shortly before the attack, your group consisted of nine people, and you and Eric Maluleka.  That was your evidence in chief. 	Is that correct?

JIMMY MBANE: We were nine, including myslef and Eric Maluleka.

MR BOOYENS: Your evidence was that there were five of you and subsequently another four joined you.

SISI KHAMPEPE: I don't think so Mr Booyens.  There were seven and there were nine if you included him and Mr Maluleka. Those are my notes.

ADV J MOSES: That was also the evidence in chief.

SISI KHAMPEPE: That's why I am saying Mr Moses.  His evidence in chief.

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, my recollection is that there were four.  Rasta joined and then another four joined them, but in any case that is not too serious because I can get the number nine somewhere else.

SISI KHAMPEPE: I can read if you want to.

MR BOOYENS: No, I accept that that is the Commissioner's note, Mr Chairman.
	So the group, was the group never bigger than seven recruits and you and Eric Maluleka?

ADV J MOSES: With all due respect, that was never his evidence.
His evidence, his evidence in chief was clearly that the group started out with nine and thereafter certain people were killed.  And if my learned friend can recall, that at - when my client testified about the incident itself certain people were dropped, and he was requested to tell the Committee how many at which intervals or stages.  His evidence was clear that at the time of the attack there were seven people and him and Eric included amounted to nine people in total.

MR BOOYENS: If my learned friend listened to my questions, he wouldn't make unnecessary objections.
	I was talking shortly before the attack, how big the group was then.  I knew he said that seven people took part in the attack, Mr Chairman.  I am not talking about the time of the attack.

ADV J MOSES: With all due respect, then my learned friend should be clearer, because if it's shortly, then it's also vague.  If he could given an indication as to what is meant by shortly.

MR BOOYENS: Twenty four hours.  Twenty four hours before the attack, how many members were in your group?

JIMMY MBANE: We were nine.

MR BOOYENS: Twelve hours before the attack, how many members were in your group?

JIMMY MBANE: We were nine.

MR BOOYENS: Does that include you and Maluleka?

JIMMY MBANE: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Did you, did this group, excluding you and Maluleka, at any stage consist of nine members?

JIMMY MBANE: Yes there were nine before including the informers who wanted to join the group.

MR BOOYENS: So that's why the group was reduced to seven:  the informers were killed?

JIMMY MBANE: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Now, what was the purpose of burying the two AK47's?  Or hiding them shortly before the attack, in the blankets.

JIMMY MBANE: I was trying to reduce the number of arms in the kombi.  So that others can go out and get other arms.  I was not aware that those people were going to be shot.  That was the reason.

ADV C BOOYENS: Okay, you were unaware that the people were going to be shot.

JIMMY MBANE: Anything can happen in that kind of operation.

MR BOOYENS: Now, but why did you want to reduce the number of arms?  You already had enormous fire power in that kombi.  Three AK47's and a few hand guns.  Plus hand grenades.

JIMMY MBANE: I wanted that the other people should go to the bush and go and fetch the other weapons, those that were already buried there.  The only people who went away unarmed were those people who were supposed to fetch the arms in the bush.

MR BOOYENS: I don't understand why the arms had to be hidden in the bush.
	You were travelling with three AK47 rifles, and hand guns, in fact there were then at a least a total of seven firearms and hand grenades in that kombi. Why did the two AK's have to be buried?  You said buried in the bush now, so let's assume they were buried in the bush.

JIMMY MBANE: Those were the people to alight first from the vehicle.  They were going to fetch the arms.  We were using different points.  They were alighting from the vehicle at different points so then we wanted to reduce the number of arms in the vehicle.

MR BOOYENS: Why?

JIMMY MBANE: That was our plan.

MR BOOYENS: Why was the plan made like that?  That's what I want to know.  I hear what you say, I want to know why.

JIMMY MBANE: I was not the only one who was making that decision, we discussed together with the commanders and we reached a decision.  We agreed that we are not going to the same point.

MR BOOYENS: Which commanders did you discuss it with? I thought you were in command.

JIMMY MBANE: The three people in charge.  I was the first in charge and another one second in charge and Rasta was the third in charge.

MR BOOYENS: So you were quite enthusiastic about this plan.  Is that right?

JIMMY MBANE: That was our decision.  All of us took this decision.

MR BOOYENS: Were you enthusiastic about this plan of ambushing this police kombi?

JIMMY MBANE: Can you please repeat the question?  What do you mean about being enthusiastic?

MR BOOYENS: You wanted to do it.

JIMMY MBANE: First of all I didn't know that those people were going to be shot because when I went there to show Bellingan that point where we were going to alight, they didn't tell me that they were going to shoot them.  They didn't tell me that.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you think they were going to do when people came out of your kombi with AK47's, pistols, hand grenades.  How did you think the police were going to react?

JIMMY MBANE: I thought they were going to ambush the kombi and arrest these people.  Not to kill them.