Amnesty Hearings — Welkom — 1998-11-17

MR MAPOMA: Let me read for you on page 26 of the paginated bundle, paragraph 9.  You say in this letter that you wrote to the Amnesty Committee
"As I was regularly meeting with my instructor, the Chief-of-Staff of the Self Defence Units in the Northern Free State, a well trained cadre of MK who had his military training from abroad and recruited me to be involved in the mission of the SDUs."
Then you go and go on.  Now how do you explain this in the light of what you have just told the Committee?

SOLOMON SERA: What you have just read I will explain it this way.  There was a misunderstanding between me and my commander.  It's only now that I become aware that this is the statement that was supposed to be made by him because I had not yet met Khumalo by then.  He was the only person who had contact with Khumalo, so I think that was the mistake that I made.

MR MAPOMA: But is this not the letter which was written by yourself and addressed to the Amnesty Committee?

SOLOMON SERA: Yes, that's correct, I wrote the letter.

MR MAPOMA: And you wanted the Amnesty Committee to grant you amnesty on the basis of what you say in this letter or in support of your application, is it not so?

SOLOMON SERA: That's correct, it supports my application.

MR MAPOMA: And in paragraph 10 on page 27 of the bundle, in paragraph 10 there on the second sentence you go on to say, in fact let me start from the first sentence of that paragraph.  You say
"We reached an agreement that we will have to meet again at a later stage and reach the final decision.  We then met as agreed and we were both maintaining our position that really something has to be done, and he furnished the commander of the operation a 3.57 Magnum fully loaded revolver as the commander of the operation."
When you say "he furnished to commander of the operation", whom do you refer to in this letter?

SOLOMON SERA: Like I've already explained, maybe we made a mistake while I was writing this letter.  The person who was given this revolver was my commander, that is Mr Mohomane.

MR MAPOMA: And who was he giving it to?

SOLOMON SERA: What he told me was that he was given this weapon by comrade Khumalo for that particular operation that we were supposed to carry out.

MR MAPOMA: And who was the commander of the operation?

SOLOMON SERA: That is Isaac Mohomane.  My commander was Isaac Mohomane.

MR MAPOMA: And Isaac Mohomane is the person who was the commander of the operation, is it so?

SOLOMON SERA: That's correct.

MR MAPOMA: And Isaac Mohomane was given this Magnum revolver by his commander?

SOLOMON SERA: The way he told me is that he was given this revolver by his commander.

MR MAPOMA: And as it appears in this letter of yours here, you were present when this revolver was given to Mr Mohomane.  Do you agree with me that what is reflected in this letter here gives an impression that you were also present when this gun was given by this trained cadre of MK to the commander of your operation?

SOLOMON SERA: I've already explained, maybe it's a mistake that we made when I was writing this letter.

MR MAPOMA: Who told you to write this letter?

SOLOMON SERA: I was with comrade Mohomane when I was writing this letter.

MR MAPOMA: And you discussed it with him, isn't that so?

SOLOMON SERA: After writing this letter I gave it to him, so I don't know whether he read this letter before he took the letter where it was supposed to be delivered.

CHAIRPERSON: But the question was, when you were writing the letter or before writing the letter, did you and Mr Mohomane discuss what would be written or was this letter just your own initiative which you only gave to him after you wrote and when you gave it to him he didn't know or wouldn't necessarily have known exactly what you wrote?

SOLOMON SERA: We did discuss before we wrote this letter.

DR TSOTSI: Did you receive any letter from the TRC, from the Amnesty Committee?

SOLOMON SERA: Yes, there are letters that I received from the office of the TRC but I don't remember where they are right now.  I think I left them in jail.

DR TSOTSI: What were they about, what was the content of the letters?

SOLOMON SERA: Some of those letters that I received I don't remember their contents clearly.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, continue, Mr Mapoma.

MR MAPOMA: Now do you agree therefore, or which on is correct between the contents of this letter and what you have just told this Committee now?

SOLOMON SERA: What is correct is that comrade Mohomane is the only person who had contact with comrade Craig.

MR MAPOMA: When you met these policemen, or just explain, how did you get in contact with these policemen?

SOLOMON SERA: I never met these policemen.  We went to the place where the car was parked, the policemen's car.  I never met them so I didn't know them, I didn't know the people who were inside that car because I never went inside to identify the people who were inside.

MR MAPOMA: And what time was it?

SOLOMON SERA: For the first time we went there at seven together with comrade Isaac Mohomane.  For the second time we went there as a unit, it was around nine or after nine or something to ten.

MR MAPOMA: And you have told the Committee that you knew these policemen, do you remember that?

SOLOMON SERA: That is correct, I knew them.  I knew these policemen because I used to work at the Court as a messenger so sometimes when they were bringing the cases in Court I would meet them and that is where I knew that they were policemen.

MR MAPOMA: And you ...(indistinct) amongst yourselves, is it yourself who got into the restaurant where they were and identified them?

SOLOMON SERA: No, I did not.

MR MAPOMA: Is there someone amongst yourselves who went into the place where they were sitting and identified them?

SOLOMON SERA: The person who went inside was Phillip Mosia, while they were dining.

MR MAPOMA: And then he came back and told you who these policemen were?

SOLOMON SERA: He didn't tell us who they were, he just told us the policemen are there, that is the policemen who were driving the vehicle that we have identified.  He didn't specify them by their names.

MR MAPOMA: Now in this letter that you wrote to the Amnesty Committee, on page 28 of this paginated bundle on the second paragraph you say this and I'm going to read for you
"It was about 10 o'clock at night when we stopped a blue mini-bus entering the shopping centre."
Did you stop a mini-bus at all?

SOLOMON SERA: It was already there when we arrived.

MR MAPOMA: You go on to say
"We knew that it was a Murder and Robbery Squad which was in the mini-bus."
Do you see that?

SOLOMON SERA: I knew them because like I've already said I was working in the Court, I used to see them there.

MR MAPOMA: Now do you agree with me that the contents of this letter or in fact the paragraph that I've just read to you in the contents of this letter, are at variance with what you are telling this Committee today?

SOLOMON SERA: I'll explain it this way ...(intervention)

MR MAPOMA: No, before you explain, do you agree with me that there are some variations between these contents I've just read for you and what you have told this Committee before?

SOLOMON SERA: Yes, I do.

MR MAPOMA: And how do you explain those variations then?

SOLOMON SERA: I'll explain it this way.  Like I've already explained, while I was writing this letter I was sentenced to death.  The death sentence contributed a lot to the mistakes that I had made in that letter.  While I was writing this letter with Mr Mohomane, although we were sitting down discussing what should be written on this letter, sometimes I took some of the thing that was supposed to be written by him and then I wrote them in this letter.  That is why I say that I must have committed some mistakes in the letter that appears in this bundle.