Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-24

MRS NCALO: On her face she was okay, there was nothing on her face, but what I saw on photos, she didn't have hands, both her hands were destroyed.
 When I was thinking, I thought maybe she was trying to defend herself, she could see the gun, the bullets coming to her. She didn't have hands, especially fingers.
 After the funeral I became very sick.  Rev Boraine from the Methodist Church took me to Dr Martin who is in Auckland Park.  Dr Martin was the one who was doing post-mortems for both of them in the mortuary. Dr Martin said he is the one who was doing the post-mortems and he was also sick after seeing their bodies in the mortuary.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you, Mamma.
 Mr Padi, I would like to come back to you. You have shared with us very difficult experiences.  Partly, you confirmed what was shared an experience that was shared by one of the first witnesses this morning, experiences of torture and family harassment. But I will come back to what you said about your son. Maybe before asking the Chair to take over, ask you whether you had specific things in mind which you would like the Commission to do for you, in particular, regarding the circumstances surroundg Itumeleng's death.

UNKNOWN: My main concern is more about my three kids, particularly Refele, who still has these, what you call it,
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pellet or bird-shot in her body.  That if there is something that could be done about that, because the doctor said it cannot be removed at this stage.  They seem to be affecting her somehow.  
 The other thing is that after they were found not guilty and discharged, that they did this in self-defence, we appealed and in the Supreme Court the finding was that they were not happy about the manner in which the magistrate handled the case, and the case was referred back to the magistrate.  That was on the 10th of July 1995.  But up until this day, we have not heard a thing.  We are concerned.  We want a follow-up about this.
 The other thing is that they claimed that Dumi wanted to hurl a hand-grenade them. But up to today they have never proved that that grenade exploded or not. They were not questioned by the magistrate about the hand-grenade itself.  Where is it as evidence that Dumi actually had a hand-grenade?    
 In the case of Nokuzola, in their defence in court they said - it was not even in their defence.  They told Vincent Skosana, who was living next-door to Dumi's room, that Nokuzola attempted to hurl a hand-grenade at them and that hand-grenade caused their deaths, both of her and Dumi and blew her chest open and Dumi's face. That is the cause of their death.  That is what they told Vincent Skosana.  The evidence that Vincent Skosana gave in court as well.  But now what this other guy said, Johannes Knoetser said in court was that when Knoester said hand-grenade, he did not see that hand-grenade, and he was in front of Knoester, he was nearest to Dumi. It was shortly after the first shooting that took place before Dumi died.  
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 Dumi actually called him and said look, I am injured, please help me.  He advised him to go and see if Dumi is really injured, and he had said to Dumi, but you are armed, I cannot. Dumi said I am not armed, I am injured.  The man could see himself that Dumi is injured. He tried to approach Dumi.  As he went forward, his colleague who was behind him - and they said there were no lights in the room, it was dark, you see. How could they have seen the hand-grenade and particularly, the man behind, that is Knoester, how could he have seen this hand-grenade that Dumi attempted to hurl at Schoeman.  And Schoeman, the man who is in front and nearest to Dumi, could not see it, did not see it. He even said look, I was shocked, I jumped out and then Knoester started shooting. He actually finished him off, you see. 
 So I would like the TRC to look into this and ensure that justice is done.  A fair hearing must take place.  Because the magistrate never bothered about it, questioning them. Even I myself, I was never called in just to give my side of the story, you see. No, I think, I was never called, you see.  That's why I strongly feel that the law must take its course. This must be exposed, to avoid recurrence of things of this nature.   So that people must know that even in the future, that if you do things like this, they will haunt you, they will follow you. One day the law will catch up with you and the truth will come out.  This is what we want to see happening.
 We want to know - and remember I said they told me that if they find him, they are not going to arrest him, they are going to kill him and they did just that.  The next they said they did this in self-defence.  But then, here it is in self-defence, they knocked at the door.  They actually
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knocked on the door. He said okay, the guy who was next-door said, he heard Dumi saying yes, I will open.  The door was opened by one of them. It could have been Dumi, it could have been Nokuzola. Why do I say that?  Because the door was not forced open, nor was the lock damaged, you see. Which means that it was opened by one of them.  The fact that if it was Nokuzola, the time when they shot him and her hands were shattered by the bullets, you see, trying to sort of ward off the fire-arms.  That could have been the cause of that, you see.  
 Well, I can't say exactly what happened, I was not there.  But I think the person could have been there and not the hand-grenade as they claimed, you see.
 So at least we would like to see what happened to those two, two or three hand-grenades that they claimed they found that these people had. Because they were never shown as evidence in court.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Could I ask fellow Commissioners if they have anything to ask.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Padi, I see in your statement that you actually say that you hired your own expert witness, Mr David Joseph Platzow, a forensic expert. What was his opinion after he had actually looked at the room?

UNKNOWN: He actually felt the way I did and even the attorneys that know that he was shot in bed.  It is not a question of self-defence and not only him, including the - we had engaged the services of Dr Martin to examine the bodies, you see. He was equally shocked.  We also had the services of a radiologist to X-ray their bodies, Dr - who was this doctor again. I have just forgotten the name. Paul, I have just forgotten the surname, Dr Paul - I have just
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forgotten the surname. They actually looked into this.  Those are the people whom we instructed.  They were all shocked, that could a human being be killed in this fashion, you see.  
 That is why we still feel that the TRC should do something about this, and to avoid this happening again. Perhaps in the new Government or even governments to come. We cannot allow this to ever happen again.
 I was bitter, I felt that I will never pardon the police.  But at the end of the day, what do I get out of it?  Because this is our country, we have got to build it together and at the end of the day we need these people and we have got to educate them and we have got to change them from what they used to be in the past. It is part of our duty.

YASMINE SOOKA: For the record, who were you represented by, which firm of attorneys and who acted for you through these proceedings?

UNKNOWN: Chiddel & Thompson and Hysop and the man representing me is Brendon Barry.

YASMINE SOOKA: Have you ever gone back to Brendon to ask him  what sort of happened afterwards?