Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-18

DR KLEPP: (sworn states)

MR RICHARD: Dr Klepp, for the sake of the record would you please describe your qualifications and specialisations?

DR KLEPP: I have an MBChB degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, a diploma in Forensic Medicine from the College of Medicine of South Africa, a Fellowship in Forensic Pathology from the College of Medicine of South Africa, and a masters degree in Forensic Pathology from the University of the Witwatersrand.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.  Where do you work?

DR KLEPP: I work in the Gauteng Department of Health and as a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand.

MR RICHARD: And during January 1988, where were you employed?

DR KLEPP: I was working both at the Soweto and the Johannesburg Government Mortuaries.

MR RICHARD: As what?

DR KLEPP: As a Specialist Forensic Pathologist.

MR RICHARD: And what were your duties at that time?

DR KLEPP: Among my duties was obviously to do post-mortem examinations on people who had died of unnatural deaths.

MR RICHARD: So do you consider yourself to be a Specialist Pathologist?

DR KLEPP: I am.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.  Now before you had a post-mortem report, do you recall the incident?

DR KLEPP: Vaguely.  It was 11 years ago, but I vaguely remember a post-mortem that I did do at Diepkloof with Dr Gluckman in attendance.

MR RICHARD: When was that done?

DR KLEPP: I conducted a post-mortem examination on body DK158 of 1988, on the 27th of January 1988 at the Diepkloof Mortuary.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Gluckman is quite well-known in the profession, isn't he?

DR KLEPP: Yes, he is, very well.

MR RICHARD: And Dr Gluckman and you did this particular post-mortem together?

DR KLEPP: Well Dr Gluckman watched me conduct the post-mortem examination.

MR RICHARD: And why was Dr Gluckman there?

DR KLEPP: I do not know, he must have been requested by somebody, but I do not know who.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.  Now if you look at the post-mortem report on Schedule of Observations, it's page 52 of the bundle, there various injuries are described, the first one being a 6mm round wound.  Now what would that wound have been caused by?

DR KLEPP: Wound 1 in paragraph 4 is a gunshot entrance wound to the head.

MR RICHARD: And where was the exit wound?

DR KLEPP: Wound 2 is a description of the external wound which was over the ramous of the mandible on the right side, as I'm indicating at the moment.  So in other words, we had a gunshot entrance wound over the top of the head on the left side that exited the jaw on the right side.

MR RICHARD: Now that gunshot was consistent with somebody standing above the person, is there anything more you could say?

DR KLEPP: I am unable to say in what position the two people were to each other, the deceased could have been sitting, standing, he could actually have been standing with the head bent forward.  One cannot say that the person was necessarily above the individual when he was shot.

CHAIRPERSON: Does page 57 show you the entrance wound?

DR KLEPP: I don't know whether I have page 57.  Are there some photographs?

CHAIRPERSON: Ja.

DR KLEPP: Yes, photograph 57, as one looks at the book the photograph at the bottom shows the gunshot entrance wound with the hair around the wound having been shaved.

MR RICHARD: Could you make any comment as to how far the firearm was away from the victim?

DR KLEPP: I do mention on page 4 of my report, under Specimens Retained, that I took the hair from around the wound and I handed it over to the investigating officer for examination, the Police Forensic Laboratories in Pretoria.  Had they found powder, in other words burnt and unburnt gunpowder, I could then give you an estimation, a rough distance from which the head was shot.  If there was no powder, and I don't have the result of that test, well then it would be considered to be a distant shot, which means over one arm's length from the deceased, but I don't have the result of whether it was positive or negative.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.  Now if we proceed to page 53 of the bundle.

DR KLEPP: Again what I have in front of me is not numbered.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct)

DR KLEPP: Sorry?

CHAIRPERSON: Page 3 of the report is page 53.

DR KLEPP: Right, I do have it.

MR RICHARD: There we come to item 12, and it says
"Trachea contained blood stained secretions"
What is that consistent with?

DR KLEPP: There was blood in the air ways which could have come from the head.  In other words with the gunshot wound to the head, the skull was fractured and blood could then have passed down through the back of the throat.
	Another possible sight of where the blood could have originated is when one has sustained a severe gunshot wound to the head you actually get shunting of blood from the periphery of the body to the lower pressure system of the lungs and exudation of blood into the secretions.  So it could either have come from below or from above.

MR RICHARD: And then we proceed to paragraph 13 where you describe
"Sub-plural haemorrhages involving all lobes of the right lung."

DR KLEPP: Yes.

MR RICHARD: What are they consistent with?

DR KLEPP: Sub-plural petechial haemorrhages usually occur in conditions of anoxia where a person has had difficulty breathing.  In this gentleman the cause of them would have been the gunshot wound to the head, which would have caused respiratory embarrassment.

MR RICHARD: So that would mean that the gunshot did not cause instant death?

DR KLEPP: It did not cause instant death, as is borne out by my findings of inhalation of blood in paragraph 13 on page 3 of my report, and also the large sub-endocardial haemorrhage in the left ventricle of the heart.  One finds those in conditions of shock or low blood pressure.  If one dies immediately one does not usually find those, whereas if one has sustained a severe injury where the blood pressure had dropped and that blood pressure is maintained at a low pressure for a period of time, that's when that haemorrhage occurs.

MR RICHARD: I know it's difficult, but would you be able to give us any indication as to how long this gentleman took to die?

DR KLEPP: I'm unable to do that, the only way that that could be assessed is if I had been called to where he had been found dead.  Oh no, you're not asking me how long he had been dead for, how long - no, I'm unable to say.

CHAIRPERSON: Well can you give us an estimate?  You have referred to a period of time.

DR KLEPP: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you talking about five minutes or half an hour?

DR KLEPP: I would talk about more in the region of half an hour or longer.

CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.  I cannot be absolutely accurate on that, that's a rough estimation, but if somebody were to have seen him half an hour later and he was alive it's certainly consistent with that, if he was seem alive two to three hours later, it's also consistent with that.

CHAIRPERSON: But it's certainly more than five minutes?

DR KLEPP: I do believe so, yes.  The part of the brain that the bullet passed through was not one of the vital centres, in other words it did not go through the mid-brain or the ponds or the medulla oblongata, so it would have taken just a little bit longer than had it gone through a vital centre which would have been instantaneously fatal.

MR RICHARD: Now paragraph 17, there you make the comment
"The stomach contains undigested food."

DR KLEPP: Yes.

MR RICHARD: What does that mean to you?