Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-30

CHAIRPERSON: May I just ask you something Mr Kincaid?  Leaving aside the Clackers' incident for the moment because there Mrs Clackers testified that she had handed over some small change to one of the assailants but insofar as the other incidents are concerned, do we have to find that or is there a basis for us to find that items other than the firearms and ammunition were in fact stolen from the farms?

MR KINCAID: Mr Chairman, I don't think there is a basis in the Hansel incident which was the other incident which involved, where goods were actually recovered because none of the applicants were convicted of robbery of any other items except the twelve bore shotgun but their case is that they can't whether items were taken or not because they didn't see the removal of those items and they can categorically state for the Committee that they personally didn't involve themselves in taking any item other than an armed weapon.
	Mrs Marulia at that incident, as items were taken and that's not placed in issue by the applicants but their case is solely whether you believe them or not that they didn't take any of those items themselves.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that the applicants are conceding that items of a non-weaponry nature had in fact been stolen in other cases or what are they saying, are they saying they can't say because we certainly, we have all these papers before us, court papers and so on, but apart from Mrs Clackers we don't have any evidence before us, really, on any other items apart from the money that Mrs Clackers has been talking about.

MR KINCAID: I think it's safe to say, Mr Chairman, that they would concede that in the Marulia incident there were other items taken which weren't weapons or arms.  It's their case that they didn't take it but all of them during cross-examination conceded that that was possible, that these other items were taken.  That doesn't make them less guilty of robbery because it's - they did rob firearms from Mrs Marulia so from the robbery aspect they were correctly convicted but in my submission the incident of Mr Hansel, the judge was unable to find that any items were taken from Mr Hansel.  He was unable to find that as a fact and in that regard the applicants once again say, well if it happened we don't know anything about it, we can't say that it did, we can't say it didn't, all that we can say is we weren't involved in it.  So I don't know if that answers your query, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, no I note what you are submitting, I'm just trying to ascertain exactly what the ambit of the issues before us amount to, whether it is necessary for us to deal with items of a non-weaponry nature but if you say that the applicants concede in the Marulia matter that there were items of that nature taken then of course it does become an issue that we have to consider.

MR KINCAID: I don't make that concession, I think it was made by the applicants themselves, Mr Chairman, I think it was their case that they don't dispute that those items were taken.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes but are we in a position then to conclude on that, that those items were in fact taken because I don't know whether they sort of explicitly conceded that those things were taken they say it was possible, they didn't see it but it is very possible that it was taken, they certainly didn't take it themselves.

MR KINCAID: Mr Chairman, well I can't go outside of that, outside of that concession.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, so are you saying that in view of the material before us and view of the evidence of the applicants which seems to say not very much to be quite honest with you that we are able to conclude or that we should conclude that there were items of this nature taken in the Marulia matter only?