Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-21

CHAIRPERSON: Mashinela had sent this person and if he did not return, Mashinela surely would know that something must have happened to him from your side and that would not stop Mashinela from proceeding to launch retaliatory attacks against you.  Do you get my problem?  The reason why you decide to kill him, is to prevent these retaliatory attacks, then how do you prevent something when the dying of a person, will obviously incense the other side, because if he doesn't return, they must come to the conclusion that something terrible should have happened to him and still launch retaliatory attacks against your small group, so the objective of killing him, which is to prevent retaliatory attacks, does not become achieved.  Are you with me?  You do not stop Mashinela from retaliating, you probably make him even worse, because now he doesn't see anything that resembles a person he had sent to kill you.
	Now I just can't understand the objective that you've sought to achieve by killing him, because it does not remove the threat that made you to decide to kill him when the other group had decided that he should be released.

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Another thing is, another thing that should be clear here is this.  It's not possible that if you send someone to attack and after that person has been killed, people should just relax and no patrolling and they put the arms down, because a person who was trying to attack was killed, that is not the case.  That means that even if the person got killed during the attack, all the time we were supposed to be prepared for anything that would come, because I didn't know what was going to happen next.  Even Mashinela himself, I first saw him in court, coming to testify, coming in connection with this case.

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike.

CHAIRPERSON: You first saw Mashinela in court, is that what you are saying?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Yes, during the case, he is the one who took this to the police station.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, had you not met Mr Mashinela before this incident?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: No.

CHAIRPERSON: You had never met him?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Not at all.  I first saw him at the police station when I was arrested.  He came there and said:  "This is my brother" and he appeared in court with his son.

CHAIRPERSON: Didn't you give evidence to the fact that you got your brother's acquaintance once you were working at some farm, prior to you meeting this group and that this brother was a person who had left your home in Ndwedwe a long, long time ago, in 1971 or around that?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And you only got to know him when you were now working in some farm and you then left that farm and you then hooked up with the group of Mr Moses Dlamini?  I thought I understood your evidence to be to that effect?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Yes, that is correct.  I understand what you are saying.  I am saying, after the death of this person, that is when I saw him at the police station for the first time after the incident, I saw him for the first time there when he came with the investigators, he came with his son and we saw each other in court, I mean after the death of this person who was sent by him.  He is the one who was there for this incident.  It was clear that he had a clear knowledge, in-depth knowledge about this person, that is why he went to a court, because he wouldn't be involved if this person knew nothing about him.

MR MALAN: Mr Ntshetha, you heard the evidence of Moses Dlamini and he's the applicant in the case.  You were present all the time when he gave evidence?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Yes, I was present all the time.

MR MALAN: You will recall his evidence was to the effect that under all the questioning, this person, who you eventually killed, would never co-operate and never gave you any information whatsoever, he didn't even give his name.  You recall him saying that?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Alright.  Yes, I do remember.  Something must be clear.  If we can, if we had to go back to yesterday's testimony, we would be here until the end of the week.  You have ...(intervention)

MR MALAN: No please, please, just answer my question, don't tell me how long this will take.

CHAIRPERSON: Just, if you are asked a question, respond to that question.  If you do not understand that question, you must ask through me that you don't understand the question and you wish the question to be repeated.  If the question cannot be comprehended, not because you haven't understood it properly, because it's too complex, ask through me, we will simplify the question, but we expect you not to tell us about how problematic our questions are.  You are here to respond to questions being put to you.  We are trying to elicit the truth, so please confine yourself to questions asked and be as short as possible.

MR MALAN: I repeat the question.  You heard Mr Dlamini's evidence yesterday that under all the questioning, including the beating, this person never told you anything.  You recall his evidence?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: Yes.

MR MALAN: Just allow me to finish the question.  Now I put it to you that if indeed you severely assault an innocent person which you take to be from a certain area, especially an area which is hostile, an enemy area, then there may be a reason to kill this person, so that he cannot tell the story that he was assaulted and that can be a reason why you killed him, so that he couldn't go back to where he came from and tell the people that as an innocent person, with his ID on him, he's been accused and assaulted and then there will be a retaliation.  Is that not more plausible?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: I'm a bit confused, the way you put the question.  I'm a bit confused.

MR MALAN: Alright, let me just give it to you then in the way that you explained to us, if you should send Moses somewhere.  You remember you used an example?  I'll use an example.  If I beat up an innocent person and I injure him badly and I allow him to go, then maybe his family may come back to me in a revenge because I injured someone who was innocent, is that possible?  Now my question is, in all the questioning is the true story not perhaps that he didn't tell you anything and you feared that his people would harm you because you harmed an innocent man, just putting it as a question?

SINANGWENYE AKA NTSHETHA: That was not the truth.

MR MALAN: Now again, was the truth that he had this open conversation with you about him having been instructed by Mashinela to come and kill you, to look for you, to tell you who he was, or is the truth as Moses gave evidence, that he did not part with any information?

ADV DE JAGER: My note, sorry to interrupt, but I think there may be a misunderstanding and I don't want you to put something that I ...:  "We sat down questioning him.  He told us everything.  Asked him about attacks, to which organisation he belongs.  He said he was IFP from other side of the road.  He didn't tell the whole truth, evading questions", but he told some - he gave some information.

MR MALAN: I think that was followed up, but I can check my notes again. Alright then, on that basis I'll leave it there for the moment, but certainly in the follow-up questions, if I may just put this to you, Moses made it very clear that he had no knowledge of being sent there to kill you, that he was sent by your brother, that the name wasn't mentioned, that you suspected it, that was Moses' evidence, but you heard him.  Was his evidence correct yesterday?