Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-03-23

MR BOTMA: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
	Mr Chairman, the main question here is to decide whether the applicants have discharged onus upon them.  That is, did they show cause or did they show to this Committee that they are entitled to relief they sought, and that is total amnesty in the charges of:
(1)	The murder of Mike Meyers;
(2)	The robbery of the vehicle, the firearms, money and other contents of the vehicle;
(3) 	The kidnapping of Donne Meyers and;
(4)	The subsequent killing Donne thereafter.
	Now the applicants claim that they were in fact members of the PAC and they had this political motive and that they were acting in an operation of APLA on specific instructions.  
	Now my submission to this Committee is that this allegation has unsubstantiated so far.  There has been no confirmation that they were in fact members of APLA, there is up to this date no evidence before this Committee in regard to this specific operation, whether it has been confirmed or approved by APLA before it started, we just have these general allegations being made or a general viewpoint of APLA and the PAC, but it's not been brought to the specific case and the specific circumstances of this case.
	The Committee might have heard that Kulman, the first applicant, was a member of APLA because he was involved in other operations, but the same is not applicable in regard to the second applicant, this was his first operation.  We still don't know to date whether he was in fact a member of the PAC and whether he was supposed to form part of this operation.
	Now much has been said about the question of the PAC, what their attitude was, but one will come to the question and ask yourself, is this a blanket authority for them to kill a person just because of him being white?  And that question has also to be answered and it's never been answered up till now.
	Now according to the first applicant his instruction was to capture Mike Meyers for interrogation as he was a member of the AWB and then also to take the truck for the use of APLA.  Now the main reason therefore for the capture of Mike Meyers was because he was a member of the AWB and APLA wanted to question him about the AWB activities in the Elliot area.  Now my submission once again to this Committee is that the allegation that Meyers was a member of the AWB is totally unfounded and I don't there's any problem for the Committee to come to that finding.
	But furthermore, the main question here is to decide whether this wrong information was submitted to the applicants or not, and I am submitting once again to this Committee that this information was not passed on to the two applicants.  The reason why I'm saying that is that this fact was never mentioned during the trial itself - we cannot ignore the trial, we must look at the trial as well as the application - and secondly, it was never mentioned in the application that Meyers was in fact a member of the AWB.  This Committee will remember that this only came up during the affidavit that was submitted to this Committee just a day, or on the day before the application itself started.
	Now I'm going back to the question of the trial.  We have a situation that the two applicants appeared as accused during the trial and first of all their defence was an absolute denial of any knowledge of the incident, that they were just walking alongside the road and they were then arrested by the police in connection with this case.  And then after some time after the political situation had changed, actually as far as in August 1994, that was after the elections and after Transkei had become a total part of South Africa etc., etc., then they came and told the Court that they have decided to change their plea after they had consulted with higher authorities on this issue and this is their defence now, and that is on that basis that they carried on.  
	Now the question remains, at that stage they were aware of the fact that there is going to be amnesty, why didn't they mention all these facts at that stage already to the Court?  If Meyers was in fact a member of the AWB or if they had reason to believe that he was a member, then that would have been a very important issue to mention and it was never mentioned.  And the reason advanced by the first applicant why it was not mentioned, with due respect, doesn't make any sense.  This Honourable Committee will remember that he said something about "we still had some APLA bases to protect in the Transkei area and if we revealed that information at that stage there might have been an attack from the South African Government on these bases."  But once again this Committee will remember that this was now done after Transkei became part of South Africa and after APLA members or APLA cadres already formed part of, or in the process of forming part of the then Defence Force.
	So therefore, my submission to the Committee is that the Committee can totally reject this allegation of the applicants that the reason why they wanted to capture Mike Meyers was because he was a member of the AWB.  Now if that reason for his capturing falls away, then this Committee must have doubt whether he had in fact those instructions to got an capture him or not.  And my submission is that because the basis of the reason for the capturing falls away the whole capturing itself falls away, and it will bring me to a question later on which I will argue that, as my learned friend has correctly pointed out, there are so many uncertainties and the uncertainties were brought about by the fact that they have failed to make full disclosure and they failed to take the Committee or bring the Committee in and give the Committee everything that has happened on that day.
	Now my submission is that one can accept at the most, or on their behalf is that they went there maybe to steal the truck on instructions of Thandukolo or - rather let me rephrase myself, on instructions of higher command, and one can accept maybe at the most that their instructions were to use force only in the question of where there was resistance from the side of the owner of the truck, that is the deceased in this matter.
	Now this case then is a typical example of how robberies are being committed in South Africa today, you first shoot to kill and after the person is dead then you take whatever you'd like to take.  It is not the old classical example of a robbery that you first ask the person; put up your hands and make sure there's no resistance and then you take whatever you want to take.  This is a typical example of where they went there, shot to kill and after they've killed then they decided to carry on further.
	Now then we come to the subsequent events thereafter, that's the kidnapping of Donne and her killing itself.  Now the killing of Donne must also be seen if we look at what happened at the beginning on their arrival there.  Now at this stage it might be worthwhile to pause for a moment and ask ourselves, or reconsider the truthfulness of these two applicants when they testified before this Committee.  Now I've already mentioned the fact that one of the requirements is that they must make a full disclosure before they will qualify for amnesty.  
	Now the Committee has heard the evidence of both the applicants in this matter, and it is submitted that there will be no difficulty for this Committee to reject their evidence.  Their evidence is full of contradictions, as has been correctly pointed out and conceded so far.  There are so many improbabilities in their evidence.  All these unanswered questions remain and they couldn't give reasonable explanations for some of these issues.   And what was, as has been correctly pointed out by one of the Members here, is the question of the presence or even the existence of Thandukolo.  Did he exist, was there a person like Thandukolo or not?  Was he ever there or not?  I mean, because of all these unanswerable questions, how can this Committee come to a finding that he did exist or that he was at the scene at all?
	During the trial once again the second applicant testified that Thandukolo was responsible for the killing of Meyers and then he comes back and says no, Thandukolo wasn't there and he was the one who killed him and the reason why he killed him was because he thought he was reaching for a gun inside the truck or not.
	There must also be doubt in this Committee when dealing with the questions of Thandukolo, whether he was in fact on the second scene or not.  I unfortunately didn't have the benefit of the whole part of the record, but my submission is that there was evidence of the person who was in charge of the tanks or busy putting up the tanks stand - I'm not so sure whether he did in fact testify or not - that there was no other vehicle, he didn't see any other vehicle thereafter, so there must be that question as well regarding him.
	Also a point I'd like to stress is the second applicant who was asked about his evidence he gave in the Court, and he said that day he deliberately gave evidence, false evidence under oath in the Court in order to try and fit in his case to the best of his ability.  The question here is, is he not still doing it or wasn't he still doing it when he was testifying before this Committee, that's he's prepared to turn his evidence or to present his evidence in the way that he believes might be the best in the circumstances.  Once again, how can the Committee then take any cognisance of his evidence in the circumstances?
	I'm then dealing with the question of, the most important question, of how Donne was injured, where was she injured and what injury caused her death at the end.  Now there is no doubt as to what injury caused her death, and that was the total destruction of the brain, or let me rather try to use a term used by the doctor, a complete crushed skull, and was caused by a gunshot wound to the head.  
	Now unfortunately up till today we are still in the position that we do not have the medical diagram showing the injury to the brain, but we do have the diagram showing that there was - and we of course have the photographs as well, C1 etc., showing some of the damage to the head, but it's common cause that there was in face a gunshot wound under the left eye and that penetrated the skull and caused all the damage to the brain.  Now once again, without the benefit of once again reading the evidence of the doctor who testified here, but my recollection, I might be wrong so that's subject to correct, is that Donne wouldn't have survived for long after that injury.  
	Now if once accepts for one moment the version of the first applicant, that's Kulman, that he was the one who shot her there - I think he went as far to testify that she turned at him and the gunshot was in fact the gunshot wound under the left eye, and that was the one that caused all the damage, now if that was done at the time of the first or when they were at the first scene and they drove thereafter for 40 to 50 kilometres and then took her out of the vehicle and took her over the fence, my submission is that the Committee can come to the finding that she would have been dead by long by that time. 
	It's couples also once again with the evidence or the contradiction between the two applicants.  The first applicant said:
"She was unconscious and we just carried her over the fence and we dropped her there in the veld on instructions of Thandukolo."
The second applicant testified that:
"... we had to drag her to the scene"
Trying to explain the evidence of the police official that there were scenes of drag marks:
"... we had to lift her over the fence and took her to that point.  Thandukolo was looking around for a spot where we could put her down and then we put her down on instructions."
Later he changed his evidence to say that he was not dragging her, he denied that he said that, and then it came out that he was just pulling her or taking her by her hand.  But once again one can accept that she was, he went as far as to say that she was resisting.  Now a person with a gunshot wound like that wouldn't have been able to resist.  She would have been unconscious and it might have fitted in more with the evidence of the first applicant, but then once again ...(intervention)