Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-26

CHAIRPERSON: (Microphone not on)  Those bones that were missing, that four cervical vertebrae, the pharisaic vertebrae, the lumber vertebrae and the phalanx, what is your opinion relating to those missing bones?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Well, they could either have not been fully recovered at the original discovery, that is one, the other possibility is that they have crumbled into dust.  There was a last amount of debris, sandy debris in the remains.

MR VISSER: Yes, there is a third possibility, the one that we are investigating now, and that is that they were lost originally in 1987?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: During what process?

MS THABETHE: That is what he said, in the first discovery.

CHAIRPERSON: He said the first one is that they might have been lost at the place of discovery, the 1987 discovery.

MR VISSER: Oh, I am sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: And secondly they might have crumbled to dust.

MR VISSER: I thought you were referring to the exhumation.  All right.

MR LAX: Just one last thing, how might they have been lost at that stage?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Many possibilities.  We, in fact it is very rare to recover an entire skeleton especially on the surface of the ground.  At about two to three weeks after the successive wave of insect activity that ...(indistinct) the soft tissue of the corps, it leaves individual bones amenable to predation by carnivores and predators and rodents, so the usual picture is that you have to scour the entire veld for about a radius of a kilometre and you might in fact pick up the bones taken away by predators.

MR VISSER: And dogs?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Dogs are predators.

CHAIRPERSON: And small bones might just get washed away in the rain even?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: When I say washed away, away from the main skeleton?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And even wind?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is correct.  Mr Commissioner, the recovery process, unless you have a doctor, in fact, a doctor whose got insight or an anthropologist you may loose ...

CHAIRPERSON: Go through the area with a fine tooth comb?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is right.

MR VISSER: Yes.  That is assuming a skeleton was found in 1987?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, and I was told it was found in a state of complete decomposition.

MR VISSER: You see Dr Naidoo, I am very interested to hear your evidence about the so-called difference between a completely decomposed body and a skeleton which I must tell you, I agree with your answer, I have never seen a difference between the two, maybe a question of degree.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: When you talk about a completely decomposed body, then you are talking about a skeleton, not so?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Quite right.

MR VISSER: Yes, but I frankly agree with you.  But it seems to me that we are the only two in the hall, we are the only two in this hall.

CHAIRPERSON: I take it you've got no further questions, Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: No, I do Mr Chairman.  Coming to the question of the stature doctor.  You clearly, page 28 of Volume 2, you clearly refer to the living tallness of the person?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Can I ask you, when you speak about a 95% confidence ...(indistinct), is that what you said, or did I hear you incorrectly?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I am assuming that the standard deviation that Lundi gives us, like with any similarly expressed figure, is with a 95% confidence ...(indistinct)

MR VISSER: Yes?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: I am assuming that.

MR VISSER: Which, to put it conversely, you have a 5% error factor?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Do I understand it correctly?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: And when you say between 1.35 and 1.42 metre, are those the limits, the outer limits?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: And what your finding would then suggest is that the person was somewhere in between?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is correct.

MR VISSER: Now, you say that in, in your further evidence  that you don't believe that the 1.6 metre that was found by Dr Chetty is of any real value?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: And you have said that the reason for that, and in fact you said we can discard it or disregard it, because it was probably an estimate?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, not only that, even if Dr Chetty had to conscientiously and painstakingly put the skeleton in line in anatomical continuity, it still does not give you a correct height.

MR VISSER: Of the body which you ...

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: That is it.  Well, with any case.  If you take a skeleton, and you talk about a case of total, complete decomposition, we agreed that it is a skeleton, if you put the bones in line, the vertebrae next to each other and all the bones in the sockets, from head to toe, you won't get the correct height.  That is an anatomical method that we don't use.  We just use that illustration, that picture to say to people you cannot use that to measure height, it is quite incorrect.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Because of a various number of factors, and for example, the thickness of the intervertebral discs that is spacing between the bones of the spine, you don't account for that.
	So what I am saying is, I would rather go on the mathematical calculation on a formula used and proven to reflect living height.

MR VISSER: All right.  That assumes a number of things.  It assumes that the body which Dr Chetty had in front of him, was indeed loose skeletal remains?  If it were a body that was still fairly intact, although decomposed, what would the position then be?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Well, allow me to just say this, because you know, I am sure you probably don't know what a arm that is completely decomposed, you call it a completely decomposed body, it is rarely, it has no soft tissue, apart from a little attaching, little ligaments together, it is quite disarticulated, the bones are out of joint, they are out of position, they are not in a straight line of a person laying flat out.

MR VISSER: That is your interpretation on what you told us, but I am asking you it assumes that the body was not intact any longer, in the sense of it still being there with some tissue joining the skeleton together, it must assume that, surely?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, but unless encased in a slab of mud, like you would find in a buried bone, buried remains when you do an exhumation, I have never seen completely decomposed remains in a state of anatomical continuity.

MR VISSER: Yes.  And when you, I want to put to you a further assumption for you to make, to say that Dr Chetty probably made an estimate and he is wrong, is of course that you must assume that he did an autopsy on the same skeletal remains as you did?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, that is the assumption.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Coming to the question of fractures, etc, and I am returning to page 25, I want to ask you if you look at the photograph of the skeleton, that is Exhibit R8, do you have that in front of you?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, I do.

MR VISSER: Would you look at, first of all, would you look at the left radius ...(indistinct), that is the forearms?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: It's got no hand?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes.

MR VISSER: Did you find any hand bones that could match up with the missing hand?

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Yes, if you look at 7 at the preceding page, you will find at the foot of the table, a clump of short long bones, and round bones.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: Those would be a clump of unassembled long small bones of the feet and hand.

MR VISSER: Yes, and would those belong to the feet and the hands that you spoke about?