Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-20

CHAIRPERSON: You've heard his evidence, you can question him about his evidence his given now and I'm not going to stop you questioning him on the record when you've got it.

MR PRETORIUS: Well Mr Chairman it will be very difficult for me because I haven't prepared at all and I know that he did testify during the particular inquest.  There's one aspect that I can put to him which I can recall very clearly but then I'm just going to put it very briefly to him.

CHAIRPERSON: I would rather not do that.  I'll give you the chance to prepare.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Pretorius, on that same note I hope you will also appreciate Mr Bizos' difficulty insofar as sequence in which you intend calling your witnesses is concerned and we'll also afford him appropriate time to prepare accordingly.  I appreciate the difficulty that you are in and I think you should therefore attempt to prepare accordingly.

MR PRETORIUS: Thank you Ma'am.

CHAIRPERSON: I trust that that matter will be sorted out so that we don't have any other hiccups tomorrow about complaining that we didn't know which witnesses were to be called and they didn't know how to prepare for them so will that please be sorted out.  Alright.  We're about to adjourn now, is there something you wish to say.

MR DORFLING: Mr Chairman may I at this point in time just indicate that we did make use of the time we had earlier this week, that morning when we started sitting late, and the legal teams appearing on behalf of the objectors tried to work out a sequence and get an indication of which witnesses would be advisable to call.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR DORFLING: We then decided that we think it's advisable for the committee to hear the evidence of a number of witnesses, six of them, all together a Mr Dias, Mr Jimmy Stevens, Sgt Potgieter, Mr Mpanga whose one of the objectors, Mrs Ntombela who is the relative of one of the deceased and also Mrs Langa.  	Can I at this point in time already indicate the logistical
difficulties we have.  
	As far as Mr Dias is concerned, we took up the last known address that was available of him from the Attorney General's office, we spoke to the investigating officer in the Shell House inquest.  At present it seems like Mr Dias is not staying at the address, his last know address.  We have at this point in time got difficulty in locating him.  
	As far as Mr Stevens is concerned, Mr Stevens is currently overseas and he'll only be returning on the 23rd of June this year. We have got his address, but it's no use to try and serve a subpoena on him, we know he won't secure his presence this week.  
	Then there's Sgt Potgieter who I believe is presently attending a course until this coming week, Friday the 22nd of May, he's also therefore not available, so as far as those first three witnesses are concerned we are having those difficulties from a logistical point of view.  
	We'll do our best to secure at least the presence of other witnesses who might be able to assist.  We thought it might be a good idea to start with these witnesses, that it's advisable to that we start with them, but we are having these difficulties.

JUDGE NGCOBO: I think the request, for the purposes of preparing cross examinations is that if you could indicate to the applicant's legal representative the sequence in which they will be called, as far as that has been established, so that they know who will be the first witness that we're dealing with.

CHAIRPERSON: You can do that among yourselves, we don't have to be told.  Very well, I'm now going to adjourn till tomorrow morning at 09:30.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS