Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-17

ZAMA THUTHA: When I said what?

MR PRIOR: That Thandekulo had shot and killed Donnie Meyers in the forest.

ZAMA THUTHA: I was telling the truth when I said that, it's not that I was distancing myself.  I just told the truth as to what Thandekulo did.

MR PRIOR: Your evidence was - and I followed your evidence, that you assisted to take Donnie against her will, she was struggling, from the truck over the fence to where Thandekulo had chosen a certain spot.  You did that with Mr Kulman, is that right?

ZAMA THUTHA: Yes, I did admit to that.

MR PRIOR: And at that time you knew Thandekulo had said that this white female was useless, is that right?

ZAMA THUTHA: I did not hear Thandekulo's response, I just heard him to my co-accused to go back to the truck to see if there's anything there.

MR PRIOR: That's what Mr Kulman said in his affidavit that he handed in yesterday.  But be that as it may, is your evidence then at that stage: Kulman leaves to go back to search the truck and you go back to check the brakes of that vehicle while you leave Thandekulo with Donnie Meyers?

ZAMA THUTHA: Yes, it is.

MR PRIOR: And you had driven the truck all the way from the first spot to that place about 30 or 40 kilometres and you hadn't indicated to the Committee that you had any trouble with that vehicle.  Why did you, at that crucial stage just before the shooting of Donnie Meyers, did you leave the scene to go and check the brakes?

ZAMA THUTHA: There was no problem with the truck as such, it's just that it was the first time I had used a truck that had power brakes.  When you're not used to such, when you step on the brakes it goes down and it gets stuck.  I wanted to take note of such things.

MR PRIOR: Were you not interested to see what was going to happen to the white female?  As you said, this was a "Boer", you couldn't care, you didn't care whether she was killed or not.

ZAMA THUTHA: Besides that, in the army you have your own role that is stipulated just for you that you must look at, everything else goes through different channels.  I could not go and put my nose that was not part of my role, I had to finish my role first.

CHAIRPERSON: But you had been  - as I understand your evidence, you had been called to help move this girl away to where Thandekulo wanted her to go, is that not so?

ZAMA THUTHA: Yes, I did say that because they couldn't, the one person couldn't take her over the fence, there had to be a second person.  The one to pull down the bottom of the fence so that she could be put over the fence.  There had to be a second person there.

CHAIRPERSON: And then you chose, on your own it seems from you evidence, to leave this girl and Thandekulo to go and look at the brakes of the van which you had had no problem with, is that so?

ZAMA THUTHA: Before you stop the truck you had to pump,  I did not do that initially.  I noticed as to how exactly you use the brakes after a while and I had to look at that carefully.

MR PRIOR: It took two of you, yourself and Kulman to take, drag or pull or whatever you did there to get her from the truck to where Thandekulo had wanted her to be taken and you indicated that she had resisted.  When you left her with Thandekulo, had she stopped resisting at that stage or was she continuing to resist?

ZAMA THUTHA: Please repeat your question.

MR PRIOR: When you handed her over, you said she was standing - when you got her over the fence and handed her over to Thandekulo or left her with Thandekulo, had she stopped resisting?

ZAMA THUTHA: It was not clear but I didn't take full note.  I just want to say to you that perhaps she sensed that something was going to happen to her.  She - I did not take particular note of what she was doing but she must have sensed that something was going to happen to her.

MR PRIOR: She was going to be killed surely,   Thandekulo was standing with two firearms in his hands.

MR LAX: Sorry, with respect, he had one in his hand and one in his waistband.

MR PRIOR: I take your point Mr Chairman.
	He had one in his hand and one in his waistband, you had a homemade firearm, Kulman had a revolver in his hand, you dragged her or pushed her ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Kulman left his revolver in the vehicle.

MR LAX: Sorry, if I could just correct that.  He's not sure ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: He doesn't know, he's not sure.

MR PRIOR: Right.  This witness said earlier that he had his handgun with him, he was asked specifically.  It's not an issue really.
	She was taken against her will over a fence into a forest obscured from the road, isn't it more correct that she must put even more resistance or more of a struggle knowing that she was going to be executed there?

ZAMA THUTHA: That she resisted because she knew that she was going to be killed, I don't know.  Maybe she did not want to walk.  She did stand on her own feet without looking as if she's falling over.

MR PRIOR: You see, at the postmortem we discover that she was stabbed in the back, she was stabbed at least twice on the chest, she was stabbed on the front of the neck and once on the side of the neck, that's apart from the massive injury to her skull presumably caused by a gunshot to that area.  She was also shot through the hand with an entry and an exit wound through her right hand ...[intervention]

ZAMA THUTHA: I did not check any wounds, perhaps all that happened after I had left.  I can't dispute that, however when I went back to the place with ...[end of tape]  ...[inaudible]  I did not know when all that happened.

CHAIRPERSON: Can you tell us - we will no doubt get it from the police but it might help if you could tell us now, how far was the body that you went back to, from the fence that you had taken her through?  Can you estimate the distance?

ZAMA THUTHA: It would be difficult to estimate because the one time I made an estimate about Thandekulo's car - this is why Botma comes here and holds on to what I estimated then, I don't want to estimate incorrectly.

CHAIRPERSON: Well would you like to go to the door of the hall under supervision, with you attorney and Mr Prior and point out to them if you can in front, what the distance was, could you do that?

ZAMA THUTHA: I could do that but you must remember that it is a mere estimate.  Even whilst I'm sitting here I can point.

CHAIRPERSON: Well can you point inside here or is it further away than that?

ZAMA THUTHA: Perhaps it would be from where I'm sitting to the policeman that is standing by the door with the brown clothing over there.

CHAIRPERSON: 30 paces, thereabouts?

MR PRIOR: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR MBANDAZAYO: It's almost the same as the first one.

MR PRIOR: Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR LAX: Sorry, that was from the place where Thandekulo was, where you left the girl with him, to the fence?

CHAIRPERSON: What I asked you was, when you went back with the police you saw the body, and how far the body was from the fence that you took her through.  Did you understand that question?

ZAMA THUTHA: No, that is not how I understood the question.  You see, when you move from where the body was, Donnie's body, there are bushes, shrubs, two - from Donnie to the fence - between the fence and Donnie it's difficult to see clearly because there were bushes.  It was difficult to see what was happening where Donnie was because of these bushes.

MR LAX: So are you estimating it from the truck where you looked back from to the place where she was lying because you said you looked back from the truck and you saw that she had been shot.  You saw her lying there you said earlier on in your evidence.

ZAMA THUTHA: Are you saying that I said - please clarify.

MR LAX: Okay.  You said much earlier in your evidence that you heard the shot, you then looked towards where that was and you could see that she had been shot.  You could see her you said, you could see that she had been shot.