Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-10-31

MR PRIOR: All right.  Please listen, and we will go through the 
statement.  During October of 1992 my son, Brandon Clinton Palm 
was convicted of attempted murder and robbery and sentenced to 12 
years imprisonment. 
	Brandon had always maintained his innocence and after five 
years of incarceration, still maintains that he was falsely implicated 
in these crimes by members of the Murder and Robbery Unit, Cape 
Town.
	By all accounts the crimes lacked motive and seemed 
improbable as the victim worked in the same building where my son 
was employed as a security guard where the alleged attack took 
place.
	Since 1992, my wife and I have pursued an arduous course of 
leave to appeal for retrial, review, Ministries of Law and Order, 
Justice, Correctional Services under the old and new Governments.  
The office of the Public Protector, Human Rights Commission, 
office of Mandela and lastly the Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission all to no avail. 
	As a result of this situation, my daughter Rolanda Lucille 
Palm came to live in Cape Town in order to assist her brother and 
family in pursuing justice.  On the evening of the 30th of December 
1993, Rolanda and I were discussing the information she had 
obtained concerning the complainant in my son's case.
	We were sitting in the Heidelberg Tavern in Observatory, 
enjoying a drink.  She had agreed to accompany me to the Tavern in 
order to get out of the house for a short while.  We left home at 
about 10h35 pm and walked to the Heidelberg as it was five minutes 
away from my residence.
	On arriving, I ushered my daughter into the restaurant area of 
the Heidelberg, because I wanted to have a private discussion away 
from the noise of the music they were playing there.  On sitting her 
down at the dining area, I walked to the bar, ordered a beer for 
myself and a cooldrink for her.
	Upon sitting down at the table, I referred to my watch.  The 
reason I looked at my watch is that my daughter had just arrived 
from an afternoon shift at work and she was quite tired.  My 
intention was not to keep her out late.
	We sat down, had a discussion which on estimate could have 
lasted for about 20 minutes.  While we were talking, I heard a 
spattered noise which was very strange.  I glanced up, over her 
shoulder to where the sound was coming from.  I noticed sparks, 
smoke, glasses breaking.  I realised this was because someone was 
shooting into the Tavern.
	I did not see who was doing the shooting as my vision was 
blocked by a column in the Tavern.  On realising it was gunfire, I 
immediately stretched over the table, pulled my daughter and said 
get down.  In that motion, I fell onto the bench and rolled onto the 
floor.  My daughter dropped with her head to the table, and her back 
was exposed.
	A hail of bullets was directed at us and a bottle and other 
things on the table, fell onto the floor.  As I tried to look up from 
under the table to see who was shooting, I noticed my daughter 
reaching the floor slowly.  In the same instance I noticed two other 
girls to my right, fly out of their seats.
	Unfortunately all I could see was a cloud of smoke and the 
shadow withdrawing.  The next instant I saw this torch light object 
which knocked the side panel in the passage and rolled over to 
where we were.  I screamed it is a grenade, stay down, not realising 
she was already hit.
	I still pressed her to the ground, under the table and counted 
to ten, waiting for this explosion.  When I realised nothing had 
happened, I glanced over to where the object had fallen.  
Immediately I noticed a trickle of blood on her shoulder as she was 
lying face down.  I immediately jumped from out of where I was 
lying to where she was, I turned her over and she just slumped in my 
arms.
	I realised when looking at her, she was dead and I jumped out 
and ran to the door, to look for those responsible for the attack.  As 
I got to the door, I looked to my right and my left and immediately 
saw a yellow van parked on the corner of Observatory and Lower 
Main Road, outside the chemist, facing Mowbray.
	My immediate reaction was, oh, the Police are here already 
and I went back into the Tavern to double check on my daughter.  
My thoughts were that if the Police were there so soon, they had 
obviously caught the perpetrators.  I lifted my daughter up, felt for 
her pulse, but my hand just sunk into her neck.
	I laid her down on her back, tried to close her eyes, but they 
would not close.  This is when the realisation got to me she was 
dead.  I immediately made my way home to tell my wife.  I was 
blinded by the shock and the tears.  I passed this van on the corner. 
 When I passed, I noticed one figure there who had on a white 
garment.
	When I got to the next corner to turn on my way home, I 
looked back, still noticing the van standing on the corner.  Thinking 
it was very strange that for a person who had just come out of a 
place that had been attacked, that nobody stopped me.  Well, I 
managed to get home all hysterical and my wife could not 
understand me as I was hysterical and incoherent.
	My wife went to the Tavern to find out what was going on.  A 
few days later Des Segal, the Investigating Officer came to my house 
to take a statement.  In the course of my making a statement to him, 
he said that I must have been drunk as there was no such thing as a 
Police van standing there.  I insisted he take it down in his statement 
and he did.
	He said to me that if there was a Police van there, it must 
have been a Police van which had been patrolling the area and had 
been radioed to the scene.  It must have been told not to go into the 
Tavern as there was a bomb in there.
	I immediately became suspicious as I could not understand 
how those Policemen could have been radioed and told about a bomb 
that was in the Tavern.  I asked him that if they were radioed and 
knew about the attack, why they did not stop me after I had come 
out of the Tavern.  He could not answer my question and told my 
wife that I must have been drunk.
	At the time of the court case, I was never used as a witness.  
Des Segal told my wife that he could not use me as I would let the 
suspects walk and they are APLA and they are the perpetrators and 
they are used to killing people.
	He went on to say that if they did not nail them for 
Heidelberg, he would not nail them for St James.   Am I going too 
quickly?

ROLAND LEWIS PALM: Sorry, he didn't say that.  He said if he didn't nail them 
for the Heidelberg, he will nail them for the St James.