Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-16

MS MOLOISANE: Now, there's one other aspect that I would like to cover.  You said Mr Sipapo used to supply you with ammunition.  In what capacity did he do this?  Was he one of you, or why did you identify him as the person who had to supply you with ammunition?

JOHN RADEBE: There were people who would approach us that they aware that we are protecting the community by all our means, then as a businessman he used to contribute, so he used to say whatever type of help you would seek I'll be available for your assistance.  So there were many people who were assisting us in many ways.

MS MOLOISANE: This particular day, the 15th of August 1993, he's the one you approached first for assistance.

JOHN RADEBE: Yes.

MS MOLOISANE: Do you know if he was a member of any political organisation?

JOHN RADEBE: He was a member of the ANC.

MS MOLOISANE: Thank you Madam Chair, Committee Members.
NO FURTHER QUESIONS BY MS MOLOISANE

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Ms Moloisane.  Ms Thabethe, do you have any questions to put to Mr Radebe?

MS THABETHE: Yes Madam Chair, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: You may proceed to do so.

MS THABETHE: Thank you.  Mr Radebe, you say you instructed that Elsie and Hapile be called outside.  What was your intention of calling them outside the tavern?

JOHN RADEBE: My intention was to take them to the office.

MS THABETHE: Why did you want to take them to the office?

JOHN RADEBE: On the side, on the other side of the office, usually we would not have, you will not find people there.  That is where I was intending to shoot them.

MS THABETHE: So are you saying you were taking them to the office to shoot them?  Is that what you are saying?

JOHN RADEBE: I was going to interrogate them, so that they would inform me about their role in the killings of our people, as to whether who are they with and where they stay, they stay with whom, then after that we will shoot them.

MS THABETHE: So why did you change your mind?  Why didn't you take them to the office and question them?  Why did you change your mind?

JOHN RADEBE: The reason is that, for us not to go to the office, on the way I discovered that we did not have ammunition, and therefore if a mistake may happen we would not, if ...(indistinct) happen that the police would find us therefore we would be taken by the police and we would not find them again.

CHAIRPERSON: May you please repeat yourself.  Why didn't you take Ms Ndumo and Ms Mokoena to your offices as you had previously intended?  I want to understand your reason.

JOHN RADEBE: It just to aid in asking them questions, but there was nothing, there was no information which we wanted from them.  It was just to verify some of the information we had, we have, so that may be of benefit to us, but the reason for us to take them there was to kill them.

CHAIRPERSON: The question is why did you not proceed to take them to Zone 12, to the ANC offices, as you had originally intended?  Why did you abandon your intentions?

JOHN RADEBE: We thought that maybe we would meet the police and then the police would find us and they would run away and the police would take them.

CHAIRPERSON: You may proceed Ms Thabethe.

MS THABETHE: Thank you Madam Chair.  When actually did you change your mind that you are no longer going to take them to the office now, you are going to kill them?

JOHN RADEBE: When we took the direction towards Samuel Neti, because that is the direction towards Zone 12.

MS THABETHE: Do you remember that when you went to Samuel Neti's place you actually left them there?

JOHN RADEBE: Yes.

MS THABETHE: And then you came back and Hapile had escaped.

MR LAX: You mean Elsie.

MS THABETHE: Sorry, yes Elsie had escaped.  Thank you.

JOHN RADEBE: Yes.

MS THABETHE: In your statement on page 149 paragraph 14 after you saw, or you found out that Elsie had escaped, you then took Hapile with you, that's what you say.  Where were you taking her?

JOHN RADEBE: We took her from Samuel Neti's place and took her to Small Farm.

MS THABETHE: You see I'm trying to establish something.  You do what in Small Farm.  Let me ask that, what were you taking her to do in Small Farm?

JOHN RADEBE: That is where I would kill her.

MS THABETHE: Why didn't you kill her where you found her, at Samuel Neti's place?  Why did you need to take her to Small Farm?

JOHN RADEBE: We did not have the gun to use at Samuel Neti's place.  We would kill her with whatever instrument we would find, but we were informed that you should not touch the blood of your victim.  That is why in many instances we wanted to use a gun so that we would not touch the blood of our victim.

MS THABETHE: Mr Radebe I don't understand what you are saying, because you already have, you had guns, you went to Mr Sipapo's place you got ammunition. ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: No Ms Thabethe.  Put your question in such a way that you are in a position to cover both.  You will recall that this Mr Radebe has given a version which is different to that which appears in his affidavit.  In his viva voce testimony he obtained a gun which had ammunition from a comrade who was part of a group of persons that accompanied them from Samuel Neti's house to where the deceased was shot.  In his affidavit he says he obtained ammunition from Sipapo's place, and he goes further to mention the number of bullets that were obtained from Sipapo's place.

MS THABETHE: That was before Hapile was killed.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  And his affidavit stands in stark contrast to his viva voce evidence in respect of that particular aspect of what you are trying to address.

MS THABETHE: Madam Chair can I proceed to find out 'though, because he said he didn't have guns and he didn't have ammunition, and in his evidence it was clear that he had obtained ammunition and he had guns.

CHAIRPERSON: Try and get him to respond why you have two versions in respect of that particular aspect.  Refer him to the relevant page and paragraph and put to him his viva voce evidence and find out his explanation to the inconsistency.

MS THABETHE: Mr Radebe, can you explain why you had said initially that Mr Sipapo gave you ammunition, and you already had guns, and then later on in your evidence you say you were given guns and ammunition by your fellow comrade after you had taken Hapile to where you were going to kill her.  Can you explain that contradiction to the Committee.

JOHN RADEBE: In regard to Mr Sipapo that we received ammunition, it is the evidence I gave in Court, which is a lie  again that I shot and Abraham shot.  The gun which we used on that particular day, that is a gun I took from comrade Nkosana.  That is the gun I used which is from Nkosana Tshabalala.

MS THABETHE: Mr Radebe, didn't you say in your viva voce evidence that Mr Sipapo gave you ammunition?

MR LAX: No he didn't.

CHAIRPERSON: No.  That's why I am saying you are confusing his evidence which appears in his affidavit with that which he gave during his viva voce evidence.

MR LAX: Just to clarify Ms Thabethe.  His evidence in his viva voce evidence was that Sipapo only had 9 mm ammunition, their firearms had 7.65 mm calibre, therefore they had to go elsewhere.  I then turned out that later, when they saw Tshabalala he in fact got a triple two, .22 firearm which he then did the deed with.  It's just to clarify it.  That's his viva voce evidence.

MS THABETHE: Thank you Madam Chair, thank you member of the Committee.  In your evidence you also said when you called Elsie and Hapile outside it's because the community wanted them.  Do you remember saying that?  Or they were wanted by the community.

JOHN RADEBE: Yes, that is correct.

MS THABETHE: What do you mean?  Who is the committee in this instance?  Who in the committee wanted them?

MR LAX: Sorry, you're using the word committee and community interchangeably, they're quite different.

MS THABETHE: Community, community.