Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-10

GEORGE BIZOS: And surely you must agree with me, that if you could see that Biko was not a fit and proper person or rather was not fit for further interrogation, that must have been even more obvious to the doctor?

MR SNYMAN: That would be the case, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: So, would you agree that one of the persons that was in that building, that a conspiracy must have been entered into between Col Goosen and Dr Laing to lie about Mr Biko's condition?

MR SNYMAN: That is the case, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: And I want to suggest to you that the reason why that conspiracy to lie was entered into, was that if Mr Biko lived and complained about his injuries, he would have been branded as a liar if he complained about it by producing a certificate of good health, which was false.  You knew that, didn't you?

MR SNYMAN: I would agree with you.

UNKNOWN: Sorry that I speak, M'Lord, there was a double-barrelled question again.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, let's take them separately.  You agree that there must have been a conspiracy to let out a falsehood between the doctor, Dr Laing and Col Goosen?

MR SNYMAN: That is possible, your Honour, although as I have said, I had not been present when the doctor and Col Goosen discussed the matter.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, but you agreed that that is entirely possible from the facts as you knew them.

MR SNYMAN: It is possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now you make it a possibility and before you said that that was so?  But let's be satisfied with both your answers for the time being.
	Isn't that the time that the falsehood trail started,  long before the Saturday that you say that you were told that you had to lie?  On the morning of the 7th, the trail of falsehood had already started?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour.  I had no part in that discussion with the medical doctors.  That was done exclusively by Col Goosen.  Only the subsequent Saturday, after his death, did we meet.

GEORGE BIZOS: The trail of falsehood had started on the 7th, partly for your benefit and for the benefit of Siebert and Niewoudt and Beneke, not so?  For whose benefit was this conspiracy to give out a false picture to the world?

MR SNYMAN: The only conclusion that I could make is that the commanding officer, Col Goosen wanted to protect the security branch and the Government of the day by not giving the true facts out.

GEORGE BIZOS: And you who were responsible for the injuries and the torturing of Mr Biko?  So it was partly to protect you?

MR SNYMAN: I did not torture him, your Honour.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think it's necessary for us to go very much further along those lines.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Whether it's to protect him or the security branch.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Thank you.
	Was that the only untruth that was made at an earlier stage?  Let me remind of a few others.  Was Mr Biko hyper-ventilating? You know breathing heavily and irregularly from the time that he 
was injured?

MR SNYMAN: No, I could not answer that question.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't you see him or hear him hyper-ventilating?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour, I had already withdrawn.  I do not know beyond that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you know that he had been a medical student?

MR SNYMAN: Yes, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you and your colleagues give out that this hyper-ventilation was done deliberately by him and that he could simulate hyper-ventilation, because of his medical training?

MR SNYMAN: No, I would not be able to say, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: There was another untruth that was brought into being as soon as he was injured;  that he was doing a form of yoga which enabled him to behave in this unnatural way to pretend that he was ill when in truth and in fact there was nothing wrong with him.	I am not for one moment suggesting that yoga is used for this purpose, but among your colleagues this was another myth that was created.  Did you hear anything about that?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, if you and your colleagues didn't start these myths, who did?

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, it was not me personally and with the drafting of the statements we were given instructions by the commanding officer.  Whether he had further knowledge, medically, I would not know.  He had conferred with the doctors.  He might have heard something from the specialists?  I would not be able to answer that question.

GEORGE BIZOS: Do you know of any reason why Mr Biko was not sent to hospital?

MR SNYMAN: I would not be able to answer that question.  That was the task of the commanding officer.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't you ask?

MR SNYMAN: He had instructed me to withdraw and I assumed that he was going to take the necessary steps.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't you feel any moral responsibility for this person to even ask how is he, why isn't he being sent to a hospital, how is he getting on?  Did you never ask anybody any of those questions?

MR SNYMAN: Yes, my moral responsibility, when I reported the matter to my commanding officer and he told me that he would handle the matter from there on, had ended.

GEORGE BIZOS: You had been given a very important task in order to investigate Mr Biko and Mr Jones.  Did you make any enquiries at all between the 6th, when you knew that he had an injury to the time that you heard that he had died?

MR SNYMAN: I had mentioned earlier that I made enquiries from the people guarding him concerning his health.  They then informed me that nothing had changed.

GEORGE BIZOS: Whose decision was it to send him to the prison hospital?

MR SNYMAN: That must have been Col Goosen.  I had not been involved in that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who took him to the prison hospital?

MR SNYMAN: I cannot tell you, I do not know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you make enquiries as to how he was getting on at the prison hospital?

MR SNYMAN: I made no further enquiries, since people were giving him attention.  I had withdrawn already.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't anybody tell you that he couldn't handle a spoon and that he had to be fed by a warden?

MR SNYMAN: I do not know whether this finer detail had been reported to me, but I had heard that he had been moved to the prison hospital.

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't anybody tell you that he got into a bath of water with his clothes on?

MR SNYMAN: I cannot recall whether anyone told me that at that time?

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't anybody tell you that he suffered from echolali - that is baby-talk that if you say mummy, the baby says mummy and if you say daddy, the baby says daddy;  that he was merely repeating the words used by others?  A clear indication that his
mind had been smashed up?

MR SNYMAN: I am not aware of that, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Would there have been any reason for anyone to keep you in the dark about this condition of the person that became what he then was as a result of interrogation in your interrogation room?

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, I had heard that he was taken to the hospital and also heard that certain specialists paid attention to him. I saw no further need to be involved as I had been instructed to withdraw.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did anybody tell you why he was moved from Eben Le Roux Dementery Hospital facilities at the hospital to a police cell?

MR SNYMAN: It is possible that someone might have mentioned it to me.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why?  Why would they have taken him away where he had some sympathy at least from the prison personnel back to a police cell?

MR SNYMAN: That did not occur under my instructions.  I had no part in that.

GEORGE BIZOS: But when you heard about it, did you not care?

CHAIRPERSON: What about confining your questions to what he does know and what he did do.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you, but I then ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: You know putting questions to him why so
and-so didn't do or why he wasn't told about it.  There might have been many reasons why he might not have been told about it.