Human Rights Violation Hearings — Johannesburg — 1996-05-02

ABDULHAY JASSAT: Firstly I would like to thank the Commission for giving me this opportunity which I've never had to actually let people know what detainees and people who were arrested during the sixties, in particular, went through.  I'd like to start by - I won't go back to my youth, I'd like to start with the period during the emergency when a whole
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lot of us were arrested and detained for approximately six months without any charge, without any trial.  This of course as everyone is aware led to the banning of the ANC at that time.
 Upon our release when the ANC - incidentally I may go back and forth, you will have to excuse me because I haven't prepared anything.  Prior to the emergency I was a member of the Indian Youth Congress and the Transvaal Indian Congress both of which were passive organisations.  When the ANC was banned and Umkhonto was founded I felt it was my duty to play a role within that organisation.  I joined Umkhonto weSizwe but there were specific rules and regulations which we had to adhere to, namely that we were not to take life at any stage, or not to get involved in any activity which would involve the taking of life or killing of people.  We continued with that on that basis.  
 We worked, we blew up little pylons, we were really amateurs at that stage, we didn't know very much about explosive and things, we blew up post offices, a few transformers, various things of that nature.  One of the important things I felt which I did was the blowing up of Nana Sita's (?) house, a house which had been allocated to him in Laudium.  Nana Sita was also a Gandhi and a pacifist, he was an elderly man, he played an active role throughout his life.  At that stage he must have been about 70 years old.  He lived in a place called Hercules in Pretoria and they wanted him to move from there forcibly to Laudium, and every time he refused he was taken to court, charged and jailed.  And a few colleagues and myself we felt that it was our duty to either do away with the house, blow it up.  So that was one of the acts that I was involved in besides 
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others, but that I think was an important act because then they could not move Nana Sita.  He had been to prison three times already.  They couldn't move him from his house in Hercules and his shop in Hercules to Laudium.
 Just before Easter in 1963 I was in bed when there was a thumping at the door.  I got up and about 12 bulky Afrikaners walked into the house.  They made me dress and they took me away.  At that stage I didn't know what it was for.  They took me to Marshall Square in Johannesburg which was a police station and there I saw a colleague of mine who was also a member of Umkhonto weSizwe, Isoo Chiba in the corridors, he was waiting in the corridors.  The police left the two of us in the corridor.  While we were there we could hear screaming in one of the cells.  So while I waited outside Isoo went into the cell to see who was screaming and he found that Reggie Vandeyar, Shirish Nanabhai, Indris Naidoo had been badly beaten up and they were lying in agony and pain in a small cell.  
 I subsequently learned that apparently the group that Reggie, Shirish and Indris were involved in had an informer with them, a chap called - the name will come to me soon.  He took them to somewhere near Langlaagte and told them that they were going to blow up a railway signal box.  He took them in his own car and he told the three of them to keep watch while he went across the fence and lit the dynamite and set the fuse.  Apparently this box was an empty box, the whole thing was a trap. ....(tape ends)  ....without food, without any treatment for the three colleagues who were beaten up and shot.
 At about 6:30, I am not certain who it was, but I think it was Reggie Vandeyar was taken out of the room and taken 
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away.  He was brought back about ten minutes later and I thought it was just routine questioning. They then asked me to go with - one of the policemen asked me to accompany him and I did and I thought it was a similar situation where they would ask me some questions and then that would be it.  I would be allowed to go.  They took me into a fairly large office which was on the third floor.  We were on the third floor of a building at Park Station.  I went and stood in front of a desk.  There were about four bulky policemen in uniforms, some were in overalls and they asked me to sit down in front of them, in the chair, which I did.  They started asking me about Umkhonto weSizwe, they wanted to know where I got my instructions from, what I had been involved in and various things of that nature.  Of course I denied all knowledge of Umkhonto weSizwe or any activity in Umkhonto weSizwe.
 After about ten minutes of questioning they asked me to stand up, which I did.  They moved the chair away from behind me and the next thing a hessian bag was put over my head and it was covering my head and tied at my knees.  I still didn't realise what exactly was happening because at that stage one had not heard of torture or anything of that nature having happened.  
 They then lay me on the floor and I couldn't see the faces because of the hessian bag.  I couldn't recognise the people exactly.  But then they started removing my - untying my shoes, shoelaces and removing my socks and I could feel them fiddling around with my big toes.  I tried to get up to see, even though the hessian bag was over my head, and the next thing I just knew a boot coming onto my chest and I was pushed back again.
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 Then I was told I had better start talking otherwise they were going to give me electric shock treatment. Through the hessian bag I said I knew nothing.  They then told me that they were going to start, did I think 20 volts, I can't remember the exact details because it's quite a long time ago, it's about 33 years ago.  They told me that they would start at 20 volts and they would increase it until I spoke.  They started with 20 volts and the electricity - apparently they had a dynamo, some type of motor which they used manually and they would set the voltage on that meter.  
 They would torture for about - one has no concept of time actually but for about 30 seconds to a minute.  Then they would stop, ask you a question, when you refused to answer they would say we are increasing it from 20 to 50 volts. That went on until eventually they went up to 220 or 225 volts.  Then they untied the electrodes from my toes and they lifted me up, removed the hessian bag and they told me to stand on the floor without touching anything.  I wasn't able to stand.  My body was completely stiff so I tried to lean against the table, and when I did that they came with a ruler or some instrument and just rapped me on my knuckles.  Somehow or other I managed to stand.
 The one thing that stands out particularly was during the period they were asking questions while they were torturing me, while they were using the electric shock treatment, they would ask specific questions like, if you give us one name we'll let you go and the thought goes through your mind that perhaps if I gave a fictitious name they may let me go.  But then it also occurs to you that even if you give a fictitious name they will come back to you and they will do it again to you.  Even if you gave them JOHANNESBURG HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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a name of a person who was involved in the movement, not particularly in MK it would be a snowballing effect.  There would be no end to it and thus I decided not to give any names whatsoever.
 When they made me stand up and I couldn't, eventually I managed to stand, force myself to stand without any aid, they then took some pencils and various objects from the desk and put it between my fingers on either side and they pressed my fingers till there was blood actually oozing out from between my fingers.  I don't think I've mentioned some of these things in the statement.  I'm just trying to think....
 After that whilst continuing to question me they asked me if I wanted to escape and I wasn't able to speak, I just shook my head.  There were one of the policemen said that he'd give me half a crown if I escaped.  I shook my head again and then he threw the half a crown on the floor and he said you put your thumb onto the half a crown and you move around in a circle.  Eventually I was crawling on the floor because I couldn't move any further. 
 They then stopped me from doing that and they took me to the window, they said go to that window and jump.  They had fairly large windows, about a metre by - one metre by one metre wide and it was a louvre window.  Besides you know in the interim they had beaten me up as well.  They put two chairs on either side of the louvre window and two policemen got on - one policeman got on either chair and they dragged me to the window, and then they said you can now jump.  I said I refuse.  They dragged me by my shoulders and lifted me physically up and pushed my head out of the window.  They were holding me by my ankles, each policeman holding one 
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ankle.  All I could see was a concrete floor at the bottom.  We were three floors up and they would continue asking me questions and all of a sudden one of them would let go of one foot.  And while - as he's about to catch my foot, the one that he had released, the other chap let go, and they played like that, and you know you thought God, this is the end, because there is no way you can get out of it.  If one of them had missed I would have been dead.
 Now this is an important factor because I think when they said for example that Babla Saloojee jumped from the window I think it's a lie.  Babla Saloojee was supposed to have jumped from the sixth floor of Greys Building at that time and jumped on to a parapet, falling on the parapet which was barely a metre wide.  Now if you jumped from the sixth floor you would fall onto the road or onto the pavement, not onto the parapet.  Babla's body was actually 
on that parapet.  That means they must have done the same thing to him.  I think they did the same thing to Timol at John Vorster Square where he too fell from the tenth floor.  I don't think any sane person, when there are 10 or 12 bulky policeman around you would agree to escape through a window on the tenth floor or the sixth floor.
 They pulled me out again.  As I said I was one of the fortunate ones in that they didn't miss.  You know their coordination was fairly good.  They pulled me out again, back into the room and they made me do various exercises because my body was completely stiff.  They made me run on the spot while a policeman was standing in front of me with his arms outstretched and I had to run on the spot with my knees touching his arms, and every time I missed the palm of his hands he would give me a shot and I would go flying.
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 They then, after approximately an hour, they carried me physically out of the room onto the other side of the corridor and let me sit in a chair and they gave me water and I think there were two large jugs of water which I finished.  While I was sitting there and just - your mind isn't functioning properly, you are not thinking properly, but I noticed a policeman running into the office and grabbing a hessian bag which was in the corner which has a weight in it and I assumed that was the dynamo.  A few minutes later I heard screams and it was Chiba screaming.  I think they did the same thing with Chiba for about an hour or so.
 At about two in the morning, maybe later, we had no concept of time because we didn't have watches, two, three in the morning, they carried us down the stairs and they dumped us into the back seat, all five of us, the three injured plus Isoo and myself onto the seat of a Rambler motor car and they drove us back to Marshall Square.
 The following morning we were taken, apparently our lawyers, one of whom was Harold Wolpe, had made an application and they took us to an office somewhere in Braamfontein, I don't know the place at all, and there was three specialists which apparently - Wolpe was there as well, were there on our behalf, and there were three specialists who represented the police or the State.  They examined us, they found the electrode marks, they found the marks between our fingers, they found bruises on us and they were also able to trace that we weren't able to walk in a straight line because of the - either it was because of the electrodes or the fact that it had affected our muscles in some form or another.  Now I don't know what's happened to 
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that report actually because I had no time to stay around, after my detention period to find out or to get a copy of the report.  
 We were then taken back to Marshall Square.  The five of us were charged for sabotage, but the charges were separated.  The three - Isoo and I were tried separately and Vandeyar, Naidoo and Nanabhai were tried separately.  We were still at Marshall Square and then they appeared in court and they were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, the three of them.  We were then moved over to the Fort, which is Johannesburg Central Prison.  We stayed there for almost a month awaiting trial.  And then we were eventually taken back to the magistrate's court and we were taken into the basement of the court where the hearing was held.  
 Now the basement contains a lot of cells where prisoners are held before they come up into the dock, and it's sealed, there are bars all over.  There was a magistrate, a prosecutor, some special branch chap and our lawyer, Harold Wolpe.  The prosecutor immediately said that they were withdrawing the charges and we were free to go.
 I walked up to Harold Wolpe and asked him what we should do, so he said well just go.  Immediately one of the special branch chaps, by the name of Dirker came up to us and said you can't speak to your lawyer because you are being arrested under the 90 day detention law.  Now it appears that they had been waiting for the 90 detention law to be passed before they took us to court for the hearing. We had no recourse then.  We couldn't move out of the court, we couldn't speak to our lawyer, we couldn't do anything.   They took us from there back to Marshall Square and they put us into two separate cells, massive cells, large, 
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about 20 metres by 10 metres wide.  And you were there on your own in that cell.  That night we heard someone signing and I even became a bit vulgar and said "Pastor, is that you Mosi", and it was Mosi Moolla.  Excuse me Bishop for my (...indistinct).  It apparently was Mosi Moolla.  He was inbetween - we were in three separate cells, I was in the first cell, he was in the second cell and Chiba was at the end.  We also subsequently learnt that there were two White comrades there, Leon Levy and Wolfie Kodesh(?) were in the White section.  The way we were able to keep a bit sane was by - especially at night, was by shouting at one another, asking each one to give a song and things like that.  The alternative during the day was that you would walk around the cell, read all the graffiti, walk around the cell to exactly measure how many paces you would take to get from point A back to point A walking right round, doing various things to keep your mind sane.
 Now Mosi, myself and Chiba we had no toilets in our cells or no ablution facilities.  So they would come in the morning and take us out to go and have a wash and we used to do that - come back, they would lock us up again and we would be in the cell the whole day.  Once a week the magistrate came.  The magistrate would ask you have you got any complaints and things like that, and of course the normal things you would ask is we need reading material and so forth.  He would go away, come back the following week and ask you again.  
 We raised our complaints about the fact that we were sleeping on the floor.  We had no water in the cells.  You had to bang at the door if you wanted to get out to go and get water.  Nonetheless eventually we got fed up with the 
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magistrate and we told him, look what's the point in us giving you our complaints because you come back week after week and nothing happens.  And he said look, the honest truth is that I come here, I take your complaints, I take it back to the Special Branch and I've got to leave it with them. They are the final arbiters as to what can be done or what can't be.  Just being in solitary confinement in itself is torture.  I think a lot of people have either had relapses, various forms of ailments as a result of that.  
 I will just move a bit further.  One morning I was taken out to go and have my wash and I came back before the warder was there and I put my finger into the peephole of the door which is a metal door and I pulled the door.  During the day, while I was trying to peep out of the hole and leaning against the door the door flung open.  Now it appears, I didn't realise it, that I hadn't pulled the door hard enough.  When that happened I went and opened Mosi's door, Moolla's door and Chiba's door and we sat and had a bit of a talk and chat and things of that nature.  This used to continue quite often.  Of course sometimes when I came back from the ablutions room I would bang the door and it would bang a bit too hard and then you know for a few we may not be able to meet one another.
 One evening there was an African policeman who was a member of the ANC. He came up there and he told us that there were two people who had been brought into prison.  This was the night of the Rivonia arrests.  I think we were about the first people to hear of the arrests.  They had brought Harold Wolpe and Arthur Goldreich to the cells, and the policeman was kind enough to allow us to go and see them although it was in the White section.  He opened the gate 
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and we went and chatted with them.  
 Goldreich was or is a qualified architect and designer.  He used to work for Kreydamans, and he was one of the people who was living at Lilly's Farm, that's at Rivonia.  But while he was - when he was arrested he was still working for Kreydaman's(?) and they allowed him the facility of the warder's room downstairs to complete his work for Kreydemans.  So he used to go down every morning, spend the day in the warder's office, but when - because I was able to get out of the cell I could see that Harold was walking around in the corridors and things like that on the ground floor.  Arthur Goldreich managed to get hold of one of the old cistern levers which he found somewhere on the ground floor.  He hid it in his pants or somewhere, I'm not certain exactly where and he took it up to his cell.  
 When we saw him that evening he said I am going to use this.  When the policeman comes I am going to knock him over the head and I am going to get his keys and I am going to disappear.  So we had to speak to him and say look, it's not a feasible idea, we need to just take it easy, we'll work out something.
 During this period there was a young Afrikaner policeman who came to relieve one of the other policeman.  Normally he would have been at the office in front, at the charge office.  For about two weeks they hadn't allowed us out for exercise or anything.  Even if we went for exercise it was a small room, a small courtyard with a fence on top, approximately ten metres by five metres wide, and you spent about half an hour, 45 minutes in there walking around.  But this Sunday this policeman came there and he told me that I should go out for exercises.  He was going to take me out.  JOHANNESBURG HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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I walked ahead of him and as we got to the gate - before we got to the metal door he lit a cigarette and when he opened the door he asked me "Rook jy", "Do you smoke", and I said "yes".  So he said here, smoke this, and he told me make sure you don't leave the stompie or the butt anywhere. Throw it into the sink or wherever you can find a place to throw it in.  Which I did.
 We subsequently became fairly good friends with this policeman.  And because he was helpful to us, I mean he was the type of policeman who used to go home, if we wanted cigarettes he would bring us cigarettes back.  He would go home and bring food for us.  Sometimes prison food isn't that edible and we became very friendly.  So I thought we needed to reward him in some way.  We sent him to a friend in Market Street with a note saying that please give Mr Greeff a pair of Dr Watson shoes.  The friend of ours gave him the pair of shoes knowing that he would be paid when and if we got out, otherwise he could collect the money from my brother or someone from the family.
 Then one day Greeff came to us and he said that he had to appear in court because apparently there was a drunken man who had been arrested and came into the police station and aggravated him to such an extent that he had given him a smack.  They had charged him for beating up a prisoner and he had to appear in court and didn't have "nuwe pak kleure", he didn't have a new suit.  So we sent him to another firm, this time Mosi wrote a letter and said please give Mr Greeff, open an account and give Mr Greeff a suit, which he got.  Incidentally Greeff got off that charge and he was very grateful.  He thought he had to pay the money.  I don't think anyone has paid either of the two, either for the 
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shoes or the suit.  
 But nonetheless when things started becoming a bit more difficult we thought that we needed - oh yes Mosi was - Chiba  ...(intervention)