Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR NOFOMELA: I did not participate.  None of us others that were there.  Only Sergeant Van Heerden did.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Didn't you hold him when the sergeant burnt him?  He couldn't have done it alone?

MR NOFOMELA: He did do it.  In fact, as far as the burning goes, I had a bit of a problem because in the ... (section missing - CHANGE OVER TO TAPE 5A) ... taking him to the
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JUDGE NGOEPE	197	MR A NOFOMELA
panelbeating shop he was very weak and I made a mistake by saying the person was burnt.  In fact, he was threatened with being burnt by the flame from the welding torch.  He was not burnt.  Because I actually testified before the Harms Commission that this person was not actually burnt, he was merely threatened with the welding torch flame.  That was a mistake that I made to say that he was actually burnt.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You are very pertinent here.  You are not saying that he was threatened.  You actually say that he was burnt and subsequently he sued the police and the matter went to court.  You are not saying that he was threatened.  Either you saw a person being burnt or you didn't.

MR NOFOMELA: It seemed as if he was being burnt, because the flame was held close to his face, close to his body, because when you press this button the flame shoots forward and he cried out as though he had actually burnt and he was bleeding as well and I merely assume that he had burnt due to the extent of his injuries, whereas in actual fact he had not burnt.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: .... assume that he was burnt.

MR NOFOMELA: I assumed that because he was badly swollen in his face and chest and one couldn't see exactly what had been done to him.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: (Inaudible)

MR NOFOMELA: Because of the way that the flame was being brought close to him and the way he cried out, it seemed as if he had actually been burnt by the flame, but he had actually not been burnt.  But afterwards I never checked him to see whether he had burnt or not.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Here once more it is a mistake on your part now to say that the man was burnt.
21.1 - 5A

MR NOFOMELA: /...
CHAIRMAN	198	MR A NOFOMELA

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And all this was done because the man had entered the country without a valid passport, is that it and a false identify document.  That's the reason.

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

JUDGE WILSON: Tell me a little bit more about this man, please, Paris Mkize.  Where was he from?

MR NOFOMELA: I think there is a place called Kraaifontein near Piet Retief.  He was from Swaziland, in fact, according to him.

JUDGE WILSON: Were they living at Kraaifontein?

MR NOFOMELA: According to him his father was a community leader at Kraaifontein.

JUDGE WILSON: (Inaudible)

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, Sir.

JUDGE WILSON: You said in your application for amnesty that he was apparently the son of a community leader, is that so?

MR NOFOMELA: I did say that.

JUDGE WILSON: So this was a man that had quite clearly very strong ties in South Africa, is that so?  His father was a community leader at Kraaifontein.  You have told us that, haven't you?  So he had strong ties with Kraaifontein, his father lived there.  He was not some strange foreigner who had no connection with the country, was he?

MR NOFOMELA: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Was he a South African?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, he was.

JUDGE WILSON: You go on to say in your application for amnesty
"Community leaders were often associated with the broader democratic movement and thereby associated
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JUDGE WILSON	199	MR A NOFOMELA
with the ANC and other enemies of the State".
Do you remember saying that in your application?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, I remember.

JUDGE WILSON: Was that why you assaulted him and threatened him with a blow torch and things of that nature?

MR NOFOMELA: That is one of the things, Sir.

JUDGE WILSON: Well, why didn't you mention one word of it earlier in your evidence today?  You made no mention of the fact that he was the son of a community leader who might have been associated with the broader democratic movement?  You didn't tell us a word of that, why not?

MR NOFOMELA: I was not being asked about this today here and there was no need for me to answer on another topic when I was not being specifically asked about that.

JUDGE WILSON: You were asked what political purpose was to be achieved by assaulting him and you said you couldn't say.  Do you remember that?

MR NOFOMELA: I remember.

JUDGE WILSON: ... it may have been because his father was an enemy of the State.

MR NOFOMELA: I say that was one of the reasons.

CHAIRPERSON: Community leaders were often associated with a broad democratic movement.  It didn't mean that every community leader belonged to the democratic movement.  So community leaders were associated, some of them, with a broad democratic movement, and because they were associated with a broad democratic movement, some community leaders, this man was the son of a community leader, was treated the way you treated him.  Now where is the politics involved in all this?  This is sheer brutality, where you started assaulting him without knowing at that stage that he was a
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CHAIRMAN	200	MR A NOFOMELA
community leader's son, you assaulted him and you beat him up because he didn't have proper papers or suspected that he didn't have.  You then say that he told you that his father was a community leader.  So it was after he told you that his father was a community leader, you then say community leaders were often associated.  So when you started beating him up at that stage you didn't know anything about his father's supposed political affiliations.  That's true isn't it?

MR NOFOMELA: That is true.

CHAIRPERSON: So then your application for amnesty for this incident quite clearly cannot be said to be motivated properly because there was no political objective to be achieved in beating this man up.  You beat him up because he didn't have the right documents.

MR NOFOMELA: Yes, Sir.  That is where we started assaulting him without knowing anything about him.

JUDGE WILSON: I want to go back now again to the attempted kidnapping of the General.  You told us that you and Captain Dirk Coetzee went to Swaziland for the purpose of kidnapping him, is that correct?

MR NOFOMELA: Yes.

JUDGE WILSON: And you assaulted him and left him there.
How did you get into the flat that he was in?

MR NOFOMELA: Firstly, it was dusk when we got there.  It was quite dark already, and we first got into a BMW that was outside and hid ourselves there.  I cannot remember when we moved from there, but we gained access into the flat via a window and we stood somewhere near the toilet so that we could see when he came to the toilet, and if he happened to come to the toilet we were going to grab him and leave with
201	MR A NOFOMELA

MR NOFOMELA: him and we were unable to do that.  While we were standing there, he came to the toilet and we tried to grab him, but he resisted and he was not, as we expected him.  We expected him to have been intoxicated, but he was not, because there was something that was thrown in his drink.  His drink was supposed to have been spiked in order to aggravate his intoxication, and we found that things didn't work out that way.  This person was very strong and he resisted, to such an extent that Captain Dirk Coetzee said that we should leave.

JUDGE WILSON: Who was going to throw something in his drink to spike his drink?

MR NOFOMELA: As far as I know, from what I was told by Dirk Coetzee, there was a person known as Lockwood(?), who was a friend of the General, and that day there were two of them, and he was going to throw something in his glass so that when he drank, when he consumed that alcohol it would aggravate his intoxication far more than the normal drink and that would have made it easier for us to abduct him.  And it did not happen that way.