Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-08-04

CHAIRPERSON: The applicant has stated that he lied to the trial court with a specific intention, to avoid getting convicted, or alternatively avoiding a long sentence, so he had reason to lie.   Equally here, there's reason to lie, the reason being he wants to get amnesty.   Now we've got two conflicting versions before us, do you have anything to say about that?   One of the requirements is full disclosure.

MR MULLIGAN: Thank you, Mr Chair.   That was one of the things mentioned to me by my colleague as well.   I see he started smiling when it came up.   Yes, it is so, he gave a different version at his hearing, but he's also given an explanation to the committee and to the chair, he says he was scared, he says he wanted to try and get out of it, that's why he placed himself in the car and he said he was never part of it, but (inaudible) stated that what he did was what he did, and it's unfortunate, yes, that he didn't maybe play open cards with the Court at that stage to say, "Yes, I'm a member of the ANC, it was a political attack", etceteras, etceteras, but he also gives a good reason for that.   We also know what the attitude of the then Bophuthatswana government was towards things like that, and he says he was scared.
	So yes, it is a problem, but I would request the chair and the committee to accept what he has told us today, because it's in line with what we have on record, except that he now goes and he places himself on the scene.   
	Yes, we can say is this not the political thing as an afterthought after a couple of years in prison and when the opportunity arose he seized it, but we must also look that there's consistency in his application, in his evidence, and I believe when he gave evidence, yes, he answered fairly substantially to some questions.   	There was the one place where it looked as if there would be a contradiction, where my colleague took him along the line, "Was that the only objective, was to get the firearms?"   I think if we go back in the record and listen to it, we will see that, I think that he was focused more on the arms part of it, not so much the political part of it, so... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: The reason for getting arms was to use back in Diepkloof (mike not working).

MR MULLIGAN: (Mike not working) ...but that there is a discrepancy or that we have two versions of what happened at the court and what is said here today, I cannot argue that away, it is there, but (mike not working) all the circumstances and then decide whether he made full disclosure or not.

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Mulligan, the fact that the applicant's version at the hearing isn't backed up at all by any other evidence, and also in the light of the fact that his affiliation with the ANC structures seemed to be rather tenuous, doesn't that also create some difficulty?

MR MULLIGAN: That creates a bit of a problem, but the applicant never came here to say that he was some high-ranking official in the structures or anything, he says he was down on ground level.   He even went so far as to say that he wasn't interested in the things higher up that didn't concern his community.   He specifically stated that.

ADV BOSMAN: Isn't it more than that?   He couldn't, for instance, say who had recruited him or attempted to recruit him.   In some sense he says that he was politically, or he was very politicised, and then in the next breath he says he never attended an ANC branch meeting, no-one invited him to the SDU meeting, he just sort of turned up of his own accord, so wouldn't one expect a person who is so anxious to get involved, also to be anxious to attend a general ANC branch meeting?   Doesn't (mike not working).

MR MULLIGAN: In a sense maybe it does create a bit of a problem, but in another sense, he says he was happy where he was, on the ground level, in the SDU, that's where he was functioning, that's where his concern lies.   He didn't have a, if I could almost say it, a vision for the bigger part of the struggle, he says that, he was just - in the old language, using SA Defence language, if I can, in a sense he was cannon fodder, what they would call them those days, people who are not important, but he was used, and he was influenced to be used.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Mulligan.   Mr Mpshe, do you have any submissions to make?