Human Rights Violation Hearings — Heiderveld — 1995-04-25

DR BORAINE: Okay, thank you very much.  Now this must have distressed not only you but the other members of your family and especially your mother.  Do you want to tell us a bit about that?

MR FRANSCH: My mother is still very sick from that day onwards.  The trauma that she is going through is nobody's business.  Because she is suffering a lot when she heard when - even we talk about Anton then she passes out.

DR BORAINE: Ja.

MR FRANSCH: Because I mean it's her second youngest son and it's her second son she lost.

DR BORAINE: Right.

MR FRANSCH: And I mean all of us - we really miss him.

DR BORAINE: Of course - do you - is your father alive.

MR FRANSCH: Yes my father is still alive.

DR BORAINE: And has been affected as well.

MR FRANSCH: Yes partly.

DR BORAINE: Okay, but it's your mother who really felt it most?

MR FRANSCH: My mother [intervention]

DR BORAINE: And of course you and your brothers.

MR FRANSCH: Yes.

DR BORAINE: I see, I am not going to pursue this - these questions because there is a witness who I understand actually saw what happened, so what I am going to suggest is that we let you relax a little bit and that we heard the second witness.  But before I do that, I want to consult with my colleagues to find out if they want to ask you questions before or after Basil speaks to us.  Advocate Ntsebeza.
ADV

NTSEBEZA: Thank you Dr Boraine, you - I just want to clear up something that apparently you said in your - in the statement to the Commission, statement takers.  Did you say that you came to the scene after the event.

MR FRANSCH: Yes I did.

ADV NTSEBEZA: And did you say that you found parts of his body plastered to the wall as if he had been ripped up by an explosion.

MR FRANSCH: Not - part - part of his flesh.

ADV NTSEBEZA: Parts of his flesh?

MR FRANSCH: Yes.

ADV NTSEBEZA: Were plastered to the body - the wall?

MR FRANSCH: Yes.

ADV NTSEBEZA: Now and did your mother see that scene as well?

MR FRANSCH: Yes she did.

ADV NTSEBEZA: Okay, thank you, I just wanted to clear that up.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Wendy Orr.

WENDY ORR: Mark what would you like the Truth Commission to do for you and your family?

MR FRANSCH: What I'd like them to do is find the guilty parties and let us know who they are.  For my mother I would like the Commission to see that she gets some compensation for Anton.

DR RANDERA: Mark you talked about the day that your brother died and a little about the inquest, can you tell us about - a little about what the response of the authorities was between the death and the actual inquest when you went to the police station or other authorities you dealt with in terms of explanations as to what happened.

MR FRANSCH: To tell you the honest truth, we hardly got any response from the police, nothing.  I first saw the - what really happened in the file now the other day and to actually see how he actually - his body looked - part of his hands was ripped apart and I can't mention the other parts of his body.

DR BORAINE: Mr Snayer, Basil - a welcome to you as well I am sure the family are very grateful to you for your willingness to assist us to establish as much of what happened that night as it possible.  First let me ask you, you - where do you live?

MR SNAYER: Doctor I - I live in a house at 148 Church Street.

DR BORAINE: Right.

MR SNAYER: In Athlone.

DR BORAINE: Thank you and where - what - where did Anton stay before he was killed?

MR SNAYER: At the house next to mine.

DR BORAINE: And it's right next-door.

MR SNAYER: Right next-door.

DR BORAINE: Okay, now you knew Anton did you or only afterwards you realise who it was there.  Did you - aware of the family?

MR SNAYER: No I wasn't I became aware of who he was, happen to find out that he was at one stage a student at the school where my brother taught in my brother's class.

DR BORAINE: So you at that time - on that night in November 1989 early morning, you didn't really know that he was there?

MR SNAYER: No I had no idea.

DR BORAINE: Okay, thank you.  Now you have told us that you heard shots being fired, approximately what time was that when you first heard that?

MR SNAYER: It must of been between about 1230 and 1245 the morning.  I remember that because I had been out rehearsing with the band I play for.

DR BORAINE: Okay.

MR SNAYER: Until about twelve o'clock I came home, found my wife in the - in the kitchen baking cookies because that was the day on - of my eldest daughter's birthday, 11th birthday.

DR BORAINE: Okay, so it's very vivid for you?

MR SNAYER: Ja.

DR BORAINE: You  must of - I mean how did you feel when you started hearing gun firing it must of been very close.

MR SNAYER: Ja terrified and of course one immediately reacts to - to that and the proximity of the sound immediately made me and my wife fall flat on the kitchen floor and I entered my way to the telephone - phoned my neighbour to find out whether he knew what was going on.  His response to me was that there could be a shooting in - between people either in his backyard or just outside in the street at the back of his property.

DR BORAINE: What happened after that?

MR SNAYER: My wife, while I was in the bedrooms of my children, taking the boys out of the room which was the closest to where I heard the shots, and taking them away from there to a back room where my - where my daughters were, my wife had phoned the Athlone police station and the response from the police station  that she needn't worry they knew all about what was going on.
 And that obviously made me more terrified because of - of how I began to interpret things from that point onwards.  I had two - I made my own deduction it could be one of two things at that point.  It could have been a possible perpetrator of the - or offender of the Law who had been cornered or it could have been a freedom fighter who - who had been surrounded by the police.  I then went back into the back room where my family was with our housekeeper.
 And of course they were - they were shivering there, my children were at that time 13, 11 and 4 years of age and crying incessantly and probably wondering when the next shot was going to hit their bedroom door.  The shots were just going on and on and on.  And I then started crawling around moving towards the back of the house where - where most of the sound was coming from and I managed to open the back window very-very slowly and slightly and I on peeping through I saw feet moving about in my backyard and then with the amount of vision that I had  I could clearly see that my back gate has - was wide open and I know that it's a - that was a practice of me locking it.
 I then became aware of people walking around in the back street in and out of the gate, in my backyard past that window and everybody was armed.  Some had taken position on the property opposite my house, opposite the street in the back, also armed and shooting.  I then closed the window and proceeded to go to the front of the house and at that point I - my thought was to evacuate my house for the safety of my family.

DR BORAINE: Just - may I stop you there just for a moment.  A rough estimate when you looked out of the window and saw people coming and going and all armed, how many do you think approximately are we talking about, two or three or more?

MR SNAYER: Oh! no I - it must have been more, I saw at least three people cross the road and in the - in the other property at the same time as people were moving in and out it might have been those moving in and out and passed the window - might have been the same people.

DR BORAINE: Sure.

MR SNAYER: But before when I - when I - when I wanted to or before I wanted to evacuate the house, I went to peep through the front door - window, the front bedroom window and saw there were also policeman patrolling in the garden outside.  At that point I thought it wise not to - not to attempt to evacuate the house.