Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1998-01-22

MR VISSER: Thank you, Mr Commissioner.  Now there's a column on this page and it deals with perpetrators.  Now did you tell the investigator who spoke to you that the perpetrator's were the following people: Bester: S.A.P.?

MR MOHAPE: Yes.

MR VISSER: Yes?

MR MOHAPE: No, no, let me correct you in that.  Bester is one, the one - in actual fact yesterday I was saying Erasmus knows best, the one involved in the beating after or when I was arrested for stabbing Ngo.  It's where Bester, Major Ben and Van Dyk were involved.  So I will tell you when I explained to the investigating officer I was telling him that those people had been involved in my beating at Bloomspruit Police Station where I was stripped naked by them and beaten with a hosepipe.

MR VISSER: Mr Mohape, let there be no doubt about the incident that I'm talking about.  It's the incident, the one occasion and the one and only occasion when you were assaulted with a hammer.

MR MOHAPE: Bester was not involved there.

MR VISSER: Did you tell the investigator ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: As I understand the paper you have read to him, you started off reading Perpetrator Motsamai at the top of the page and then you said it referred to the incident below.  You are now coming to a lot more perpetrators and there is an incident on the next page about his incarceration in contravention Sections 29 and 50.  Are those perpetrators not relating to that incident?  Isn't that the way - how this form is filled in?

MR VISSER: May I just consider that because you may very well be right, Mr Chairman.  Now starting from the previous page, Mr Chairman, if one can try to understand how the, what the procedure is here, it starts off with the victim and his particulars and then it seems to start with victim again and the perpetrator so first it's victim and then perpetrator.  So there's one on the first page then it goes to the second one also marked 27.
	They're all marked the same numbers, White Mohape and then 84 Bloemfontein Vulamasango School and then perpetrator Motsamai.  So it would seem almost in connection with the previous one and then it would seem that it starts with the third one as victim White Mohape, beaten with hammer and fists and that the perpetrators are then the ones that follow until we come to the next page, Mr Chairman.  So then my question would be fair if that interpretation is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: If it is I don't think it is.

MR VISSER: I have no idea Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: So I don't think you can put it to him if you have no idea, you can't put to him something that you don't know to be correct.  If you will look at the bottom of the page after those perpetrators there are witnesses set out.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, I have kept quiet thus far as a result of the line of cross-examination that's being followed.  I mean that one thing is very clear here.  This document from which my learned friend is doing his cross-examination was not compiled by him, I'm now referring to the witness.
	We are not even sure if all the information included in that has been conveyed by this witness to that person.  There is a misunderstanding about which people are being implicated where and I mean, that it is totally unfair for this witness to have to reply to that if we do not even know whether this is the information that has been given by him.

UNKNOWN: I think Mr Visser, let us put it clearly, you are doing your cross-examination out of a document from the Commission, a TRC document and I think you're entitled to do that, it's been provided to you, it's not a document that you compiled yourself but I think that in all fairness, if one looks at the document it seems as if it's a summary of all the events regarding this witness and not only the hammer event or incident.  	So if the evidence of this witness regarding the incident in which he was involved where he was assaulted by four persons and he doesn't know who those four are, that is all evidence that he is giving us.  It is true that evidence, the applicants' evidence that there are some differences in their evidence.
	Is it not a question of further argument what deductions the Committee must make out of it or not and can we not on that basis, if we look at the evidence before you, can the proceedings not be shortened on that basis?  Can we go any further by doing cross-examination which is not already on record or can be argued?

MR VISSER: Commissioner de Jager you are correct, but I would just like to say in my own defence it's not that I continued with something after this argument was raised but at the moment when the Chairman mentioned it to me, I conceded that there could be a possible problem with the interpretation.
	 What I do want to propose is that I leave this document.  I might just add that we went to look for documents because the Chairman reminded us yesterday that there was a document which involved Mr White Mohape and he couldn't remember what it was.  
	And last night when we were working on this case, we thought that these were the documents and that is why we are placing it in front of you today.

CHAIRPERSON: What I think it makes the cross-examination even more unfair Mr Visser is, you will recollect the witness said that he spoke to a member of, a TRC investigator, Pula Zwane, it's the only one he spoke to.  This document that you are relying on appears, I can say no more than appears, to be signed by P Maharaj.  His name appears at the bottom of each page.  I don't think ...[intervention]

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, may I make - in order to attempt to step off this matter, may I make the suggestion that we establish through Mr Brink or otherwise precisely how the investigation unit make their notes, what is meant with this document and if necessary Mr Chairman, we can come back to you and we might then lead the witness or ask Mr Brink to present that witness to you who did the interview with Mr Mohape and ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Is there any point in wasting more time on this, Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: We are here to decide on the applications of Mr Ngo and Mr Motsamai, that is the purpose of this hearing.

MR VISSER: And this witness Mr Chairman, let us make no mistake about that, has been tendered to you to support the evidence of Mr Ngo.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and you have put to him that he is being untruthful you have put to him that your witnesses will contradict what he said, right.

MR VISSER: Yes.  But Mr Chairman, may I just reply to your question, Mr Chairman?  I have to just reply and that is just to say this.  On the way in which we read the document, which may be wrong, if it turns out at the end of the day that he gave entirely different perpetrators, it is a relevant point for you to know Mr Chairman and I take it no further than that and that is what I've been trying to bring to your attention.  You've now corrected me and said that I may be wrong ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: It is surely something that must be put to Mr Ngo if that is the position?

MR VISSER: Alright Mr Chairman, let's step off this thing.
	Mr Mohape, I spoke to Colonel Erasmus about your allegations and I'm going to put to you what he says and you can respond it you wish.  He says that he was never involved in the fabrication of any evidence, in any court case including the one of Mr Ngo, as far your allegation in that regard is concerned.

MR MOHAPE: I don't expect him to accept that.

MR VISSER: Okay.  He was in fact Mr Ngo's handler, together with Lieutenant Shaw.

MR MOHAPE: Yes, because every time I will see them in his office, yes that one is true.

MR VISSER: And the same denial is made by Lieutenant Shaw and you say you expected that?

MR MOHAPE: Saying that they were not handlers of Ngo?

MR VISSER: No, no, that he denies that he ever tampers with evidence before a Court of Law.

MR MOHAPE: It is the same I will expect.