Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-10-05

MR VAN DEN BERG: That is correct.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I have absolutely no knowledge of these operations that you have just referred to.

CHAIRPERSON: You must have, Mr Nkabinde, because number 10 is Dirk Jacobs and number 11 is K.R. Stanton and number 12 is the car crash in the Stanton's car?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: Yes I know of the three, these are the ones for which I've applied for amnesty.

MR VAN DEN BERG: You will see that item 3 is an armed robbery on the 24th December 1993?  It was an armed robbery of a service station at which petrol, oil, cigarettes and money was stolen.

CHAIRPERSON: At Sterkspruit?

MR VAN DEN BERG: That is correct, Mr Chairperson.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I have no knowledge of that, I wasn't present when it took place.

ADV MOTATA: Mr van den Berg may I just intervene here?  You had a question that Tiedt and Hoed had personal knowledge that Monde was involved and your question was does he have knowledge of that, I don't think that question was answered?
Am I correct?

MR VAN DEN BERG: That is correct.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I have no knowledge of that.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Perhaps to follow on, the question from Advocate Motata, you can't dispute what Captain Hoed and former Warrant Officer Tiedt would say in this regard, can you?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I wouldn't dispute that because I was not present when these took place, I've submitted an application for the incidents in which I was involved.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr van den Berg, just a question of clarity here?  I see from this B2, it says that the - no it's fine, I see it, they've got the date behind it.  It's alright.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Thank you Mr Chairperson.
	Mr Nkabinde, I'm not going to take you through each and every one of these incidents save to say that insofar as Tiedt and Hoed are concerned, each and every one of these incidents, that's from item 3 onwards, these were acts of criminality?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I will speak to you with regard to number 10 as well as number 13, the rest you cannot ask me about because I was not involved.  I was fighting for my land or we were fighting for our land and repossessing.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Now according to you there were five people involved in these two what you've called operations.  There was Monde Gadebe who is now deceased, is that correct?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: Yes Monde Gadebe is since been deceased.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Kopane Tshabalala is also deceased, he died in that motor vehicle accident?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: He died in the Smithfield car accident, in Smithfield.

MR VAN DEN BERG: There is Michael Mofokeng, your co-applicant, is that correct?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: What about him?

MR VAN DEN BERG: I'm just ascertaining from you the five people who were involved in this matter?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: Yes he was.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Yourself?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: That is correct.

MR VAN DEN BERG: And Thabang Tjitja.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: That is correct he was present.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Do you know where Mr Tjitja is today?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: He is in prison but I don't know which one.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Now there are only two applicants today, yourself and Mr Mofokeng.  Mr Tjitja is not an applicant today.  Can you comment on that?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: There's absolutely nothing I can say about Choice, it's up to him whether he does submit an application or he doesn't.

MR VAN DEN BERG: I have consulted with Mr Tjitja, he is in the Zonderwater Prison.  When I first spoke with him he denied all knowledge of these two operations.  He repeated the evidence that he gave at his criminal trial.  Mr Chairperson that evidence is summarised in his judgment.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, in the judgment which is part of the bundle, yes I have read that thank you.

MR VAN DEN BERG: When I advised Mr Tjitja that both you and Mr Mofokeng had sought amnesty he told me a different story.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: Whatever Thabang Tjitja said is up to him.  I am telling you things according to my own perspective as I saw them or as they happened, whatever Thabang told you is his own perspective.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Now Mr Tjitja is presently serving a life imprisonment sentence and at the time he was involved in the act with yourselves he was on bail pending an application for leave for appeal against a conviction for armed robbery.  Do you know about that?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I did hear about that but we were not in the same prison.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Tjitja says that he was never received any military training, that he is not a member of APLA and that this was not an APLA operation.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I did say before that Tjitja was not a member of APLA he was brought to me by Monde.  That is why he hasn't submitted an application for amnesty probably because he is not an APLA member.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Nkabinde, you say in your affidavit at paragraph 5 of the affidavit
"We were a unit of 5 operatives"
When I asked you about that you said you only had personal knowledge in respect of yourself and in respect of Mr Gadebe, you couldn't comment in respect of the other three members.

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: That is correct.  I am still saying that, Thabang was not a member of APLA, the people that I knew were members of APLA was Monde as well as myself because we knew each other.  The rest of the members were brought to me by Monde as the commander, he introduced them to me.

MR VAN DEN BERG: I'm going to argue, Mr Nkabinde, that what you've now said is not what you said earlier on?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I'm repeating what I said before, there's nothing that has changed in my statement.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Yes, I think we can agree to disagree on that.  I can refer you to your affidavit, you refer to "Operation A" and that is Parkview.  This is the murder of Mr Jacobs.

CHAIRPERSON: I think it was first of all Parktownview, then it was Parkview and then lastly it was Parktown.  I think if we can clear this up finally, because now you've referred it to Parkview again?

MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Chairperson that is what I'd hoped to do.

CHAIRPERSON: I do know that there's no such place as Parktownview however.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Nkabinde, you were charged with - the first charge at your criminal trial was that of murder and that it was - the charge was formulated as follows and I'm interpreting it from Afrikaans, that on or approximately the 16th January 1994 and at or near 9th Avenue, 5, 9th Avenue, Parktown North, in the District of Johannesburg, you unlawfully killed Diederick Jacobus Jacobs.  Was that the charge on which you were convicted?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: Yes I think that was how it was formulated and I got convicted.

MR VAN DEN BERG: So you agree with me that this incident took place in Parktown North?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: That is correct.

MR VAN DEN BERG: Now if we can just deal with the detail of that incident.  You say at paragraph 7 that three whites came out of the house.  Can you identify those three whites?
I don't expect you to name them by name because from what I understand you don't know them personally, but were they male, were they female, were they young, were they old?  Who were those three whites?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: I saw a female as well as a young girl and one male settler.

MR VAN DEN BERG: So the three people that came out of the house, there were two females and a male?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Nkabinde at the time that this occurred what time of the day was it, more or less?

NKOSINATHI NKABINDE: It was late afternoon, I think it was in the evening, it was at about 8 in the evening if I'm not mistaken.