Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-09-23

MR TERREBLANCHE: Honourable Chairperson and counsel, in my argument I will attempt to, in a spirit of the Latin quote, to search for the truth and to stand by it, then I think of this quote that is very familiar in legal circles ruat caelum fiat iustitia, let the heavens collapse, but let justice prevail.
	This Commission was confronted with a very strange case.  A man applies for amnesty, your Commission must decide if he will not be charged in a criminal court with the evidence that was led in front of this Commission, and what he was confronted with and where he indeed will be charged for a triple murder.
	The applicant himself is also or was also confronted with a unfamiliar situation, because of political unrest and because of what happened in Bophuthatswana and the fact that the Mangope government which is an independent sovereign State, did not want to take part in the elections of another State and because of that, there was unrest.
	In this unrest three men were wounded, one apparently killed and the applicant arrives at the scene and he cold bloodedly kills them.  According to the evidence in front of the Commission, he also shoots the body of the third person with a machine gun.
	It can never be doubted that it would be a murder case of the century in this country, but the applicant can see the light now in the light of the situation.  He cannot explain why he was in hiding for so many years, and he hid himself so well that the sergeant had to carry the guilt for years.  Nare, the sergeant, was known throughout the world as a murderer.  Nare carries the guilt and the guilty person, hides.  At no stage he goes to the police or to the Committee, and we have to conclude the police, or before the police finds him and confronts him with the following case that is under investigation for murder, and his reaction was there is no way in which I can escape what I did against humanity and makes misuse of the Judge and the other Members.  I will go and hide from justice, then the police can do nothing against me.
	His plan did succeed, except for the heavens collapsed and justice will prevail.  He is, because of his own evidence and the evidence of others, he is found guilty, at least that he killed the people.
	But in the meantime, while in hiding for those months and years, he also learnt how to apply for amnesty and there must be two reasons for doing this.  Then you are not a murderer any more, then you will be released.  You with your quick temper as he showed it in his biting answers, not only towards Mr Van der Berg, but also in answer to one of the Members of the Panel.
	He must have a reason why he applies for amnesty and the first is someone had to give him an instruction.  He is in the politics, from what party section is he?  Who is his immediate Head?  These questions were put to him at various times:  who gave him the instruction, but because Mr Menyatsoe was never a member of a political party, and was never involved in politics, and it is my submission that he was not interested in politics, because then he would have at least said that he supported the ANC like a soccer club in Johannesburg.

ADV MOTATA: May I just interrupt you Mr Terreblanche.  As regards the instructions that he had to act on, his answer to that question says the situation as it prevailed, I had a discretion.  Could we falter his discretion which he took up at that moment when he was confronted with what he terms a war situation, that if you are that position, you have no discretion, you must obtain instructions, can we falter him on that?

MR TERREBLANCHE: Mr Chairperson, my argument is exactly that because he knew that there was no one to give an instruction, he had to adapt his evidence in such a way that he created a war situation of a scene which was indeed or should have been a hospital room, because he acted himself.  From a hospital room, he creates a war situation and shoot the bodies and I will argue further or later, and prove it because he did not receive an instruction and because he was not a member of the ANC and I am convinced that the ANC would not reconcile themselves with him as a member, because it is not the ANC's policy to kill injured, because he had nothing to do with politics, but because of his own evidence, I had to make a choice he said in one of his statements, either I had to support the Bophuthatswana police or stay with the people where I was tasked.
	The police say you cannot leave, you have to stay there.

ADV MOTATA: No but Mr Terreblanche, let's look at it and even take the evidence of the journalist in perspective.  He says the situation here in Bophuthatswana was so tense that we could ascribe it to a political upheaval and even the members, he cannot say who, that them as journalists had to cover the upheavals here in Bophuthatswana, were even restrained by these people showing them guns, we will shoot you, get away.
	You find yourself in that situation, confronted by these men, are you going to say I must wait and go to Head Office and get instructions what to do with these people which are confronting you immediately?  Are we going to think along those lines?  If you are thinking rationally as a person, are we going to think along those lines?