Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-30

MS PATEL: Honourable Chairperson, I would argue that it is in fact higher than a suspicion, that on the probabilities they are lying and if one looks inasmuch as my learned colleague has argued that the Clackers incident should be separated from the rest in that they were motivated there by the need to close down Mrs Clackers' shop because of the consumer boycott.  Mrs Clackers was indeed robbed and that cannot be denied and that wasn't politically motivated and so if the concession is made there, I would argue that that is the basis upon which one can infer that they were in fact involved in the theft of the non-weaponry items in the other incidents as well and that that takes it above suspicion into a reasonable probability.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, no we hear your submission on that in that regard.  As I say it appears that Mr Kincaid has actually made quite a proper concession in respect of the Clackers matter although again the Clackers matter takes on a totally different sort of turn, it's done in the middle of the day, there are three people, they go off there and on Mrs Clackers' version which seems to be unchallenged, you know, it turns into a robbery and an assault and everything else.

MS PATEL: Inasmuch as it's distinguishable in terms of the time of day it took place and the different intention in a sense, it was the applicants' testimony that they were mandated by the very group at the roadblock that was involved in all the other incidents, to go off to Mrs Clackers and commit whatever was committed there.  So in terms of that it was not clearly distinguishable from the rest of the case, it is still committed by essentially - the decision is still according to the applicants themselves taken by the same group of people who in fact embarked on the other attacks in the area so inasmuch as we only have three people involved in that specific incident, they were mandated by the rest of the group, that is their own testimony, Honourable Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes it seems to be the case and Mr Clarke has submitted that he wouldn't necessarily seriously argue against an allegation that they came to the shop on the basis of having been mandated by the roadblock which seems to have been the source of authority to embark on this but the question relates to the incident itself, you know, that is where the real issue lies, that of course on the evidence before us turns out to be you know a robbery, on all accounts it appears there's a lady on her own in the shop who knows what has happened there.  Mr Clarke indicates that there might very well even have been some or other difference of opinion, some argument, one can't say what happened.

MS PATEL: Just on that point, Honourable Chairperson, if one accepts that they went to the Clackers farm with the intentions that - may on the face of it have been politically motivated, but that that changed given the manner in which that incident panned out, can one not use that same argument in respect of the other incidents where things were stolen, that they might have been and it seems as if that, as if given the mandate of the community at that time, that this group of people may very well have used that to abuse the mandate and act for their own personal gain in a sense so on one level they may have been motivated by the decision of the community to carry out the community's mandate but when they got there, things turns out very differently and can we then still say that given the way in which things panned out in some of the incidents that they can still say that ah, that because of our initial motivation you have to follow that through to what we did specifically at those various attacks.  My submission is not, Honourable Chairperson, and that in fact the situation in that area perhaps allowed or made it easier for these applicants to act for personal gain.
	Those are my submissions, Honourable Chairperson, if there's anything further?

MS PATEL: Thank you Ms Patel.  Any further submissions Mr Kincaid?

MR KINCAID: I've no further submissions thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Yes, we're obviously going to need some time to consider this matter and some time to formulate a decision in the matter.  For that purpose we are going to reserve the decision in this matter and we will notify the parties once the decision is available.  In fact that concludes the proceedings and the session here in East London.  It remain just for us to thank all those people that assisted us in having the hearing and we also need to express our gratitude to the legal representatives, Mr Kincaid, Mr Clarke, Ms Patel for your assistance in this matter.  For our staff and the interpreters and everybody else that goes with putting this together, it's not an easy job to arrange logistically a public hearing of this nature, we express our gratitude and to my colleagues on the Panel as well for their assistance.  We are adjourned.
HEARING ADJOURNS