Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-03

CHAIRPERSON: What is this thing at Beaufort West, just make it quite clear please?  They used a gun illegally at Beaufort West and were arrested?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: They committed a robbery there.

CHAIRPERSON: Who did they rob?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: They robbed a garage, it is alleged they robbed a garage.  A filling station, I beg your pardon.

CHAIRPERSON: And your co-applicant Dumisani Ncamazana was one of them, is that what you have just said?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: That is so sir.

MR PRIOR: Maybe give the Committee a bit more information.  The information that I have is that Ncamazana and Jimmy Malinga had taken a R4 from this place, and had robbed the filling station in Fort Beaufort, that they were arrested subsequently to that robbery and the R4 firearm was connected with some of the incidents, Da Gama, Nahoon and Fort Knox?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, we are talking the same thing about the information you are now exposing, this is the same thing you are saying sir.

MR PRIOR: And then thereafter you were arrested and other people, is that correct?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: What happened sir, what happened at Fort Beaufort, we were arrested and left prison, it was a long time, and I returned home.
	June 16, 1994, I left for Transkei.  I met Jimmy Malinga and Mref, another African, Mref.  They said they wanted guns, and I told them I would not give my gun and they said let's go to Jimmy Jones, and ask for guns from him.
	They did not ask for these guns, because I was with them most of the time, including Jimmy Jones.  What they did, Jimmy Malinga said when they were lying to Jimmy Jones, he has clothes that he lost in a taxi and has heard that they were at (indistinct) taxi group's offices, and he wants to go and fetch them.
	I was then left at Butterworth.  I then realised later that these people had said they wanted guns, now they are saying they are going to East London to go and fetch clothes.  I then followed them, hoping to come and stop them fetching the gun, because they had asked me what happened to that gun, and I told them where we left the gun.
	I reached East London very late, they got here first at East London and lied to the person who had kept the gun, Dumisani Ncamazana.  They said they were sent by Jimmy Jones to come and fetch that gun.  
	The person who had kept the gun, believed Dumisani Ncamazana and that other person, they took this gun and went to Fort Beaufort, and committed the robbery there and were arrested.

MR PRIOR: Thank you, and was that in June of 1994?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: That is so.

ADV GCABASHE: Paddy, if I can just go, just one step back.  Mr Mbambo, I have a real difficulty here you know with some of the evidence that you have just given in relation to what was true, what was not true, where you were trying to protect yourself by implicating your co-applicant, Mr Ncamazana.
	How do I as a Committee member, think about granting you amnesty when it is so difficult to determine whether you are just protecting yourself once again by saying all of these things or whether this is in fact the truth.  Just help me through that and explain to me how I think about these things, as we deliberate on this matter?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: The matter is this Ma'am, the reason for me there to lie and included him in my lies, I was very angry for what they had done.  If they had not taken that gun there and gone to Fort Beaufort and committed that robbery and be arrested, and then when the gun was taken to ballistic tests, it was discovered this gun was used at such and such an incident and other, clearly I would not have been arrested then.
	I am trying to say I was angry and this then let me not to absolve him when I was lying, I included him in, I implicated him, because I was angry for what they did.  They lied here and they took the gun, they then went on and they committed something else.
	They got arrested.  This gun then was tested and was found to have been used elsewhere.  That is how I too, we two got arrested, myself too.

ADV GCABASHE: But my question is how do I know this isn't another expression of a different kind of anger, the evidence that you are giving?  Just to help me understand this, how do I know that what you are saying now, is in fact the truth, just considering all of the things that you have said in relation to what was true, what wasn't true.
	Why you implicated certain people, why you did not implicate them.  Why you are implicating Jimmy Jones now, and you did not do so earlier, these are the conflicting thoughts that go through my mind.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: The thing is like this Ma'am, if those guys have not lied at Jimmy Jones, saying that they had come to East London to fetch clothes, knowing full well that they are coming to fetch the guns, where I told them that we had left the gun, after having lied at the person who kept the gun, they took this gun, having said they were sent by Jimmy Jones, went to Fort Beaufort.  What I forgot is the person they went with to Fort Beaufort, was a Policeman, he works for Murder and Robbery.
	The other one who was accompanying them, he is a member of the PAC.  I want to say he was an ascari, he was never a soldier, but he was an informer, I must say so, he was an informer who is known by the PAC that that person is an informer.
	They went with him, those are some of the things that made me very angry.  I saw that these people may have been working for the Police for a very long time.
	How can they lie about JJ and fetch a gun, take this gun and fetch a Policeman and a known informer, who they knew was an informer, and go and commit something like what they did at Fort Beaufort.
	Even when I was told about what happened at Fort Beaufort, they clearly could not have not been arrested.  Firstly, they were using a Police car.  Fort Beaufort is very small, clearly the people of Fort Beaufort is a person that belongs to this one and this one.
	A car that does not belong in that area, would be clearly known and identified.  They did not even change the car's registration plates after having robbed, they stayed on at Fort Beaufort.  This showed me that this was a plan to have us all arrested, trying to have us arrested in another fashion, by suggesting that perhaps a robbery may have led to our arrest.  These things made me very angry.

CHAIRPERSON: Who was this Policeman in the Murder and Robbery?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I cannot remember his name, but I think perhaps Dumisani Ncamazana may remember his name.

CHAIRPERSON: And how did the firearm lead to your arrest, the finding of the R1 firearm as you said earlier?

MR LAX: R4 firearm?

CHAIRPERSON: R4, sorry.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I am sure the Police took that R4 to ballistic testing, or if they did not do so, taking it to ballistic tests, one of them confessed everything that happened here at East London, also saying that that gun was used in those attacks, and also pointed out whoever else may have been involved in those attacks.

CHAIRPERSON: So what implicated you was that one of them made a confession in which he named you?  Is that the position?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I am sure one person may have mentioned my name there, because the Police would not have simply known that I too was involved in those incidents here in East London.
	After having known that whatever I was involved in, where I stayed.

MR PRIOR: Did you implicate Tiznado, that is Ncamazana, out of revenge, in other words because you believed that he had given your name up to the Police and caused your arrest?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I implicated Mr Ncamazana more because I was angry, but that I got arrested myself, is because of something wrong they did at Fort Beaufort.

ADV GCABASHE: So are you not implicating Jimmy Jones now because you are angry, that really is part of my earlier question?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Are you referring to my implicating him because I am angry with what perhaps?