Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-29

MS PATEL: Alright, then finally I want to move on to the Marulia incident, that's the incident in which the old lady was shot.  You stated that you all went there in a Combi, I just want to know did you all leave together in that same Combi?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes a lot of us were in that Combi.

MS PATEL: No, when you left, when you left Mrs Marulia's farm?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, the others were left behind, they scattered around running away in the open veld there.

MS PATEL: Okay you didn't see any of the people who were with you take any goods?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I just saw the firearms, I only saw the firearms.

MS PATEL: Sorry, which firearms are you referring to now?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: There were two rifles that we found there.

MS PATEL: Sorry Honourable Chairperson, if I could just check my notes on that point, I don't believe that they found any firearms on that farm but I may be mistaken.

ADV SANDI: Are you talking about the attack on the Marulia's farm?  I think it does, according to my notes, I don't know about other items, what I recall are the two revolvers and the bullets.

MS PATEL: Thank you that helps, that jogs my memory, thank you very much.
	You were the person who shot at Mrs Marulia, not so?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes that is correct.

MS PATEL: Did you not know - okay, you state that you shot at the door, you didn't know that it was an old woman there?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes that is correct, I did not know what type of a person was living there.

MS PATEL: Okay, when you got to Mrs Marulia's farm did you or any of your other group tell her that you wanted her to leave the farm?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, we could not meet with her.

MS PATEL: Okay, you stated yesterday in your evidence that during the time that these offences were committed that the political parties were still banned at that time?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes that is correct.

MS PATEL: Okay, you as a supporter of the ANC, can you recall whether Mandela was released during that time or not?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: He as not yet released in 1989.

MS PATEL: No, these incidents took place at the beginning of 1990 and that is when all these offences took place.  Mr Mandela was in fact released during that time, in February of 1990 and you still proceeded to commit further offences after he was released?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I just want to rectify something, the boycott started in 1989.

MS PATEL: Okay, I just want to put to you also that from the evidence that was led at the trial given that your intentions were to go to the farms to tell people to leave, the evidence at the trial was in fact that nobody was invited to leave their farms?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I won't know about that because it was not our task to go on telling the people but that happened to be a decision that was reached at a meeting that was at a soccer ground.

MS PATEL: No Sir, I refer to people being told to leave during the incidents that you have testified to, not a previous decision where you say notices were sent to people to leave their farms?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is what I know, we decided that they should be told.

MS PATEL: Finally I just want to put it to you, Sir, that in respect of all these incidents that you have testified to that you have not acted with a political motive?

JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is not correct.

MS PATEL: Okay, just finally Mr Nokawusana, before you were convicted of these offences, were you ever convicted for anything else that involved a crime of dishonesty?

CHAIRPERSON: What's the relevance of that Ms Patel?

MS PATEL: With respect Honourable Chairperson, it is going to be my argument at the end of the day that the applicant hasn't acted with a political motive, that he acted with criminal intent?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes that seems to be your case, yes?

MS PATEL: And not only he but other who were with him had criminal records before and my questioning regarding his previous criminal conduct is to show in fact that there might possibly have been but I don't have any evidence as to his SAP69 prior to - but if you feel that ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: No, I'm not going to allow you to ask that question.

MS PATEL: Okay thank you then that's the end.

CHAIRPERSON: Is there anything else?

MS PATEL: No, that's is Honourable Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS PATEL

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kincaid, before you start you client has referred to many, many incidents, he has testified about a number of attacks, he did assist us as a panel to have an idea about the specific offences that the amnesty application relate to.  I don't know if you have applied your mind to that whether you're in a position to indicate to us but it will certainly assist us to deal with the evidence on this whole range of incidents and actions taken by your client and I assume some of your other clients so if you are in a position to reindicate to us at this early stage I would invite you to consider doing that because it would certainly assist us.  If not then it might be helpful for you to consider that and to refer to that, submit it to us as soon as you are in a position to do so?

MR KINCAID: Mr Chairman, I'm not quite sure whether I understand what the terms of your invitation are at the moment.  Are you wishing me to canvass the merits of the individual incidents again?

CHAIRPERSON: No, normally an amnesty applicant would indicate in either the application form or in some other manner the specific offences for which the amnesty being applied for.  In that case it assists in focusing the evidence that is being presented and it assists the panel also in following the relevance of evidence and it assists us in regulating the proceedings so we don't seem to have a clear list of offences that the applicant is applying for.  We know there are these five incidents, we're not sure, in some cases he says that he was not involved in certain actions, he didn't do this but somebody else might have done it so we're not sure to what extent the applicant is actually applying for a particular offence that was committed in a particular incident, to what extent that might form part of his amnesty application.  If somebody was killed and he says for argument sake that "I didn't shoot" or "I don't know what happened" it's not clear how relevant the killing is to his application, whether he's in fact applying for that offence or not.  If he's not applying for the offence then we know how to sift through the evidence and that is the kind of difficulty that we are trying to sort of convey from our perspective at this stage, certainly might assist us.
	So what I'm saying is I'm not sure whether you have already formulated a list of offences which you would submit you are asking for amnesty in respect of each one of those incidents.  It might be possession of a firearm, it might be attempted murder, it might be robbery, it might be a murder, arson, perhaps more composite crimes like public violence or whatever it might be so, you know it's from that kind of perspective that we might raise it with you at this early stage.