Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-11-18

CHAIRPERSON: Yes thank you, Mr du Plessis.  I see it's half past four now, would this be a convenient time to adjourn?

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(inaudible - no microphone) finish early tomorrow ...(inaudible)

CHAIRPERSON: Stretch legs and go on for another half an hour?

GEORGE BIZOS: That seems to be the consensus ...(inaudible - no microphone)

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and then if you could also - I don't know what time would be convenient to start in the morning, I don't know what time your planes are flying out tomorrow?

GEORGE BIZOS: Let's take half an hour now and start at nine ...(inaudible - no microphone)

CHAIRPERSON: Alright, we'll take a short adjournment now and then carry on for about half an hour and then start at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Yes thank you.  Mr Bizos, are you going to argue now or Mr Hockey?

GEORGE BIZOS: I will.
	Mr Chairman, you will have seen from our written Heads of Argument that we have, and I'm indebted to my learned friend, Mr Colin Kahanovitz, for having done the great bulk of the work in relation to identifying passages and putting the argument together.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you very much.

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr Chairman, we believe that it is important to decide the matter of dis-importance on the facts and a proper interpretation of the Section, but before we come to the interpretation of the Act, and particularly Section 20, we must have a clear idea of what facts we content that the Committee should find disproved.  And what I am going to do, Mr Chairman, is I'm going to give you - you'll see that the argument is in two parts, the one where there are submissions and interpretation and then the second part is a summary of the facts.
	If we could go to page 2, I will give you note of the references so that you don't have to go and chase in the second part of our argument, where to find our argument.  So I would ask you, where we say "The Early Learning Centre", then this you will find in paragraphs 115 to 152.  That's the general section, but we will be more specific in giving you references in relation to the finding of each particular fact that we ask you to find.  
	And if we go on to paragraph 3, that is a general submission that we make, a main finding of fact and that is a conclusion and I don't want to give you any specific references there.  
	But if you could go to paragraph 4 where we say:
"The evidence of the applicants to the effect that the bombing was intended merely to frighten the members of the KTY ..."
it should have an M there as well we are told, as a proper acronym and could I ask you to please add it, so that we have the - we've had a complaint about it, a justifiable one, from the people involved.  And what we would like you to note there is that it is particularly in paragraph 144, but in addition ...
"The evidence of the applicants to the effect that the bombing was intended merely to frighten the members"
Please go to paragraph 144, and what you will see, that the second part is called the summary.  The references that I am going to give is - please also have a look at S, I will S as summary, the summary part of the argument ...

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, or B, because it's part A and part B.

GEORGE BIZOS: Part A and part B, very well.  I'm a bit worried about A, because I don't want it to be confused with bundle A, but if we could call it A and B, I have no problem.  So it's A144 and B336, 338 and 342.  That is where you will find the evidence why we say that this is what they said.
	The B references are references to the evidence of Mr Calla Botha.  The B references, 336, 338, 342 are - we will come to it later, I merely want to give you an overview, Mr Chairman, those relate to the evidence of Mr Calla Botha.  And what we draw attention to and the reason why we give you those references there is because of Mr Coetzee's submission that Mr Calla Botha didn't know the purpose.  Well, his submission is not well founded, because Mr Calla Botha in these paragraphs went out of his way in support of the main contention that it was merely to frighten them.  So he was supportive in this regard.  But we will come and examine it ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos to interrupt, just before it slips my mind, there was one point that I couldn't actually quite follow in the Heads, it was 154 I think, part A - sorry, I should actually deal with it when you're dealing with the Omar thing.  It's just flashed into my memory now.  But perhaps we can deal with it now.

GEORGE BIZOS: Is it on 154?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, 154 you say
'It's respectfully submitted that they are not entitled to amnesty"
That's all the applicants?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And then you deal with it and then at the end of the story you deal with everybody but don't deal with Barnard.  I don't know what the attitude of the victims is in regard to Barnard.

GEORGE BIZOS: We will come to it, we want some specific instructions.

CHAIRPERSON: Because they ask for Van Zyl's application to be refused and Burger and Basson, but not Barnard.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, we are going to make a submission in relation to Barnard, but I will disclose to the Committee why we have not had an opportunity of actually discussing it with our clients.  Mr Omar is - we didn't want to say anything without discussing it with him, after all he's vitally involved in this and this is why we didn't make a specific submission.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright, I just wanted ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: No, I appreciate that, but this was it.  We were hoping to speak to him in the last day or two, but there have been Cabinet meetings and there have been train accidents and all sorts of things.

CHAIRPERSON: But you will make a submission concerning him?

GEORGE BIZOS: But we will make a submission, definitely, because he's back in Cape Town and before tomorrow we hope to have a definite instruction.

MR COETZEE: Mr Bizos referred to me as having argued on behalf of Botha and it's in fact Mr van Eck who argued on behalf of Mr Botha.  I don't want the record to ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sorry.  It's because of his absence that ...(indistinct - no microphone)
	Then what we say is that if you have a look at paragraph 5, would you note that it's at paragraph 117, A117, and 117 deals with the whole of paragraph 5 up to 5.5.  So this is where you will find the argument, Mr Chairman.  And we say that:
"The allegation made in the amnesty applications of Webb, Burger and Basson that the police involvement was impossible, is false and was known to be false by the applicants at the time that their sworn statements were deposed to."
What we say is, please have a look at paragraph 118. 
	In relation to paragraph 7, please look at 121, B336, B338 and B342.  This is again in relation to Calla Botha's evidence.
	Now if we go to paragraph 8:
"The evidence of the applicants that Hardien was to be paid R30 000 merely to place in an empty hall a bomb not intended to kill or injure any person, should be rejected as false."
And we ask you to look at paragraphs 124 to 127 and paragraph 132.

CHAIRPERSON: I thought you said paragraphs 124 to 137.

GEORGE BIZOS: 127.  And in relation to paragraph 10, please see A131 and 144.  And in relation to pararaph 11, see the same paragraphs as paragraph 8, that is 124, 125, 126, 127 and 132.
	And paragraph 12 and paragraph 15 are to be read together, and please paragraph 129 to 144.  We do not give references for paragraph 13, it is a submission on the evidence as a whole, but if you go to paragraph 14, we would ask you to look at paragraph 142 and 143.  In relation to paragraph 16, 141, 142 and 143.

MR LAX: Mr Bizos, there's an obvious mistake in 16.2, where the word "hall" is used, you obviously mean building there.