Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-19

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Of those three AK47's, as I said yesterday, two must have been those from security head office.  I cannot remember 100% in what condition they were, but they were the two AK's under the blanket.  There was a dispute over whether they were the freedom fighters AK's or from security head office.  I cannot say whether these are the AK's that did no go back to head office, so it must be part of those three.

MS PATEL: If that is the case, then what was the blanket in which the AK47's were wrapped in doing in your car?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: It was not my car, it was an unrest vehicle.

MS PATEL: Was it the vehicle that you were travelling in?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, I think I left the scene with Captain Liebenberg to a doctor, so I cannot remember how it got there.

MS PATEL: Okay.  What is your knowledge like on explosives, Mr Bellingan?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I am trained as an explosive expert in 1990.

MS PATEL: 1990 and before that, what is the extent of your experience with explosives?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Knowledge and no practical experience.  I just, what I know is what I read.  I am not an expert, but you are just under the Law of Explosives Act, you are just trained as an inspector, but I am not an expert.

MS PATEL: Fair enough.  Would you have, before this incident, ever had the opportunity to deal with explosives of any nature?  How they operate, what it looks like, to handle one?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, they give you courses before you go to the border in hand grenades and enemy hand grenades and they show you the impact that they, these explosives have and we got training as to identify these things.  Yes, I had a knowledge, but I was no expert.

MS PATEL: Okay.  Generally, though, if a bomb explodes or a grenade explodes, you will accept that, at least, some measure of damage must be caused?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, depending on the type of terrain, yes, but there will be damage.

MS PATEL: Okay.  Can I refer you to the bundle of photographs B, it is this.  Oh.  Mr van der Merwe says it is B5.  I will accept his word.
	If we go to the second-last page, if one looks at point K, which is marked on the photographs, that is the point of impact of the grenade that was allegedly thrown.  Is that correct?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: According to witnesses, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That is on photograph numbered 33 and 34.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MS PATEL: That is correct.
	You will accept, from the photographs, that the damage there is extremely minimal?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I did not attend the scene as an explosives expert, but there is much less shrapnel than other, but there, it would, the shrapnel would not have remained in the hole, it would have been, spread over the whole area, but this, the damage does look minimal, I agree.

MS PATEL: All right.  If, even if one looks at the white pole on both photographs, there is no sign of any kind of damage to them.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Not that I can see in the two photos.

MS PATEL: So, what is your comment on that?  How do you explain that?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Just remember that shrapnel moves in different directions.  If I do not, if I am not wrong, one must look, this was a M26, South African hand grenade and at that stage it had bigger shrapnel and it has already happened that shrapnel misses something close to it, it does not hit everything and if we can ask Captain Kleyn, there was green paint at his, on his vehicle.  As the hand grenade was thrown at his vehicle and moved away, I believed this is what happened.  People have already survived where a hand grenade was thrown into a room.  So, it is not always a fact that the direction in which the shrapnel moves, it might have missed the pole totally or partially.  I am not going to give expert evidence on, about something that I do not know about.

MS PATEL: Absolutely.  No, one is not dealing with whether people would have died as a result of a grenade being thrown or not, one is just dealing with the question of damage and, surely, there must have been some damage in the nearby areas.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I cannot comment on this.

CHAIRPERSON: What sort of grenade did you say it was?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I am speaking under correction, but somebody at the scene or maybe after, told me that it was a S26, not the Russian hand grenade.  Somebody said that it was one of our own forces hand grenades.  The pin was not there, left there so that we could identify it.  They say it could have been stolen.  Some of the people bought hand grenade for dagga.  There was a market for this.  So, I heard it somewhere, but I do not know what the report says, what type of hand grenade this was.

MS PATEL: This then places into question, Mr Bellingan, the manner in which this entire incident, according to your version, unfolded, because it was exactly this explosion or the explosion that had resulted as a, that had resulted from the hand grenade that had been thrown, it was because of that that the entire incident unfolded, that people started shooting and that, according to your evidence and the evidence of the rest of your members, that this is how it unfolded, that there was, because of this grenade, there was then, according to them, a lawful attack upon your people.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is what we said from the start.  There was an explosion and shooting and a small war broke out.

MS PATEL: If one looks, then, at the minimal damage that was caused by this, is there room, then, for argument that your members overreacted?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I cannot comment on that.

MS PATEL: Fair enough.  To go back to Mr Mbane.  He then says, he says that they were allowed in to the area, that the area was completely surrounded, that he too, that he ... (intervention).

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Can you just repeat your sentence from the beginning please?

MS PATEL: Sure, sure.
	Mr Mbane says that he was then let in to the area.  By "let in" I mean that he was allowed in without being stopped by anyone, into that intersection and that, as I have said before, he dropped off a few members, he dropped off two groups of people, went over the bridge and came back.  At that time he too heard what sounded like an explosion and the firing had begun.  They then came into the intersection, he was sitting at the door of the van, he then jumped out and tried to escape, but because of the shooting he was not able to run and that at some stage he was rolling on the ground.  Would you have noticed him at this stage?  Can you comment?  Do you recall?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: No, Mr Chairman, somebody told me that I apparently said do not shoot that tall man.  He ran away in a southern way, towards Mannenberg, Guguletu Police Station.  I did not see him rolling on the ground.

MS PATEL: He confirms that he, indeed, ran in the direction that you have just mentioned.  He then says Chris Piet followed shortly after him from the vehicle and that he did shoot at the intersection with the AK47 that he was armed with, but that he was shot down very quickly and he confirms the point at which Chris Piet is lying, that he fell down round about there at the scene.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: If he had seen that, that establishes what his, view.

MS PATEL: He says then that he saw you, Mr Bellingan, drag the deceased, Mr Konile, from the van.  He says Mr Konile did not get out on the drivers side, because there was lots of activity on that side, there was shooting on that side and he just followed himself and Chris Piet out of that side of the vehicle and that you got him before he managed to get out of the vehicle and he says he heard a shot fired at the vehicle.  He cannot confirm whether you had, in fact, whether the bullet that had been shot then had, in fact, at that stage hit Mr Konile or not.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I deny.  I did not drag him from the vehicle.  I deny his allegations.