Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: Don't you understand, Mr Memani, this is argument you are trying to put to him. If you want to ask how your client could have known they reported to Loots, you can do so, that is a valid point.

ADV MEMANI: That is ...

CHAIRPERSON: The answer may not be in your interest, of course.

ADV MEMANI: Let us formulate it in that fashion.  Ngo was not in the security branch, says to us that you reported, you and Selahla reported to Loots.

CAPT BOKABA: I thank you. Let me briefly answer you. He was supposed to have known that we reported to Capt Loots as he knew that Capt Loots was our head Section B. And he did have an interview with Capt Loots.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Would Unit 19 have known that Loots was your head?

CAPT BOKABA: That I have stated that I took Ngo to Capt Loots for an interview.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: How could Ngo have known that you were not reporting to the superior who you should have been reporting to, to Hechter, but you were instead reporting to Loots?

CAPT BOKABA: As I have explained he could say it can be Capt Loots, because he knows Capt Loots, he had an interview with Capt Loots. There is no problem there because Capt Loots was the head of Section B at COMPOL.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But Ngo had been a policeman for some time.  He knew that it did not necessarily follow that - you did not necessarily have to report to Loots or to a head of a unit.

CAPT BOKABA: Ngo wouldn't know that we are reporting to Capt Loots.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: That is my point. And he got to know about it because he worked with you.

CAPT BOKABA: May you repeat the question?  You say Ngo said we never brought that to Capt Loots.  Come right with the question.

ADV MEMANI: Ngo said you reported to Capt Loots and you say Ngo couldn't have known that.

ADV DE JAGER: What is being put to you is you in fact reported to Loots, is that correct?

CAPT BOKABA: It is correct, yes.  That is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: Now how would Ngo know that you report to Loots? In the ordinary sense he would have thought that you should report to your head and that's Hechter.

CAPT BOKABA: Section head.

ADV DE JAGER: Section head is Hechter, he was in control of Mamelodi, he was the officer there, wasn't he?

CAPT BOKABA: Yes, Hechter was the head of Mamelodi.

ADV DE JAGER: Now one would expect you to report to Hechter and not to Loots, but in fact you reported to Loots so the only way Ngo could have known about it, was because in fact he was a member working with you.

CAPT BOKABA: That is not the case, Sir. He never worked with me, even the - let us call them team leaders. I am referring to Capt Hechter, Capt Van Jaarsveld and Capt Brand. They are the team leaders.  Every day, in the morning we reported with them to Capt Loots.  That is the procedure we followed.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But how could Ngo not having worked with him, have known that you are not reporting at Mamelodi where you should have been stationed but at COMPOL in town?

CAPT BOKABA: It is because he would see me leaving in the car and going to COMPOL where he knew I was going to see Capt Loots.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman in all fairness, one should also put the evidence of Mr Ngo, not that he knew about the meetings in the mornings and in the afternoons, but he testified that they went to Col Loots' office and his evidence was that he sometimes accompanied Ngo or Selahla for reports.  So one should in all fairness also put the fact that Mr Ngo had no knowledge whatsoever of the meetings in the mornings and in the afternoons.

CHAIRPERSON: I understood he said they went to meet meetings fairly regularly, but we are now getting an explanation we haven't got before, and if we continue with the questioning we will no doubt get other explanations. We have now got the explanation he would have seen them leaving from the barracks in the car in the morning to go to COMPOL.  Up to now we had no evidence to that effect.

ADV MEMANI: But now how would Ngo have known that you are going to COMPOL and to no other police station?

CAPT BOKABA: He knows that I work at COMPOL offices of the security branch offices at COMPOL building.

ADV MEMANI: How did he know that you were reporting to Loots and not anybody else?

CAPT BOKABA: He knows that Loots was the section, our section commander and as a result we had to report to him.

ADV MEMANI: How would he have known that Selahla was also reporting at COMPOL and to Loots?

CAPT BOKABA: I was accompanied by Dannyboy every morning, either Dannyboy would come and collect me at the barracks or I would do and I would do the same, and not as Ngo stated it yesterday.

ADV MEMANI: Now Ngo's evidence would not have been fabricated on the basis that he saw you leaving with the Selahla and Bokaba every morning, because his evidence is that you did not go to town every day, you would go sometimes once a month or if there was a need to go, maybe about three times a month or a week.

CAPT BOKABA: I believe that the explanation as already have been stated every morning we had to report at the office. Sometimes it would happen that we wouldn't go to the office. Not, that was not something that happened the whole week.  We reported at the office nearly every day in the morning and in the afternoon.

ADV MEMANI: Yes, so you were wrong when you said that he would see you every morning with Danny Selahla?

CAPT BOKABA: I never said he saw me every day with Danny Selahla.  Danny Selahla came in the morning to collect me at the barracks Mamelodi police station.  Or either I would leave our barracks go and collect Danny Selahla at the A3, not B3, as Ngo stated yesterday. I never said that he saw us every day with Danny Boy Selahla every morning.

ADV MEMANI: You said that Ngo would have seen you with Selahla, because Selahla always came to pick you up to go to work or collected you every morning.

CAPT BOKABA: I stated that he might have seen me every morning leaving the barracks for COMPOL Building.

ADV MEMANI: Now Ngo would have been working at Unit 19.

CAPT BOKABA: That is correct, he worked at Unit 19.

ADV MEMANI: So wouldn't Ngo wake him up every morning and got to work and not observe what you were doing on your Ngo woke him up and got to work and not observe what you were doing, on your version?

CAPT BOKABA: I do not know Ngo's shifts.  I do not know the Unit 19's shifts.

ADV MEMANI: Now Mr Bokaba, I beg your pardon, your Honour.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I just raised one issue with my learned friend. I don't know what Mr Visser's position is. My attorney has a flight 20 past two and he asked me if I could request the Committee that he may be perhaps excused. I can remain until the end, until this afternoon.

CHAIRPERSON: Is it safe to have you without him, Mr Du Plessis?

MR DU PLESSIS: Not at all, Mr Chairman, not at all.

CHAIRPERSON: How much longer are you going to be, Mr Memani?  With questions and not repetitions.

ADV MEMANI: That will depend on how soon he answers the questions, M'Lord.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, will you give us an estimate?

ADV MEMANI: About 30 minutes, an hour, M'Lord.

CHAIRPERSON: Thirty minutes or an hour, is that the best estimate you can make?  I think in that case we will take the adjournment now and face this on Monday morning.
RECORDING SWITCHED ON - ON RESUMPTION

MR DU PLESSIS: ... back home this weekend, is to be able to come back on Monday morning, leave early in the morning and drive down.  I think it is Mr Brink then that might have said that there should be a problem, because this is normally the time we start on a Monday morning. But I just wanted to mention that we might then very well be late, I'm afraid, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: We will then say 10 o'clock on the basis that we will start promptly at 10 o'clock, not any time thereafter.

MR DU PLESSIS: I am indebted to you, Mr Chairman.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS