Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

JOE MAMASELA: That's laughable, you can see I'm laughing and I laugh purposely because that statement is preposterous to the extreme.  This man got injured, and I think it was a pump gun or something and no bone was broken, he was as fit as anything with us.  I know him, I worked with him for many years.  It's an old, old little scars on the hand.
	He's fit, he can lift his hands, he can walk, he can even arrest.  Why didn't he take medically unfit because he was so much of a cripple he cannot work, he then cannot work?

MR LAMEY: Well I can tell you and ...[intervention]

JOE MAMASELA: Why didn't he take ...[inaudible]

MR LAMEY: I can tell you and that is my instructions and we will show it to the Committee, that the power in his arms is restricted to the sense that he's not even capable of shaking a man's hand with a firm grip.

JOE MAMASELA: That's a blatant lie, then what did he want in the police force, in the security force for that matter if he can hardly even shake a man's hand.  How will he arrest armed insurgents?  That's a blatant lie, you can see for yourself he's lying, it's a lie.

MR LAMEY: Mr Chairman, I would like to ask Mr Koole to indicate to the Committee the extent of the injury on his arm if you would permit me to do so.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't know whether it's necessary to do that because the witness agrees that the man was injured and he agrees that there is a scar but what they disagree upon, I don't whether we can resolve it.

MR LAMEY: But Mr Chairman, the witness is down-playing the nature of that scar and I would ask Mr Koole to show it to the Committee so that the Committee could see the extent of that because ...[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Lamey, your client should still be cross-examined later I believe, Mr Koole.  Perhaps it would be convenient at that stage if he could show us.

MR LAMEY: As it pleases you Mr Chairman.
	Now Mr Mamasela, your evidence is that these three people ultimately died at Post Chalmers.

JOE MAMASELA: To me that is the facts, that is precisely what happened there.

MR LAMEY: Now the evidence of Mr Mogoai and Koole is that they were assaulted, Mr Godolozi and Mr Hashe, but the effect of their evidence is that in the morning on the 3rd day when they left Mr Galela was still screaming out of his cell.
	They say that as far as they know, the three people were still alive when they left the morning of the 3rd day back to Glen Conner with you.

JOE MAMASELA: Then let them produce them if they left would have left them alive.  Let them produce them because they left them alive.  I say we left them dead and they are not even here today.

MR LAMEY: Mr Mamasela, I want to refer you to Exhibit T which is affidavits which have been produced on evidence by the family of Mr Hashe and Godolozi and Galela in the application that they brought.  Do you have it before you?

JOE MAMASELA: Yes, I have it.

MR LAMEY: According to a witness which made an affidavit in that matter, and I want to refer to page 12, to the statement of Mrs Hashe where she refers in paragraph 7, that a certain witness by the name of Booija saw Mr Godolozi alive at the Algoa Park police station on Friday the 10th of May 1985.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Lamey, I don't want to interfere with this but with the knowledge we've had and with the knowledge you have and with your instructions, could that possibly be true?  ...[inaudible] I mean, you're putting your version, I suppose, to the witness.

MR LAMEY: It's correct, I'm putting my version, my client's version to the witness.

ADV DE JAGER: ...[inaudible] on the 10th, the morning of the 10th they were still there at Cradock?

MR LAMEY: Yes, on the morning when they left early Mr Chairman, but this affidavit doesn't state on which particular time of the day at Algoa Park police station.  And then we've got further affidavits that state that they were seen in, I think if you look at the evidence of Mrs Jacobs who saw them later and then there's an affidavit by a Mr Nomgoma who saw Mr Godolozi on the 24th of August 1985.
	Now I want - that's precisely the point Mr Chairman.  If you view - and I want to put that to Mr Mamasela, our client's, Mr Mogoai's version and that of Mr Koole and that of the affidavits which have been produced by the family and witnesses that have seen it, according to those affidavits, then it is not correct what Mr Mamasela is saying in that they died while he was there.

JOE MAMASELA: Okay fine, let me answer that one, I have no problems to answer that one.  I'll answer it with the same exhibit of yours but you must turn to page 7 and the 1st paragraph where Mrs Hashe says
"Colonel Strydom said he saw all three bodies of the deceased, were found with upper parts incinerated"
What do you say about that one?  Why are you selective with your evidence, why don't you tell the Commissioner of this one.

MR LAMEY: Mr Mamasela, the point is that this statement made by people known to the family of the deceased ...[intervention]

JOE MAMASELA: Even Mr Strydom was known to the ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Just a minute, just a minute.  Perhaps this illustrates the futility of this exercise and I'm not sure what we are busy with here.

MR LAMEY: Just a minute Mr Chairman, just let me take instructions here.  Mr Chairman, may I just comment on this?  We also heard the evidence on the other applicants that a false picture was painted by the security police in their version in those applications.  In other words that Mr Mamasela is now referring to a member here of the police when he says that was pointed out to him.
	I'm putting to him the version of the family who has witnesses who know these people and who has seen them after that and comparing that with our clients' version that at the stage when they left Post Chalmers they were still alive.

CHAIRPERSON: I suppose in these proceedings we sometimes allow questions which in a Court of Law would not have been allowed but well, we will lean back once and allow that line of cross-examination.
	Mr Mamasela, what is your comment on the allegation that these people could have been alive on the 10th of May 1985, say after 7 o'clock or 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the evening?

JOE MAMASELA: I will say Mr Chairman, without any hesitation, that is blatantly untrue.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

JOE MAMASELA: It's just that it's hearsay evidence.  When a person is desperate and looking for a missing one and a loved one everybody will come and contribute and: "I think I saw them there", this is what happened here.  If you read the whole thing it's just an anguish of a woman looking for her husband and gripping at every straw, at every information.  That is why all these things we, in a Court of Law, they were turned down with costs.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright, thank you.

JOE MAMASELA: Because they're not even worth he paper they're written on.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.
	Yes, Mr Lamey?

MR LAMEY: So what you're saying Mr Mamasela, comparing that with your evidence, that these people known to the family have committed perjury when they made these affidavits?