Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-09-10

MR VISSER: All right.  You see, because then it becomes very difficult to understand Mr Ngo's evidence, because he told this Committee that you pointed out to him that where he applied for the burning of a house of Max Makhubalo, he was mistaken.  It was, in reality, and, in fact, the house, the parental home or the home of Mr City Mzuzwana.  That is what he told this Committee.  Do you want me to repeat all of that?  It is rather a long statement. I will repeat it for you if you wish or do you understand it?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I would explain it in this manner.  Maybe he did remember as he met me, because I told him a long time ago, when we attacked City Mzuzwana's home and when we came back we tricked him that we were attacking Jani Mohapi's place.  That is what I told him at that time.

MR VISSER: Well, that is simply not true, is it, Mr Motsamai?  I will tell you why not.  Because Mr Ngo was emphatic that you told him this here at this hall, as I put to you before, in the early part of this year when we came here for the amnesty applications of you and Mr Ngo.  Not earlier, this year.  He was specific.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: You merely emphasise that I never showed him, that he knows nothing about my statements and my application.  He knows nothing.  You are merely emphasising.

MR VISSER: Yes, okay, and you are engaging in argument instead of answering the question.  You see, Mr Motsamai, I am telling you now that you are not telling the truth, because you have attempted to suggest some reason why Mr Ngo would have known it was not the house of Max Makhubalo, but that of City Mzuzwana which, I suggest to you, is false, because he said, explicitly, you told him so here at this hall this year and that is how he knew that he was wrong with his application.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, that is not so.

MR VISSER: And, secondly, I would suggest to you that the only way in which you would have corrected him would have been, as he said, you read, either read his application or he told you, you discussed it, you exchanged notes.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: We never discussed anything with him.  I repeat, I never showed him my statements, he did not show me his statement.

CHAIRPERSON: Did he not show you the portions of his statement that you were involved him?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: No, Sir.  No, Sir.  He said what he said here and I stated what I stated before the TRC and it is obvious they are quite different.  We are going different ways.  Nobody forced anybody here.

CHAIRPERSON: You agree that he did say here that he showed you his statement, he showed you the portion dealing with White Mohapi and you did not say anything?  Did you, were you here when he said that?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: May you repeat the question, Sir?

CHAIRPERSON: Were you here when he gave evidence saying that he showed you the portion of his statement relating to White Mohapi and that you did not say anything?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I do not know how, I will repeat this now.  He did not show me what he stated here.  I was here, he did not show me that at all.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Motsamai, did you answer, give the answer a minute or two ago that you never read the application of Mr Ngo?  Is that correct?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Are you referring to the application that ... (intervention).

ADV DE JAGER: His application for amnesty.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: If you put it that way that the application of amnesty, the one I received from the TRC, I read through it, I did see that.

ADV DE JAGER: So, you did see it.  He did not show it to you or give it to you to read?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: This document was given to us by the TRC, not him, personally, handing over the document to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know that there was a second application?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Whose application?

CHAIRPERSON: Ngo's.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I did not know.

CHAIRPERSON: I understood, I am sorry, that when we started you were saying that it is different giving somebody something to look at and giving them something to read and that you were agreeing that he gave you the statement to look at, but not to read.  Did you not mean to say that?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: The statement I said I received was not given to me by Ngo.  I do not know where that paper is.  Everyone of us from the security branch had that paper.

CHAIRPERSON: No, when Mr Visser started questioning you about this aspect, he said Ngo said you met here earlier this year and showed one another your applications.  You replied thereafter saying that you did not read it, that when you were given something to look at, it is not the same as being given something to read and that you never read Ngo's application.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I never read through it.  Everybody from the security branch received such documents.  I do not know with, in respect to what is he asking me that.

CHAIRPERSON: You say you never read it?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: The one that I received from the TRC I read.

MR VISSER: Let us turn to your incident number one at page 146 of bundle A.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: 146?

MR VISSER: Mr Motsamai, there are papers here before this Committee relating to an inquest on the remains of one George Musi.  My question to you is this, is that the man you shot in Melk Street?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.

MR VISSER: When did you decide that George Musi was the man whom you shot at Melk Street?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: At the time when we left for Melk Street ... (intervention).

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Sorry, I do not understand this question and, I suppose, when he, what he did decide?

MR VISSER: Oh.  Mr Chairman, my question to him was, when did he decide that George Musi was the individual whom he killed at Melk Street.

CHAIRPERSON: Is not decide the wrong word, Mr Visser?  Is it not when did he know or when did he learn that George Musi was the man?

MR VISSER: Yes, yes, Mr Chairman, perhaps I should have chosen the words better.  Well, let me put it to you a different way.  In your application at page 146, is it not correct, Mr Ngo, that you said I cannot recall the name and the address of the deceased.  That was in November 1996, last year November?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Bundle, which bundle are you referring to?

MR VISSER: A.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is so.  That is correct.

MR VISSER: So, when did you realise that it was Mr George Musi?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: After that name was contained in the files.  I forgot his names in full.  After I contacted the TRC personnel and told them we did this and this, they took my statement.  I did state, I do not deny, that I stated there that that was an unknown man.  I told them to conduct researchers at Bhatu location and must go there in Melk Street and ask that man who stayed there.  I would not go there.  Those people would think that now here is the person who did this murder and they went to Melk Street and they investigated.

MR VISSER: Mr Motsamai, when you said in paragraph one of Annexure A that you cannot recall the address did you mean by that the physical street address or did you mean by that being able to identify the house?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I could not go and look at address.  That is why at the bottom there I explain that I will point out to the TRC personnel where I did attack.  I was writing here.

MR VISSER: You told that this Committee that you had a file in the security branch on Mr George Musi, did you not?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Yes, there was a file and quite a lot of them.

MR VISSER: Quite a lot of files on Mr George Musi?  Is that what you are saying?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I said there were a lot of files and amongst those files there was George Musi's file.