CHAIRPERSON: ... whether to hold a hearing to allow the Applicants to give evidence and I think you must be put in the picture, you must be given an opportunity of seeing all this information that we have before us because it is from that that certain problems arise which I will raise in a few minutes, but now that I know you haven't seen them it becomes even, well it becomes perhaps easier to understand.
MR LANDMAN: Mr Chairman ... (intervention)
MR VAN DEN BERG: (Inaudible).
CHAIRPERSON: Well they must then. Could I then ask your client one or two questions? Mr Dumakude you will remember that you are still under your former oath.
MR DUMAKUDE: (s.u.o.)
Could you tell me firstly, you told us you went on a reconnaissance on Friday night. What time was that?
MR DUMAKUDE: I went on reconnaissance on Friday, it was the afternoon.
CHAIRPERSON: The afternoon.
MR DUMAKUDE: I don't recall exactly the time.
CHAIRPERSON: (Inaudible). Secondly am I correct that my recollection of your evidence yesterday afternoon and the notes I took is that after you had got out of your car, having set the bomb - activated the bomb would perhaps be a more accurate expression, you saw these two men and then you walked down the road to where you have indicated on the photograph, which would have been as I understand it the intersection between Upper Meyer Lane and Bight Road, you stood there?
MR DUMAKUDE: Yes Mr President. What actually happened, I stood next to the car, acted as if I'm a chauffeur waiting for somebody. They approached coming towards my position. As they were approaching it was a question of them coming across the street to my position. Partly that action was an action that they were coming from me. I moved with trying not to raise any suspicion, just moving towards the intersection. As one of them increased the pace to try and come to in line with me I also increased the pace.
CHAIRPERSON: I'm not particularly interested in this detail, what I wanted to ask you was, you told us that you walked down to the intersection of Bight Street, you have indicated that by drawing a cross on the photograph.
MR DUMAKUDE: That's correct Mr President.
CHAIRPERSON: From there you watched what happened.
MR DUMAKUDE: That's correct Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: As I understood your evidence yesterday, the only people you saw in Meyer Lane at the time were these two men?
MR DUMAKUDE: That's correct Mr Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: And on the map you must have been about 15 metres away from the car. Is that correct?
MR DUMAKUDE: According to the map that's correct Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: You then decided to activate the bomb rather than, to avoid the risk of any people coming out of the stadium who might subsequently be injured.
MR DUMAKUDE: Yes Mr Chairman because my moving away from that corner I was going to be out of the radius to be in a position to detonate and to observe the situation.
CHAIRPERSON: And there were no other people, there were just the two men in the road at the time?
MR DUMAKUDE: That's correct Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: And you were 15 paces away from the bomb when you activated it? Approximately, nobody's going to take a metre or two.
MR DUMAKUDE: Sir I would say, just to add on that, according to my recalling of the situation, it must be around 30 - 50 metres.
CHAIRPERSON: Well we have a scale map of the area available which shows the distance from where the bomb was to the intersection with Bight - sorry it's not 15 it's about 25 metres.
MR DUMAKUDE: What (indistinct).
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Now - you can turn your machine off for the moment. The problem that arises in my view, and I invite comment on that, is that the application that was set down for hearing before us was the application of two people and that they were duly given notice, their lawyers were given notice and Mr Prior was then informed that two other persons had made application in connection with the same incident.
There was then a great deal of rushing around and contact was made with the attorneys Bell, Dewer and Hall and attempts were made to contact Mr Van den Berg who was otherwise engaged, he was ultimately contacted and arrangements were made for those, one of those hearings of the present third applicant, Mr Dumakude to be heard with the other two.
When the matter started yesterday, the question was raised as to the fact that although Mr Dube, the person who is not present, had in his application referred to this incident, Mr Dumakude in his application only dealt with matters in the most general terms, where he accepted responsibility as the commander for acts committed by persons under his command. He made no mention in his application, which was handed in to us by Mr Van den Berg, of this particular incident. He made no mention of the part he played in it or anything of that nature.
We agreed yesterday to hear the evidence on the basis that the question of the acceptability of the application would be dealt with in due course. That we did not, by hearing his evidence yesterday, concede, and I think this was agreed to by Mr Van den Berg, that the application was in order. There are other applications at present before the Committee of a similar nature and obviously before any decision adverse to the applicant could be arrived at Mr Van den Berg would have to be given the opportunity to make such representations as he thought fit, and that was indicated to him yesterday.
But as I had said, there was no application from Mr Dumakude and no details of his participation. His evidence was heard merely to get it on record but this meant that the other parties had no notice of what he was going to say or no indication of what his version of the events would be because Mr Van den Berg had not had the opportunity of cross examining the first two applicants, he'd merely been told in very general terms I think what their evidence had been.
Mr Dumakude has now given evidence and during the course of his evidence he was asked questions by me and other members of the Committee. He has been questioned by Mr Landman and Mr Prior and the time had been reached when he was to be re-examined, but during the course of adjournment I was, thought further of the matter and it struck me that it might be grossly unfair to the applicant to proceed on this basis in that a number of statements have been obtained from persons and laid before us in the normal process of investigation by the Amnesty Committee in terms of the act. This is evidence that is available - it's not evidence, this is information that is available to us and may well be to the prejudice of the present applicant. Why I say this is basically on two aspects which he's not been questioned about fully and has not been given the chance to deal with, nor has his legal advisor, as I discovered this morning, had any opportunity to acquaint himself with this evidence and accordingly to take instructions from his client on it and the first aspect is that Mr Dumakude told us in his evidence that they went on to reconnoitre Friday afternoon, I confirmed the time this morning, and that the houses or house outside which the car was parked was abandoned.
Well it is clear from the information before us, firstly in the bundle headed Ellis Park Rugby - sorry they're both headed that, in which the first person named is Maria Gloria Dos Santos Van Sunsa, that is the thicker bundle. In that bundle at pages 29 and 34 it is clear that a family lived at No 3 Upper Meyer Street, that is Maria Irene Nunas Dos Santos and her husband Jose Dos Santos Pias. They were in their home at the time of the bombing and were injured.
Furthermore if one looks at the next bundle, Damaged Property, one will find right towards the end of that bundle, 7 pages from the end headed A-92, a statement from Mary Magdelen Bothma who lived at house No 3A, the adjoining house to No 3.
As you will probably recollect from the photographs, these were the houses that the front piece of the car landed on their front verandah after the explosion and there was extensive damage to them. She also says she was living there, she was not there on the day of the explosion, but it appears to me that evidence - that firstly the applicant should have been questioned about the fact that these houses were far from abandoned, that people were living in that at the time and it should perhaps be desirable to obtain evidence from them as to whether they were there on the Friday afternoon and whether there was signs of them being there, curtains in the windows, laundry hanging up, matters of that nature which indicate that houses are occupied and in fairness to the applicant, he should then be given an opportunity to deal with such evidence rather than us merely drawing inferences from statements made.
That is the first aspect. The second aspect is that the applicant said, and has confirmed this morning, that he saw, although he was at the intersection of Bight Roads and Upper Meyer and a matter of 25 metres from the explosion, 30 metres from the bus, that he saw only two people in the vicinity.
Well if one looks at the statements in the first volume I have referred to, practically every one of those persons said that they were in Upper Meyer Lane at the time. The schoolboys that had been playing in one of the curtain raisers who had arrived and were waiting to depart in the bus that was parked there, all said that they were standing next to the bus when the explosion took place. Their master, the bus driver and others said the same.
Many of the injured people whose statements are in that volume, said they were walking up Meyer Road in a northerly direction on the lefthand side of the road when the explosion took place. They must have all been. If that evidence is correct, they should have all been clearly visible to the applicant who was standing at the intersection there. And it again appears to me that this is a matter that should be put to the applicant as he should have an opportunity of dealing with it and of explaining the differences that appear to be in the evidence.
All these people, I think I am correct in saying, every one of them says they had been at the rugby, they came out of the stadium, they were walking up the road to where their transport was or matters of that nature, which appears to conflict entirely with the version of the bomb being set off before anybody from the stadium could get injured by it and it is a matter again that I think it would be grossly unfair to the present applicant for us to deal with it and say well there are 25 people here, when he hasn't been given the opportunity of considering it, hasn't been referred to it and I would be interested to hear what comments, if any, (indistinct) Mr Van den Berg.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Chairman the first that I knew of these particular applications was when I made contact with Mr Landman early on Monday morning. I subsequently have ascertained that Mr Landman made contact with two other attorneys in our office during the course of Sunday afternoon and I had indicated to Mr Prior on Monday that I was not available and that my clients had not been advised of these particular hearings.
I came here yesterday morning with the stated intention of simply advising the Committee that I had been unable to contact my clients and that I was not in a position to represent their interests. It transpired that Mr Dumakude, the present applicant before this Committee, was in fact here. He had heard about the applications, he had seen it on the television news and had decided that he ought to be here for purposes of giving evidence. I consulted with him on this matter for the first time yesterday morning and I had insight into one of the bundles which I think contains photocopies of the photographs and the statements of the Amnesty Applications of the other two applicants. I did not have insight into the other bundles and I must say that I was not aware that there were additional bundles. I had asked Mr Prior this morning if there was any evidence relating to where people were at the time that the device was detonated, were the injuries inside our or outside etc, etc. I have now been given these two volumes and there are, as you rightly point out, material contradictions on which I do not have instructions. I am now in the invidious position where I have led an applicant and we do not have full instructions, he's not been afforded an opportunity to instruct me properly in respect of these contradictions.
CHAIRPERSON: Well we trust he has been telling the truth to us and that his version wouldn't have been any different.
MR VAN DEN BERG: We do indeed trust so.
CHAIRPERSON: As I indicated, I hope, we fully ... (indistinct) there is no suggestion that you have not done all you could to take instructions from your client. Your client obviously has not told you about the facts arising from this information that has been put before us and you have not had an opportunity of consulting him on it. That I think is abundantly clear.
MR VAN DEN BERG: That is correct Mr Chairman and I'm not sure how we deal with this practically. He stands at a point where he's given evidence in chief, where he's been cross examined at some length and the matter had stood down for purposes of re-examination. Thinking off the top of my head perhaps I ought to make an application for the matter to stand down so that we may supplement his evidence and that I have an opportunity to consult fully on the contents of these documents and that the hearing reconvene at a later stage.
CHAIRPERSON: I don't think anyone could oppose that except there might be different opinions to what a later stage is. Could I indicate to you and you can comment on that to, from what I have been told by the optimistic Mr Landman and Mr Prior, the other matter we have to deal with might be concluded by tomorrow or Thursday which would mean that there is a vacant day Friday where arrangements have been made for a hearing. Is there any possibility do you think of your being ready on Friday?
MR VAN DEN BERG: Mr Chairman the position with all of the persons that we represent in this process is that instructions and applications were prepared by the offices of Mr Curren and we had an arrangement, that is Bell, Dewer and Hall had an arrangement with Mr Curren in terms of which he would handle some of the applications and we would handle some of the others. The difficulty is that Mr Curren, as you may be aware, is in Ireland involved in a process there. The other attorney who is also involved in these matters is presently an acting judge in the labour court and that leaves myself and my assistant as the only persons holding the ball. I have been brief or I have instructions to appear in an Amnesty Application which is set down for Thursday and Friday in Mabupane, I don't know how that will, how long that application will last, it's a relatively simple matter. I'm hoping that we will be able to finish it in a day but you can never tell in the nature of these things, we've had applications set down for two weeks which have lasted six weeks and we've had applications set down for three weeks which have lasted a week.
CHAIRPERSON: We may have to take a chance on that. I should perhaps indicate to you on this that although the bundle is thick, the versions of person after person is ... (inaudible) after the whistle we went out of the stadium, we went down, we walked across the road there was suddenly a loud explosion and I was knocked over, that - it's not a question of you having to get 30 different versions, it is basically just that there were these people, there were these school boys so that shouldn't take you long but I sympathise with you in the other difficulty, but I don't know if Mr Prior will comment on that.
It seems to me we are going to be here, certainly till tomorrow. The hall has been booked, everything else has been made so I think we should inconvenience ourselves to say we will hold ourselves available till Friday, if you are available we will hear you, if you are not available we will adjourn the matter to a date to be arranged, but we certainly - you have made other arrangements and at this very short notice we don't expect you to try and re-organise that. Would that suit you?
MR VAN DEN BERG: That would suit me thank you Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Landman have you any comment?
MR LANDMAN: Mr Chairman I have a few brief comments. Mr Chairman in the first place it's now become quite obvious that there is a fundamental contradiction between the versions put up by the first two applicants and Mr Dumakude about the position of Mr Dumakude and Mr Matshididi when the explosion actually occurred. Now Mr Chairman although this is not a trial, I would submit that it may well be necessary for me to put Mr Matshididi's version as to where they were at the time that the explosion occurred, although it was mentioned during the Committee's questioning of Mr Dumakude yesterday.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes but equally well it may be only right that Mr Van den Berg should be entitled to question on that precise matter, so I agree with you that it probably would be desirable that they should also be available on Friday, that that specific matter, we're not going to have a re-opening of all the evidence, but to deal with that they - my recollection is they both gave identical evidence on this point or, when I say identical, very similar and that they could deal with very briefly and Mr Van den Berg could then have an opportunity of putting ... (inaudible) does appear at the present time to be a completely conflicting version.
MR LANDMAN: Mr Chairman then the second aspect is that it is correct, I have Mr Van den Berg the only volume I had. Apparently other volumes had been given to my predecessor but they have disappeared into the ether. However, in the light of the further volumes which I have seen, which contain information about when the bomb occurred and who was present at the time, it would be our submission at the end of this matter that there are certain probabilities favouring Mr Matshididi's version over Mr Dumakude's version and it may even be necessary to put some of those improbabilities to Mr Dumakude so we'd certainly, from our side, need some time as well to prepare ourselves to put certain questions to Mr Dumakude. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: What I think we envisage is that after Mr Van den Berg has had an opportunity, he or his assistant, consulting with his client, it may be necessary not to recall him but to call him again to amplify his evidence on certain aspects and then obviously you could question him on them. Mr Prior?
ADV PRIOR: Mr Chairman I agree with everything that Mr Van den Berg said. I do apologise to the extent that Mr Van den Berg was not fully appraised of all the documents, but may I just put on record that from the nature of the applications before the Amnesty Committee and our discussions with the ANC desk, that is Mr Brian Kopede and the former counsel that was involved with Mr Matshididi and Mr Shoke, at no stage was it envisaged that there were would be a dispute about the people who were injured and to that extent I think the Committee will also recall that I did not put up all the bundles of damaged property, which had been prepared, we didn't simply want to burden or have the voluminous statements read and wasting time because certainly my understanding was that there was no dispute about who was injured and what was damaged.
CHAIRPERSON: The only dispute is where they were injured, where they were at the time of injury and that dispute only arose after the present applicant gave evidence. Prior to that the evidence before us was that at the time the bomb exploded, the applicants were all 1.9 kilometres away and wouldn't have known where the people were so it wasn't relevant, it only became relevant yesterday afternoon.
ADV PRIOR: Thank you Mr Chairman, to that extent I do apologise to Mr Van den Berg, I should have, as of yesterday, provided those bundles but ... (intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Provided we can be guaranteed that he will get, that both counsels will get all the bundles now, we can then - do you agree we adjourn now till Friday morning?
ADV PRIOR: That will be the practical solution under the circumstances.
CHAIRPERSON: While we are dealing with matters, can I correct something else, a mistake on my part that I was confused - this was before you arrived on the scene Mr Van den Berg. I think I said on the first day that my impression was that Ellis Park with tennis rackets are shown on page 53 was another ground and that the ground we were talking about was where Ellis Park appears in capital letters up above. That is obviously completely wrong, the rugby ground is the same place as where the tennis rackets are depicted. All the - you will discover when you read the statements I've referred to, all of them talk of coming out of the north east gate of Ellis Park and walking in a northerly direction up Upper Meyer Street. So when I said on Monday the converse, it was a mistake on my part, I had misread the map number at page 53. It becomes much more sensible when one realises that Upper Meyer Street doesn't continue to run into it and if I misled anybody, I apologise to them. All of you probably know Ellis Park far better than I do and were not misled but that being so, with the agreement with the members of my Committee with whom I have discussed this matter, we will adjourn the present hearing, expectantly, until Friday morning at 9 o'clock. The applicants are all at liberty aren't they?
ADV PRIOR: They are Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: The applicants are excused until that time. Please it is very urgent that they remain in close contact with their legal advisers if they need to get further instructions from them and counsel and his assistant are also excused and thank you for your assistance and I'm very sorry that I didn't realise yesterday that you had not had an opportunity of seeing these bundles, it's an oversight on all our part for which we apologise to you Mr Van den Berg.
MR VAN DEN BERG: Thank you Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Are we ready to go on now or do you want a few minutes adjournment to change your papers and matters of that nature.
MR LANDMAN: Mr Chairman could I ask for a few minutes adjournment, I also want to explain to the applicants in the first matter, the one that stood down, the importance that they be here on Friday as well.
CHAIRPERSON: And in fact if you want to obtain any information to clarify anything that they should be ready to give it to you.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
