DECISION
The applicant applies for amnesty in respect of murder and attempted robbery. The offences flow from the killing of Mrs. Maria Janse van Nieuwenhuizen, an 83 year old woman in Brakpan on the 6th of May 1994. The applicant was convicted in the Rand Supreme Court on the charge of murder, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances and the unlawful possession of a fire arm on the 1st of March 1996 and is at present serving a sentence of 40 (forty) years imprisonment.
The application of the applicant was not formally opposed but relatives of the victim attended the hearing. Through the evidence leader, they placed it on record that they did not wish to give evidence. The applicant testified at the hearing.
The applicant claims to have been a PAC supporter who acted on the orders of one Moses Mogage who had recruited him as a PAC supporter in 1993 and who, in January 1994, instructed him and three others to go to Brakpan to "go and seek guns" since the movement wanted some arms and ammunition. This "order" was only carried out in May 1994.
In order to be granted amnesty the applicant must satisfy the Committee that :
(a) his application complies with the requirements of the Act;
(b) that the acts or offences are associated with a political objective as defined in the Act and;
(c) that he made a full disclosure of all the relevant facts pertaining to the offences.
The Committee finds that the application complies with the formal requirements of the Act. The Committee is, however, not satisfied that the offences to which the application relates are acts or offences associated with a political objective as provided for in Section 20(1) of the Act read with subsections (2) and (3).
The reasons are the following :
1. The affiliation to the PAC which the applicant claims is not supported by his, or any other
evidence. The applicant throughout his evidence referred to himself as a "new recruit" who had never received any training and who was going to establish "a lot of things" about the PAC later.
2. The offences were committed after the elections had taken place, during which elections the applicant had not even cast his vote. He denied even having known that the PAC had already suspended the armed struggle in January 1994, the year of the elections.
3. The reason advanced by the applicant for committing these offences was "to achieve freedom". Surely a new political dispensation had taken root on the 4th of May 1994 when he committed the offences and his reason must therefore be rejected as false.
4. The period of time which had elapsed between the alleged instructions and the carrying out thereof.
The application accordingly
FAILS: .
SIGNED ON THE 4 DAY OF DECEMBER 1998.
SISI KHAMPEPE, A.J.
ADV. F.J. BOSMAN
MR. WYNAND MALAN
INFORMATION TO BE SUPPLIED WITH DECISIONS
