CHAIRPERSON: Good morning everybody. We continue with the hearing. Mr Wills?
MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Mr Chairperson, I just want to place on record the certain attempts that we have tried to trace Mr Visagie, and I just want to confirm that according to the information that we have done, he is in the country, he flew in on SAA flight 204 into Johannesburg International Airport on the 4th of January at I think it is 17H30.
We have done a search of all the ports in the country and he hasn't left the country. He has been sighted on two occasions in Sunnyside Pretoria and unfortunately we haven't been able to get an address where we can issue the subpoena, but I thought I would like to just place that on record.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you very much. Ms Thabethe?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. For the record, I have two witnesses left.
MS THABETHE: Mr Mohammed Sadik Ismail, his affidavit is Exhibit L and Dr Naidoo.
MS THABETHE: I will be calling Mr Ismail.
CHAIRPERSON: Calling Mr Ismail. That is Exhibit L you say?
CHAIRPERSON: Just bear with me. Yes, does everybody have a copy of Exhibit L in their possession, it is a two page affidavit, deposed to be Mr Mohammed Sadik Ismail. You all got your copies, Exhibit L?
Mr Ismail, would you take the oath or would you prefer to make an affirmation?
MR ISMAIL: I will take the oath.
MOHAMMED SADIK ISMAIL: (sworn states)
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Thabethe?
EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. Mr Ismail, you say in paragraph 1 of your statement that you are in the employ of the South African Police Services, is that correct?
MS THABETHE: Is this still the case?
CHAIRPERSON: What rank do you hold Mr Ismail?
CHAIRPERSON: And whereabouts are you stationed?
MR ISMAIL: At the Phoenix mortuary.
MS THABETHE: The case in this instance is a dispute on the body that was allegedly brought to Phoenix mortuary or to Verulam mortuary on the 15th of July 1987. Were you employed as a Mortuary Attendant at Verulam at that time?
MS THABETHE: Would you remember the specific body that was brought on this day?
MS THABETHE: You wouldn't? Right, on paragraph 3 of your statement you state that decomposed bodies were regularly brought into the mortuary and then if police report accompanying the body, did not indicate that the death was due to a murder, or a shooting, then the body was sent to Gale Street Mortuary for X-ray and if the report did not ...
MR LAX: Sorry, you said to him if the police report indicated that it wasn't a murder ...
MS THABETHE: If the report accompanying the body, indicated that the death was due to a murder or shooting.
MS THABETHE: Then the body was sent to Gale Street Mortuary for X-ray. I am indebted to Mr Lax. Is that correct?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, that is right.
MS THABETHE: Did this happen often or ...
MR ISMAIL: Yes, quite often, yes.
MS THABETHE: Are you certain of this fact?
MS THABETHE: And then you go on to say if the report did not indicate the cause of death, and the body was not decomposed, then a post-mortem would be conducted by a District Surgeon?
MS THABETHE: Now, we have a situation of a body that was brought to your mortuary in Verulam on the 15th of July 1987. We have a report from Dr Chetty, I don't know whether you have seen the report, I will show it to you. On page 67 of Bundle 2, which states that the body was completely decomposed. What would have happened to such a body, would a post-mortem have been done on it or what would have happened?
MR ISMAIL: The normal practice was on a body that was decomposed was brought to the mortuary and if the police report accompanying that particular body stated that it was a murder by shooting, etc, especially a shooting, we would then take the body to Gale Street Mortuary to have it X-rayed.
Where it was decomposed and the police report did not state that it was a murder, where it was stated that it was just found in the veld, etc, then normally doctors never did a thorough post-mortem, the normal cause of death would have been undetermined or completely decomposed.
MS THABETHE: Right. On page 68 of the Bundle, it is the report, it states that the height was 1.6 metre and the mass was 60 kg's. Would you say there were measurements that were done on a decomposed body or what usually happened with regard to measure it and weighing it?
MR ISMAIL: When it came to decomposed bodies, I don't think that was a correct measurement, the doctor just had a look at it and gave his average measurements.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Ismail, you say that during that period, July 1987, you were also a Mortuary Attendant at the Phoenix, what did your duties entail there, I mean ...
MR ISMAIL: My duties entailed fetching bodies to the mortuary and assisting the doctors while they were doing post-mortems.
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. Mr Chair, at this stage I just want to draw the attention of the Committee to page 69 of Dr Chetty's report, Bundle 2.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that is the ...(indistinct)
MS THABETHE: On scrutinising this form, Mr Chair, I realised that the serial number is 530/87 which is not the same serial number, so it appears that this is a wrong page.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and also if one takes a look at page 68, it is written in hand, 69 is typed and then 70 although is written in hand again, although there is only the number written on page 70.
CHAIRPERSON: Although the paragraphs fit in, you've suddenly got one typed page amongst a manuscript, so there does seem to be something odd about it, I must say.
MS THABETHE: Yes. I would recommend that it be discarded, because it is a wrong reference number to start with, it is 530/87 instead of 580.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. But I am just wondering how it gets there, because how can it happen? It would seem to be a huge coincidence that a post-mortem report, 50 numbers earlier, one page, gets amongst 580 and it slots in exactly if you take a look at the paragraph numbers and the one page of 580 isn't there. If we discard it, what do we replace it with, because then we are missing paragraphs 20 to whatever?
MS THABETHE: Yes, we will have to look for the right page.
CHAIRPERSON: So maybe that 530 might be a mistake, I don't know. You see, this is why I say it is very odd, it is just strange.
MR LAX: Ms Thabethe, I specifically yesterday or the day before, asked that the original of this be brought to us, so that we could all scrutinise it, and that the original of 530 be brought, just to make absolutely sure.
MR VISSER: Chairperson, could I be of assistance. The answer appears from the docket, the Police docket. What happened here was a simple case of somebody not taking a clean page when the type written report was reproduced and in the Police docket it is quite clear that this page is turned around, and the actual correct page, is on the reverse side, so that we have the full report, and all that that page says is completely decomposed.
CHAIRPERSON: It doesn't talk about fractured ribs and ...
MR VISSER: Nothing, just completely decomposed. It is quite clear, and as Mr Lax has pointed out, the obvious is that it belongs to another post-mortem report and it was typed as opposed to being in manuscript, but it simply says "completely decomposed" and that is it, it is in the Police docket, Chairperson.
This particular page, when this record was produced, unfortunately was just turned around.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Thabethe, I think then in the circumstances, if one can take a look at the Police docket and then get the correct page and then show it to all the people, and if we agree, we can substitute the correct page with this one.
CHAIRPERSON: Rather than just discard this one.
MS THABETHE: I will do so Mr Chairperson. Mr Ismail, are you familiar with the post-mortem forms that were completed by doctors?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, I am familiar, because I used to scribe them.
MR ISMAIL: I used to scribe, because I see my handwriting on the original.
MS THABETHE: Okay, is it your handwriting?
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, just while you are on that one Ms Thabethe, under what circumstances would you write the report, how would it come about, when would you actually do the writing? If you could just tell us how it came about that you did the writing. How did it come about that you put the information on the report?
MR ISMAIL: In fact, whilst we were doing the post-mortem the doctor dictates to me, and I used to write in my own handwriting and thereafter the hand-written forms were given to a typist and she used to type it. After it is typed, the doctor is to see the original hand-written and the typed one, and then he used to sign the typed post-mortem report.
MS THABETHE: Thank you. On page 71 of Bundle 2, there is this typed version, right. Would you say it is the same form, it appears that this is a carbon copy, so we don't have the questions to these answers, but would you say it is the same form on page 68?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, because when it was typed, it was typed in triplicate, two, on the first two we used the forms GW715 and the third copy was a blank page, which we just kept in our files for records.
MS THABETHE: Actually Mr Chair, I made a mistake, page 68 is the same as page 73.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ismail, if you take a look at your hand-written one, at page 67 through to page 70, save for that one we have spoken about, save for page 69, and then you look at the typed version, from 71 through to 73, one can see that it is not, the typing isn't the same as what you have written?
MR ISMAIL: Actually I haven't compared my written ...
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because if you turn to page 67 for instance, take a look at page 67 and take a look at page 71, the first page of both. Particularly at the bottom, you see at the bottom it says "cause of death" in your handwriting "completely decomposed" whereas it is typed "undetermined" and the "completely decomposed" is higher up on the typed page, but it is not there on the written page, so you can see immediately that it is not an exact typing of what you wrote.
MR ISMAIL: Yes, I have noticed that now, yes.
MS THABETHE: How does this happen, or how would you say this happened?
MR ISMAIL: The person who can answer that is the typist.
MS THABETHE: But there is a signature by Dr Chetty here?
MR ISMAIL: Because normally after the post-mortem I hand this to the typist, my written form is handed to the typist and when a copy has been typed, she hands it to the doctor and he compares my written report to the one that is typed, and if he feels there is any mistakes, then he corrects them and he initial and then he signs ...
CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying any difference might be at the instance, may have been of the instance of the doctor?
CHAIRPERSON: Or otherwise the typist was just using his or her discretion and putting in stuff that wasn't there?
MR ISMAIL: I can give an explanation but - normally most of the decomposed bodies, the cause of death is normally undetermined, so maybe when she came across that, so she just typed "undetermined".
MS THABETHE: Would I be correct though to say that even if she used her discretion and typed in "undetermined", Dr Chetty still had to check it and compare and then give his signature to the correctness of it?
MS THABETHE: Now on page 72 of the record ...
MR LAX: Can I just ask something before you move on to something, would I be correct in saying that despite the additions and differences in the typing versus the hand-written, the form which the typing from page 71 to page 73, the form, in other words the form that these blank pages would have been slotted into is the same as the form starting on page 67, in other words GW715?
MR LAX: Okay. So if we were to superimpose the two documents, we would be able to see what the original, that had the printed form, might have looked like?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, because 71, the way I look, it is answers to questions on page 1 of GW715.
MR LAX: Yes. I mean, if I hold it more or less in line with where the typing is, you can see that
"... to the Magistrate, Verulam. I, Dr Chetty, at Verulam..."
etc, it all fits in quite neatly?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Ms Thabethe?
MS THABETHE: Thank you. Would I then be correct to say as well that the typed version of page 72 would be an answer to the form that is on page 68?
CHAIRPERSON: No, it wouldn't be. Page 73 would correspond to 68, because its got the weight and the measurements at least.
MS THABETHE: Yes, okay. Now I want to ask you about the decomposed that is on page 73 and the marks, you know. What are these marks, what do these marks stand for, these exclamation marks?
MS THABETHE: Where is the original?
CHAIRPERSON: Exclamation marks, you mean the ditto marks?
MS THABETHE: The ditto marks, yes.
CHAIRPERSON: That means, I mean that is just quite clear that the ditto marks mean decomposed, decomposed, decomposed, decomposed.
CHAIRPERSON: It is quite clear.
MS THABETHE: All right, now what I want to ask you is in this form, number 5 says on page 68, number five says "skull", right?
MS THABETHE: And the answer would be decomposed?
MS THABETHE: ...(indistinct) contents?
MS THABETHE: The answer would be decomposed? Right through?
MR ISMAIL: Right through to number 9.
MS THABETHE: Okay. So would you say this is an indication that the skull, the inter-contents, the ...(indistinct), whatever, the mouth, tongue, whatever, the neck structures, from number 5 to number 9, according to Dr Chetty, they were all decomposed?
CHAIRPERSON: At page 72 and 73 are in the wrong position, aren't they?
MS THABETHE: Yes, I realise that.
MR VISSER: It is placed in the wrong order.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because 72 should follow 73 and then all this, if you look at the types, it is decomposed, from top to bottom.
CHAIRPERSON: That would be in answer to the questions appearing on page 69.
MR VISSER: Chairperson, the original one consist of four pages, one page fell out, this is three pages, and it is the second page that fell out.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Visser.
MS THABETHE: Thank you. So would you agree with me Mr Ismail, that the probability of what happened in the case of Ntombi Kubheka, is that the body was brought in, the doctor had a look at it, estimated what the height was and the weight?
MS THABETHE: Because the body was decomposed?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, do you have any questions for Mr Ismail?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I take it in your experience, you have seen many decomposed bodies, Mr Ismail?
MR VISSER: Are you saying in your statement, Exhibit L that it was the practice of doctors and physicians that the moment there was a decomposed body, a post-mortem would not be done, is that what you are saying?
MR ISMAIL: It all depended on the Police report that accompanied the body to the mortuary.
MR VISSER: Yes, so if the Police report did not indicate foul play, there would be no post-mortem done?
MR ISMAIL: All that was done, the doctor viewed the body.
MR VISSER: Just answer the question. If the Police report accompanying the body did not indicate foul play, there would be no proper post-mortem report done?
MR VISSER: I see. And you say in all probability this is what happened here?
MR VISSER: You say in paragraph 3, Exhibit L
"... decomposed bodies were regularly brought to the mortuary ..."
does this indicate that this happened quite frequently?
MR VISSER: From which areas would the bodies have been brought, the decomposed bodies, to the Verulam mortuary?
MR ISMAIL: In fact the mortuary area is quite large, so it would extend from Umgeni River North, right up to Fraser, so we've got a very big area.
CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps in this regard, if one could make reference to Exhibit D.
CHAIRPERSON: Which is a map, I don't know.
MR VISSER: Would it for example include Newlands East, Mr Ismail?
MR VISSER: Would that be an area which would go to the Verulam mortuary if a decomposed body was found there?
MR VISSER: And you continued to say that if the Police report accompanying the body, indicated that death was due to foul play, I am using my own words, then the body would be sent to X-rays at Gale Street Mortuary?
MR VISSER: Was this standard practice without exception?
MR ISMAIL: Would you repeat your question?
MR VISSER: Well, would that have been done in all such cases? The moment there is a bullet hole on a body, that body would be sent to Gale Street for X-rays? Were those the instructions, standing instructions?
MR VISSER: As far as you can remember, were those standing instructions as far as you are concerned, normally complied with?
MR ISMAIL: Because at times, where a doctor after viewing the body, if he saw the entry wound and an exit wound, and where he felt although the body was decomposed, it was easy to do the post-mortem without an X-ray, we did it without X-raying the body.
MR VISSER: I see, all right, but now let us assume as it is suggested in this case, that Dr Chetty or whoever the doctor was, did not see the wound and let us assume for a moment that there was a Police report, which we don't know, and the Police report reflected that there was a gunshot wound in this body, what would you have expected to have happened?
MR ISMAIL: I would have expected to take the body to Gale Street.
MR VISSER: Thank you. Would that exercise be entered into any books at Gale Street?
MR VISSER: Could you identify what books that would be entered into?
MR ISMAIL: I cannot recall, but the normal practise was, whenever we sent the body to Gale Street mortuary for X-rays on form GW715 on page 4, we made a note that the body was X-rayed.
MR VISSER: So you would make your own entry as a record, but there will be records at Gale Street as well?
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, on form GW?
CHAIRPERSON: That is the same form as this one, page ...
MR LAX: Just show us where on the form.
MR ISMAIL: On page 4 of the form we normally write there that the body was X-rayed.
MR VISSER: Would that coincide with page 70? Is that the page 4 that you are referring to?
MR ISMAIL: Right at the bottom we would just write that the body was X-rayed.
MR VISSER: All right. So what do you derive from the fact that there is nothing written on this particular form?
MR ISMAIL: There was nothing there, then I suppose no X-rays had been done.
MR VISSER: Yes. That is what it would seem to indicate? Okay. You go on to say ...
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Visser, if I may just interrupt, just on this point. Let's assume in the case where a body is sent to Gale Street for X-rays because there is murder suspected and there is a gunshot wound, would that body then come back to Phoenix for the post-mortem or would the post-mortem on that body that was X-rayed, be performed at Gale Street?
MR ISMAIL: Certain post-mortems were done at Gale Street, only in the instances where it was suspected that the deceased was shot by Police, then the body was sent to Gale Street for the post-mortem to be done, but in ordinary circumstances, it was brought back to our mortuary.
MR LAX: Sorry, if I may, just for my own benefit, I didn't catch you very clearly. Where exactly would it be written on the form, would it be under "additional observations"?
MR ISMAIL: Are you talking about the X-ray part?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, right at the bottom there.
MR LAX: Okay. I just wanted to be clear where it should have been written.
MR VISSER: Yes. I was just coming to that point, because in paragraph 3 the last sentence you leave it hanging in the air, as to where the post-mortem would be held after such a body would be sent to Gale Street, do you agree? It is left hanging, the question is left hanging, but you have now told the Judge, the Committee that sometimes it would come back to Verulam and sometimes it would stay at Gale Street?
MR ISMAIL: Only in the case of a Police shooting, the post-mortem was done at Gale Street, but in other cases, they were brought back to the Verulam mortuary.
MR VISSER: Well, what happens if you don't know that it was a Police shooting, when the body was taken to Gale Street?
MR ISMAIL: Well, the only time we come to know is when the form accompanying the body to the mortuary, the Police report states that it is a Police shooting. Then we know it is a Police shooting, and then that post-mortem is done at Gale Street.
MR VISSER: All right. Can you give us some sort of idea, Mr Ismail, on how many such decomposed bodies you recall, did you receive at the Verulam mortuary, say over a period of a month or a week? I am sure it is possible for you to recollect on average? After a week's work, how many of such bodies would you ...
MR ISMAIL: I would say in a month we would get plus minus 15 to 20.
MR VISSER: 15 to 20 per month?
MR VISSER: Yes. And you have explained to us over a large area, including for example Newlands East? Now, are you saying that it was actually standard practice that if there wasn't a Police report that indicated foul play, that the physician would not do a post-mortem examination on a decomposed body? Is that what you are saying?
MR VISSER: Did you know Dr Chetty?
MR VISSER: Was he a person who did his work properly as far as you are concerned?
MR ISMAIL: I thought he was doing his work properly.
MR ISMAIL: As far as my knowledge is concerned.
MR VISSER: Were there other doctors that worked there, who are still there today that you can mention a name of?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, there are the other doctors who are still there.
MR VISSER: Who is still there that used to practice there at the time when you were there in 1987?
MR ISMAIL: Dr Govendor, T.G.R. Govendor.
MR VISSER: So those two doctors are still in the government's employ at - do you know off-hand at which mortuaries they are stationed?
MR ISMAIL: No, in fact they are in private practice, they are part-time Districts and they come to do the post-mortem work.
MR VISSER: Fine. Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON: Just on - with this in my mind, I have something, I cannot recall completely Mr Ismail, but there was a mortuary at Phoenix and a mortuary at Verulam and one closed down and it was amalgamated, what is the position?
MR ISMAIL: The one at Verulam closed down.
CHAIRPERSON: In 1987, where were you at?
CHAIRPERSON: And then that became ...
MR ISMAIL: The staff from there moved to Phoenix, Phoenix had a mortuary but it was not open, so in fact the staff from Verulam went there.
CHAIRPERSON: So before the Phoenix mortuary opened, did the Verulam mortuary cover the same area as you are covering now?
MR VISSER: Did you have any duties at the cemetery itself?
MR VISSER: All right. On the off chance, can you remember at Charlottedale cemetery, who may have been the person in charge at the cemetery. Can you remember that person?
MR VISSER: You cannot? All right. Now, you as a mortuary attendant, if a body came in and there was some indication of foul play which indicated that a post-mortem had to be held, and this body was laying there in its clothes, would you be the one to take the clothes off and prepare the body for the doctor to do the post-mortem examination?
MR ISMAIL: We had guys working there who used to do that.
MR VISSER: I see. So it is somebody apart from yourself or the doctor who would take off the clothes?
MR VISSER: Did you sometimes observe them taking off clothes of corpses that were in the mortuary?
MR ISMAIL: In fact it was only removed whilst the doctor was there.
MR VISSER: All right. But if the doctor was there, then you would also have been there?
MR VISSER: Because you were the scribe inter alia?
MR VISSER: If a body that was completely decomposed came into the mortuary, how would the clothes be removed normally?
MR VISSER: And after the post-mortem examination was completed, what would then happen to those clothes, would it be put back onto the body?
MR VISSER: What would happen to the clothes?
MR ISMAIL: We used to put that in plastic bags.
MR ISMAIL: And put a label on the bag indicating from which body that particular clothes were removed from.
MR VISSER: Yes, and that label, was that just paper or was it plastic that would not decompose or ...
MR ISMAIL: In Verulam we used to use paper.
MR ISMAIL: We used to push it in the packet.
MR VISSER: Yes. But that of course would become destructed, what is the word? That would basically become unreadable I would presume, after a while.
MR ISMAIL: Yes, it did happen a few times.
MR LAX: Can I just check something? These clothes that you put in a packet, did you keep them somewhere else or did you bury them with the body?
MR ISMAIL: At the time when we were releasing bodies, they used to go with the body.
MR LAX: Okay. So they would then be buried with the body?
MR VISSER: Did it also, were there burners or a burner at the Verulam mortuary where you would burn stuff that you wanted to burn?
MR VISSER: There wasn't? So, clothes were never burnt, clothes that came off bodies, they were always if I understand you correctly, buried or supposed to be buried with the bodies?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, in fact we handed it over to the undertaker, I don't know what they do with ...
MR VISSER: Yes. Yes of course, I was being very fair to you by saying supposed to, because you have already told us you had nothing to do at the cemetery and what happened after the body left the mortuary. I understand that. I quite understand that.
Do you agree with the proposition which I put while you were being examined by Ms Thabethe, that there is one page missing?
MR VISSER: You have noticed that?
MR VISSER: From the signed part of the post-mortem report?
MR VISSER: The typewritten portion? Now, would you just allow me a moment, Chairperson? I have no further questions, thank you Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Visser. Mr Hugo, do you have any questions?
MR HUGO: No questions, thank you Mr Chair.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR HUGO
MR NEL: No questions, thank you.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR NEL
CHAIRPERSON: Mr van der Merwe?
MR VAN DER MERWE: No questions, thank you Chair.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DER MERWE
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Samuel who I see sitting in the back, do you have any?
MR SAMUEL: No questions, thank you.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR SAMUEL
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Mr Ismail, just the issue of the clothes being cut. We have exhumed this body and the clothes were found in a bag in which the body was contained and it is clear to us that the clothes weren't cut. Would you find that strange?
MR ISMAIL: There were times that the clothes were not cut, especially in advanced decomposed bodies.
MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS
CHAIRPERSON: Re-examination Ms Thabethe?
RE-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Yes, Mr Chair. You have mentioned advanced decomposed, what do you mean by that?
MR ISMAIL: Where we could not distinguish facial features and exactly - should I say, it wasn't clearly distinguishable, where it was very difficult to say whether it was a male or a female or ...
MS THABETHE: Okay. I just want to find out, is there a difference between completely decomposed and advanced decomposition?
MR ISMAIL: It may be a play on words, I cannot really tell you.
MS THABETHE: Maybe let me lead you, why I am trying to ask you this question, it is because in this body it was stated that it was completely decomposed. Does this mean that the decomposition was advanced?
MS THABETHE: Okay. Just to emphasise one point. Mr Visser, when he was, Adv Visser, when he was cross-examining you, it became clear that this body, this particular body was not X-rayed. Do you know why it was not X-rayed or do you know why it was not referred to C-rays?
MR ISMAIL: I cannot really answer that, it was always left to the doctor whether he wanted it X-rayed or not.
MS THABETHE: But I mean in your experience, why would a body not be sent for X-rays, in what circumstances?
MR ISMAIL: I would say most probably because there wasn't much in the Police report, for him to warrant an X-ray.
MS THABETHE: Okay. Coming to the Police report ...
MR LAX: No, can I just pick up on that. If there were obvious signs on the body of some sort of gunshot wound or whatever, what would the doctor have done then?
MR ISMAIL: He would have requested for an X-ray. There were cases where the Police report didn't actually state that it was a shooting, where the doctor himself suspected that there may have been a shooting, and in that case the post-mortem were not held until he spoke to the Investigating Officers and confirmed what the real case was.
MR LAX: In this case, the body came to you on the 15th of July and it was buried on the 16th of July? Would you infer from that, that it didn't go for X-rays?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, I would say so, yes.
MR LAX: Just the time lag is clear, because it would have had to go to Gale Street, and that would have taken time to transport it there, to bring it back and so on?
MR ISMAIL: Yes, because we always had to make an appointment at Gale Street mortuary before we took it there.
MR LAX: And this is really speculation, but clearly if it didn't go for an X-ray, one of the indications might be that the doctor didn't suspect anything, he didn't see anything that was suspicious enough to make him send it for an X-ray?
MR ISMAIL: Most probably, yes.
MS THABETHE: I just wanted to come back to the Police report. In what form, did it come as a form or an affidavit usually?
MR ISMAIL: It was a form that accompanied the body to the mortuary, it was called a SAP180.
MS THABETHE: Okay. We have a form here on page 75 of Bundle 2 that was completed by Sgt Mthembu. Page 75 of Bundle 2.
MS THABETHE: This is an SAP16.
MR ISMAIL: It is not that, it is a SAP180 that I am talking about.
MS THABETHE: Okay, what is this one?
MR ISMAIL: This was filled when a body was found with valuables, jewellery or ...
MS THABETHE: Okay. So would you say there were any valuables here, it states "other property ..."
MR ISMAIL: According to the form, no.
MS THABETHE: Last question, if the body came in a decomposed state, let's say there was a gunshot wound on the head, how easy would it be to identify that gunshot wound?
MR VISSER: No Chairperson, this witness cannot give that evidence with great respect.
MS THABETHE: Mr Chair, he was there during ...
MR VISSER: Well, he doesn't remember it.
CHAIRPERSON: If the bullet wound is between the eyes or in the middle of the forehead ...
MS THABETHE: Maybe I should rephrase my question then.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. But just - I don't know if he can, if he is an expert on this, but ask him for what it is worth.
MS THABETHE: When a body came and it was decomposed, and the doctor would look at the body, could he see in your opinion, a gunshot wound on the head, on top of the head, let's say? Would it be easy for him to see?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE
ADV BOSMAN: May I put it to you this way, if you will allow me Ms Thabethe, the entry that the skull was decomposed, what does that signify? Was the skull bare or not necessarily, could
you perhaps assist us there? The entry says "skull decomposed", the bone would not be decomposed?
MR ISMAIL: I think he meant there that the skin and muscles and so forth, I don't think he meant the bone.
ADV BOSMAN: It would not indicate that the skull was bare?
MR ISMAIL: I am not sure what he meant.
ADV BOSMAN: Okay, I thought you may be able to assist. Thank you.
MR LAX: Just with regard to your last, the previous question. Bullet wounds come in so many different shapes and sizes, really I would say that it would be impossible for you to say, dealing with the specifics of one case, to give a general answer, isn't that so?
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax, any questions?
CHAIRPERSON: Adv Bosman, any questions?
ADV BOSMAN: Just one question, thank you Chairperson. I think it was suggested here in evidence, my colleagues may correct me if I am wrong, that the policemen would sometimes measure and weigh the remains. Did you at any time weigh a body or measure the body?
ADV BOSMAN: And would it then be done fairly accurately or would it be a sort of rounded off figure?
MR ISMAIL: In fact when we weighed the body, we used a scale and we had a stick, what do you call it, a yardstick and we used that to measure the body.
ADV BOSMAN: Would it then indicate the fraction of a kilogram or would you round it off, say if it is 1,62, enter it as 1,60?
ADV BOSMAN: No, well that is what I am trying to - yes, 1,60 or 160,2?
MR ISMAIL: In fact if it was measured, then we give the exact 1.62 or 1.63, whatever.
CHAIRPERSON: And if a body was completely decomposed, how would you measure it?
MR ISMAIL: It was rarely measured when it was completely decomposed.
CHAIRPERSON: So how would one then fill in the space that says "height of body"?
MR ISMAIL: I suppose the doctor just made his own observation and gave an average height and weight.
CHAIRPERSON: And if a body was completely decomposed, would it be weighed?
MR ISMAIL: I wouldn't say always.
CHAIRPERSON: And if it was weighed, would it be weighed in a bag or alone, by itself?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Dr Chetty, was he a full time District Surgeon or was he also a practitioner who practised part time as a District Surgeon?
MR ISMAIL: At that time he was a full time District Surgeon.
CHAIRPERSON: And how long had you been working at the mortuary, when did you start at Verulam?
MR ISMAIL: I started in the same year.
CHAIRPERSON: And Dr Chetty, do you know how long he had been a District Surgeon for?
MR ISMAIL: I knew him before I joined the Police Force. He was my GP at that time.
CHAIRPERSON: Any questions arising out of questions that have been put by members of the panel?
FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: There are two aspects if you would allow me Chairperson. I am sorry I didn't quite hear you when you gave an answer to a question of Mr Wills.
You were asked whether the clothes of a body would always be cut off and you either said there were times when clothes were not cut off and then you either said when a body was in a complete or in an advance state of decomposition or you said not in an advance state of decomposition. I am sorry, I didn't hear what you were saying? Perhaps if you can just tell me, I ...
CHAIRPERSON: My note is it is not strange that the clothes were removed, sometimes clothes not cut, especially in advanced decomposition.
MR VISSER: Well, how does that make sense, that is what I heard you say? How does that make sense, especially in an advanced state of decomposition? Why would the clothes not be cut off?
One would imagine that especially in that case, the clothes would be cut off? How do you deal with the situation?
MR ISMAIL: If the doctor asked us to remove the clothes, it was cut off.
MR VISSER: That is a different story, I am not asking you whether the doctor asked you. I am asking you in general, when you have a body on the table in an advanced state of decomposition, what would normally happen to the clothes, and you said it would be cut off, which is an obvious answer.
When Mr Wills asked you the same question, you say especially when in an advanced state of decomposition, the body, the clothes would not be cut off, now how does that make sense?
MR ISMAIL: You see at times when a body is in an advance state of decomposition, the clothes are also decomposing, so we don't normally cut those clothes off.
MR VISSER: What do you do then?
MR ISMAIL: It remains on the body.
MR VISSER: During the post-mortem examination?
MR VISSER: During the post-mortem examination?
MR VISSER: A post-mortem examination is carried out by a doctor and the clothes are on the body, is that what you are saying?
MR VISSER: Mr Ismail, I will make certain submissions in that regard, of your answer. The other thing, Commissioner Bosman asked you whether you measured the bodies and you started off by saying "yes", and then you were asked now what about completely decomposed bodies, and then you said they were rarely measured when they were completely decomposed, but they would normally be weighed. That is how I understood your evidence, have I got that right?
MR VISSER: Now why weigh which is a more cumbersome exercise, than simply putting your measuring stick next to a body and say "all right, this is the length of this body"? Why would that not be done?
MR ISMAIL: I suppose when a body is decomposed, it is not in its complete state, it is difficult to measure from head to toe at times the bones of the feet and the hands are out, so it is difficult to measure it completely from head to toe.
MR VISSER: I see. All right, but assuming for a moment, assuming for a moment that the body is more or less laying in a straight, stretched out position, and it is completely decomposed, would a measurement then be taken of the length of the body?
MR ISMAIL: Physical measurement?
MR VISSER: I see. Now you say the doctor would in other cases, make an estimate of length?
MR VISSER: This body would land on the same examination table as all the other bodies, not so?
MR VISSER: And you measured many bodies, the length of many bodies I take it?
MR VISSER: And would you after a while have become accustomed when a body was on that table, to be able to judge just by looking at it, more or less the length pretty accurately, knowing how long the table was, normally how long the corpses are that you measured there?
MR VISSER: Yes? So if the doctor would for example in any particular case say 1.8 metre, would that be fairly accurate in your estimation based on your experience?
MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER
ADV BOSMAN: Chairperson, I do have one more question before we - thank you. Mr Ismail, were there any guidelines, was there perhaps a checklist from which you worked, when a body was brought in at the mortuary? Were there any guidelines as to what you should do, or a checklist that "I have done this, that and the other" when a body was brought in?
ADV BOSMAN: Or did you develop your own rules?
ADV BOSMAN: Can you assist us, what did such a checklist or guidelines say in regard to say a decomposed body?
MR ISMAIL: As far as my duty was concerned?
MR ISMAIL: Especially when you picked the decomposed body up, at the scene from the place where we picked the body up, it was bagged and then brought to the mortuary and we had special cubicles for decomposed bodies.
MR ISMAIL: They were put in there and the following morning the doctor is to come in and we should take the bodies out, cut open the bag and show him the body. Thereafter he should take over, whether he requested a ...
ADV BOSMAN: It didn't say anything in regard to for instance remove the clothes and the manner in which the clothes had to be removed and what had to be done with the clothes?
MR ISMAIL: If he asked us to remove the clothes, then we did.
MR ISMAIL: And thereafter we put that into plastic bags, marked them and kept them in a room.
ADV BOSMAN: I am more interested in a possible checklist or guidelines. Were these written instructions, guidelines? Your duties, were they set out in writing?
ADV BOSMAN: You don't have a copy available at all that you could assist us with?
MR LAX: Just one thing, in those cases where the clothes were not removed from a decomposed body, can we safely assume that a thorough post-mortem wasn't done in those instances?
MR ISMAIL: Yes. Yes, you can say that.
MR LAX: Because if a thorough post-mortem was done ...
MR ISMAIL: The clothes would have been removed, yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Any questions, further questions arising?
FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR WILLS: Sorry Mr Chair, I haven't had my turn yet.
CHAIRPERSON: No, that is why I am asking, Mr Wills.
MR WILLS: Thank you. Mr Ismail, I want you to look at page 68 of Bundle 2, your estimates. You have said this is in your handwriting, or your notations there, should I rather say. This is in your handwriting?
MR WILLS: I see that there is no sort of fractions or serious fractions in regard to the height, it is 1.6 and it is just marked at 60 kg. Are you able to say, because this is your work here, are you able to say that there is a probability that you didn't measure this body or, and this is an estimate or otherwise?
MR ISMAIL: In fact, I cannot remember this specific one, but I just wrote from what the doctor asked me to write.
MR WILLS: Yes. Now, you see ...
CHAIRPERSON: But sorry Mr Wills to interrupt, I thought if a body was weighed, you would actually do it?
MR ISMAIL: What I am trying to say sir, I never always scribed, if I wasn't scribing, I may have been helping to weigh the body or cut open the body. This particular, it is my handwriting, so I was scribing then. I don't know whether it was weighed or wasn't weighed, I am not sure.
MR WILLS: Possibly I can ask, was - if you did weigh the body and you did measure the body yourself, would you do that in the presence of the doctor?
MR WILLS: Would you fill in these two items at the same time?
MR ISMAIL: No, we wouldn't fill it in, if I was measuring the body, then I would tell the doctor the weight and height and he would tell the guy who is scribing, it was difficult for the doctor to write, all dressed up and messed up.
CHAIRPERSON: In the case where you are the scribe, let's assume like in this matter where it is your handwriting, you are the scribe and you weighed the body, what would happen? You would put the body on the scale, you would look at the weight, then what?
MR ISMAIL: In this case, if I was the scribe, then I definitely didn't weigh or measure the body.
CHAIRPERSON: So you wouldn't have been the scribe and done the weighing?
MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR SAMUEL: Sir, you have seen various bodies where there were decomposition, right?
MR SAMUEL: That came for post-mortems? And there are various degrees of decomposition, am I right?
MR SAMUEL: Where you might just get a body with, that has just reached a state of decomposition, where the lips are not gone and the eyes are not gone off the body, am I right? Would you call that an advance stage of decomposition?
MR SAMUEL: All right. Would I be correct in saying that an advance stage of decomposition would be reached when there are no eyes on the body, the ears would have been eaten by maggots and things?
MR SAMUEL: In this case, where a doctor finds the body in the mortuary that, the purpose, would I be correct in saying the purpose of a post-mortem is to see whether they could get anything out of the stomach and the liver and thing, am I right, generally that is the purpose of a post-mortem?
CHAIRPERSON: I wouldn't go with that. You don't go to post-mortems to find out what is in the stomach, the usual, the prime aim is to determine a cause of death.
MR SAMUEL: Oh, thank you Judge. Would I be correct in saying that if the body had reached such a stage of decomposition, that no purpose would be served in actually removing the clothes, you would not have removed the clothes, am I right?
Where the cause of death cannot be ascertained because of the state of decomposition of the body?
MR ISMAIL: That was totally left to the discretion of the doctor.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR SAMUEL
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Ismail, that concludes your testimony, you may stand down now, thank you.
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair, I see it is almost tea time, I would ask for an indulgence that we take the tea.
MS THABETHE: Quarter past eleven?
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Thabethe, I see before us we have a volume of photographs. Is this the complete portfolio?
MS THABETHE: Yes, these are the colour copies.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Wills, you have a copy and Mr Visser, you have a copy?
MR VISSER: Yes, thank you Chairperson. I think Mr Lax suggested that this should be Exhibit T?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we've got a couple of photos, but we can leave them where they are. There is R1 and R2.
MR VISSER: You are still short in R3 and R4.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, so we will make this Exhibit T because Exhibit S is the measurements of the dressmaker. This photo portfolio will be Exhibit T.
PHOTO PORTFOLIO HANDED IN AS EXHIBIT T
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair.
MR LAX: Sorry, can I, there are at the back of this, there are four photographs of the deceased in this matter. Those are part of R, aren't they? These photographs here, should be part of R.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. That is the one of the mother and child and we know that R1 is the one sitting on the bed, the one sitting on the fence pole is R2 and then the one standing next to a motor vehicle, I think those were R1 to R4.
Should we not just make this Exhibit R and let it take over, and then we can take out R1, R2, R3 and R4. We will make these exhibits R and substitute it for that other four photographs, because they are all included in here.
MR VISSER: All the photos are R?
CHAIRPERSON: I think all the photos are R now.
MR LAX: Let's just double check that.
CHAIRPERSON: But we didn't get R3 and R4. Mr Visser showed them and we said that they would be ...
MR VISSER: What we have done is, Ms Thabethe asked us to give it to her and we gave it to her, but we haven't received the photograph that Prof Vanezis has worked on. That was supposed to be the last one of those R photographs. I am not sure what has happened to that Chairperson.
MS THABETHE: I am also not sure.
MR VISSER: We don't seem to be able to get a full set of photographs.
MS THABETHE: I am also not sure Mr Chair, but what I will do after Dr Naidoo, because I don't know whether you would be using them for Dr Naidoo as well, I would give, I don't know what happened to them at this present moment, I will find out.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, if you can find out.
CHAIRPERSON: It is just that one photograph.
MS THABETHE: It is all of them.
MR VISSER: Yes, the frontal photograph.
CHAIRPERSON: The front photo of the two that we saw in the video?
CHAIRPERSON: Because the angled one was the one sitting on the bed.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you. Dr Naidoo, what are your full names please?
DR NAIDOO: Thank you. My name is Segaran Ramalu Naidoo.
SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: (sworn states)
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Thabethe?
EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. Dr Naidoo, can you please state your qualifications for the record?
DR NAIDOO: I have a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree, which is a general medical qualification. I have a post-graduate diploma in forensic medicine and I have the Master of Medicine in forensic pathology which is the specialist qualification.
MS THABETHE: And at present, what are you working as?
DR NAIDOO: I am still a Forensic Pathologist, but I am essentially in a limited private practice of my own, just starting, but I do considerable amount of part time work for the State.
MS THABETHE: How long have you worked as a Forensic Pathologist?
DR NAIDOO: Since approximately 1990, that is approximately 10 years as a qualified specialist, but in training for seven years earlier.
MS THABETHE: Now we come to the case of Ntombi Kubheka. Can you tell the Committee how you were introduced to this case?
DR NAIDOO: I was asked by the Truth Commission for whom I had done several post-mortem examinations from exhumations earlier to also examine, do the exhumation and examine this body.
MS THABETHE: Okay. We will come back to all the other exhumations and the other reports that you did later on. We have a report that was written by you on page 24 of Bundle 2, up to page 29.
MS THABETHE: Was this report compiled by you?
DR NAIDOO: This is my report, yes, 24 to 30 and then attached are several annexures and transcriber's certificate and a diagram.
MS THABETHE: Right. Now you were still telling us how you were introduced to this case of Ntombi Kubheka.
DR NAIDOO: Yes. I was, well being the Deputy Head of the Department Forensic Medicine in regular contact with the Police and Investigating Officers. I cannot recall which individual from the Truth Commission did make the initial call, it may have been Ms Miller and I recall that for this particular case, I wasn't able to go myself to do the exhumation, and so I asked Dr Aiyer on our staff, to please do the exhumation for us, for the Department and bring the body to the unit.
MS THABETHE: Right. Is it correct that you received the body on the 9th of May 1997?
MS THABETHE: And the sergeant who gave you this body, or who handed the body over to you, was Sgt M. Swart?
MS THABETHE: What did you then do with the body in an endeavour to do the post-mortem?
DR NAIDOO: Once Sgt Swart identified the body to me, I commenced the actual examination. The body is usually laid on the post-mortem table, and in this case the body bag containing the remains.
It is usually myself, personally, that opens the bag upon ensuring that the bag is the correct one, with the correct identification tag. So I began the examination which was first a visual examination.
MS THABETHE: Just hang on, you spoke about a correct identification tag?
MS THABETHE: What would be that in this case?
DR NAIDOO: In this case it would bear a post-mortem from Gale Street, the Gale Street number, that is PM1155/97. I verify that before I examine it.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Dr Naidoo, when you got the body from Sgt Swart, was it in a bag?
CHAIRPERSON: Was the bag sealed or was it open or what was the situation when you actually first saw it for the first time in your life?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. My Lord, if I may call you Mr Miller ...
DR NAIDOO: Mr Chairperson, sorry, I cannot at this stage say whether it was sealed, but the bag was brought to me and identified by number. I would do the opening of the bag.
MS THABETHE: You were still telling us what you did to the body in an endeavour to make the post-mortem.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, what I would do is in a general case, not necessarily in this case, what I would do is open the bag out and depending on what I see, I would decide before I touched it, whether to do photographs or not, which would describe the state of preservation as presented to me.
I am looking actually for the first time at this photo album, compiled together, and I do see that I did take photographs.
CHAIRPERSON: So doctor, I gather from what you are saying that as you sit here, now, you don't have an independent recollection of what you actually did?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, nothing at all, apart from what I read in my reports.
DR NAIDOO: In terms of details.
DR NAIDOO: Then I would call for the photographer, in which case it was the station which was next door, next door, which was the Pinetown Murder and Robbery unit or the local criminal record centre and Insp McKenzie or Sgt McKenzie, I am not too sure, I asked him to join me for this examination.
As I went through this process, I photographed various stages.
MR LAX: Can I just ask this. You didn't photograph it yourself, McKenzie photographed it?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Insp McKenzie photographed it.
MR LAX: You asked him to take the photographs?
DR NAIDOO: That is right, in my presence.
MS THABETHE: Okay. Since we are on the issue of photographs, maybe just for the record, we would like to go through each photograph and tell us what is contained in the photograph, or what appears in the photograph.
MS THABETHE: We will refer to it for convenience, figure 1, figure 2, figure 3 as we go along.
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Figure 1 shows the remains as received and what one can first see is that it is a yellow mortuary floor. That is the Pinetown epoxy floor and there is a blue body bag that has been opened. Inside that bag is another discoloured pale white maybe, plastic.
Within this inside bag, one can see some clothing and then perhaps one can make out a single bone, a few bones only.
MS THABETHE: Yes. Can you go to figure 2?
CHAIRPERSON: That photo would have been taken upon the opening of the bag, and that is the first impression?
CHAIRPERSON: What you saw? Oh yes, it seems like the belt has a buckle or had a buckle?
DR NAIDOO: Figure 2 titled "remains on removal of clothing". It shows the same bag, here there is a label as with the first figure, here is a label with the correct post-mortem number and shows the remains as they appeared after removal of clothing. There would be some slight alteration of the layout, because on removal of the clothing, I would have had to remove some bones, but the state of preservation can be seen from the debris blackened discoloured bone and a fair amount of perhaps sandy debris.
MS THABETHE: You mentioned that you had to remove, when you were removing clothing, you had to remove the bones from the clothing, why is this?
DR NAIDOO: Well, what happens is, a skeleton, in this body the bones were interspersed or intermeshed or intertwined with the clothing, indicating that the clothing were in the worn position, they were worn by the deceased.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 3 reflects the appearance of some Negroid hair amongst the remains, just for positive identification.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 4 shows three of the articles of clothing. Right at the top, the bra, the short-sleeved or mid-sleeved dress, floral dress and then a half slip, somewhat discoloured. The dress has attached to it, or next to it, a belt, fabric belt, or plastic belt.
CHAIRPERSON: You said a belt, a fabric belt or plastic belt?
MS THABETHE: Okay, the belt that we have in our presence, doesn't have a buckle. I realise that this one has a buckle?
MS THABETHE: Would you know what happened to the buckle?
DR NAIDOO: No idea unfortunately.
CHAIRPERSON: And doctor, we also had before us here at the hearing, a polo-neck, although I see figure 6, sorry, we will get to that later, but it is not in this ...
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is correct Mr Chairman.
MS THABETHE: It is actually later on.
DR NAIDOO: To complete that, figure 5 shows a close up of that dress and one can see that the belt appears to be attached to the dress by a single loop on the right side if that is the front of the dress that we are looking at.
Figure 6, the close up of the polo-neck jersey. Here again it is quite discoloured.
CHAIRPERSON: So doctor, when, these photos are depicted, you didn't change anything, for instance I see the belt buckle, the belt is done up, it is not ...
DR NAIDOO: No, I wouldn't, I would certainly not change or buckle up the belt that was unbuckled for the photograph.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 7, having sifted out by hand, all the bones, I would lay them out into a anatomical continuity and then photograph it and work out what was missing.
MS THABETHE: Okay. What was missing in this ...
DR NAIDOO: A few bones. Almost all the bones were there, except for a few small bones on the feet and hands.
If I just go to the, I don't specify which ones are actually missing, but I was satisfied that it was largely complete and that of a single person, not commingled with another person's bones.
MS THABETHE: The same applies for figure 8?
DR NAIDOO: Figure 8 is a picture from the front, from the foot of the table. What you can make out here are some defects of the bones of the right hand, the rib and of the pelvis in front.
MS THABETHE: And then figure 9?
DR NAIDOO: Figure 9 is a frontal view of the skull, slightly oblique frontal view. Figure 10 is the view of the vertex, that is the top looking at it from the top, before cleaning. While we are there, we can see that there appears to be, there appears to be, or there probably is some remnants of scalp hair although I am not too sure, on the surface, very discoloured surface.
Figure 11 is a right sided oblique view. These two, figures 10 and 11 is simply to show the state of preservation mainly of the bone.
CHAIRPERSON: That is also before cleaning, is it?
DR NAIDOO: Before cleaning, yes.
DR NAIDOO: That is correct. The cleaning I would employ here is simply dry brushing.
CHAIRPERSON: But that is before that?
DR NAIDOO: Before that, yes. If I may say that on figure 11, even before cleaning, one can see the circular, neat circular defect on the vertex, small localised defect.
DR NAIDOO: On figure 10. Sorry, on 10.
CHAIRPERSON: That is that black, that black spot?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. The black circle.
CHAIRPERSON: Round spot, circle?
DR NAIDOO: There appears to be no figure 12.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we go from 11 to 13, and then we have a bigger jump after that, to 17?
DR NAIDOO: Okay, yes. Figure 13 ...
MR LAX: Just before you go on, Ms Thabethe will you endeavour to get the complete set from the doctor, so we can check what 12 might have been, if there was a 12?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and then also 14, 15, 16.
MR VISSER: Chairperson, they are not in the docket, we checked, unless at the time when we checked, they were removed and replaced later, I don't know about that, but you will observe the first two photos that are missing, are reproduced in your Bundle 2, but the others are not reproduced there, so we don't know what they are at all.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Visser. Sorry Mr Naidoo, if you can turn to page 58 of Volume 2, although it is not a coloured photograph, we have a figure 12.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 12, just again the left sided view of the skull, slightly oblique and underside.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 13 is the view now after cleaning of the defect of the top of the skull. One can see quite clearly the well ...(indistinct) neat hole at the top of the skull and I've got two diagrams, hand drawn, next to this figure which the lower one, the adjacent diagram shows the defect on the diagram and then the upper diagram shows trajectory, the presumed direction of the gunshot.
CHAIRPERSON: Will you be getting back to this bullet, well, this hole later in your evidence, or not?
DR NAIDOO: I assume that I will be led to speak about it.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because, I was just wondering, have you seen bullet holes in skulls before?
CHAIRPERSON: And this neat, no cracks or shattering?
DR NAIDOO: On the outer table of bone Mr Chairman, yes. It is typical of a gunshot wound of bone that enters at right angles, not oblique and from the side. It is a direct, 90 degree, well, almost direct 90 degree entry angle, square on the skull.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 14 and 15 ...
CHAIRPERSON: That I think we will have to then revert to page 60 of Volume 2, because it is not in the coloured portfolio or album.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 14 and 15 shows the inside of the skull cap, so what we did was the skull was cut open, across, in a manner of a cap and the cap was turned around, inverted, to look at the inside of the defect.
DR NAIDOO: That is what we are looking at, figure 14 and 15, a magnified view.
CHAIRPERSON: 15 is a magnified view?
DR NAIDOO: Figure 17 is a close view of the front of the skull, concentrating on the dentition, making a good presentation of the way the teeth would look in a smile for example.
Figure 18 is a view of the lower jaw, from an angle and this was to show clearly the irregular or mal-positioned lower teeth in the front, because I thought it might be a special identifying feature for this particular person. Figure 19 is a close up view of the front of the pelvis, which we saw in an earlier figure, showing the fragile nature and fragmentation of bone.
CHAIRPERSON: Is there any way from what you observed, I might just be anticipating what you are going to say later, as to whether the fracture of the pelvis was pre-death or post-death?
CHAIRPERSON: Will you get to that?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I was of the impression that this was more likely post-mortem, after death, as a result of the fragility and porosity of the bone.
DR NAIDOO: Figure 20 and 21 on one page, show just two views of that substance or the structure that fell out of the skull, the bottom of the skull while I was examining the skull and this turned out to be a bullet and two little fragments.
CHAIRPERSON: Two little fragments of what, doctor?
DR NAIDOO: Of perhaps denaturing or tarnished metal or lead. Or in fact it might be fragments of soft tissue, because I have written here "bullets and fragments" as a title to that page, "bullets and fragments from the core". What happens is sometimes the core is hollow and it traps a bit of soft tissue that dries up, soft body tissues.
CHAIRPERSON: Dried up soft body tissue that hasn't completely decayed?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is right. Figure 25, having found that structure that fell out of the base of skull, and not being able to clearly confirm its nature as a bullet, although it was very suspicious, as one can see from the original colour photographs of that structure, that it was really a bullet, I placed it against teeth and bone to show up differing densities, on the scanner, on that photograph, you can see the very high ...(indistinct), strongly dense, appearance compared to teeth and bone. That was clearly metallic, or strongly radio opaque.
CHAIRPERSON: That is figure 25?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Dr Naidoo. Coming back now to your examination, I want us to go through your findings on each part that you examined of the skeleton.
MR LAX: Just before you do, can we safely assume that 22 to 24 are missing? If there is a photograph, oh, you've got those?
CHAIRPERSON: We haven't got, yes, we've got ...
MR LAX: He's got a photocopy here, may I just have a look because we don't have these in our Bundles. It just says "different views of bullet head", 22, 23 and 24. We don't have it in our Bundles, but we could easily make a photocopy of that.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. They seem to be very similar to figure 21, so basically ...
MR LAX: They are just different views of the same thing, is that right?
DR NAIDOO: That is right sir, because I just wanted to show up and in fact it is on those views, one can confidently confirm that it is a bullet.
MR LAX: Thank you. Please continue.
MS THABETHE: Would you know what happened to the original photographs of these photocopies?
DR NAIDOO: I submitted the original in a Bundle together with my report, at the very beginning, to the Truth Commission, I have no idea who has got it at the moment.
MS THABETHE: All right. Whilst we proceed, Dr Naidoo, I want us to proceed to talk about your conclusions when you examined each and every part of the remains, starting with the skull.
MS THABETHE: Can you tell us what your findings were when you examined the skull?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I then, with due respect, what I won't do is go into each, my schedules of observations in respect to injuries, sex, age and race, if I just would move over to injuries.
The most important thing, if I may summarise to say that ...
MS THABETHE: That is on page 28 of the Bundle.
DR NAIDOO: If I may summarise at the bottom, on page 24, that specifically on the aspects of age, race, sex and stature, I confirmed by anthropological examination that the race was Negroid, not only from the type of hair that I took out of the skull, from the body, in the remains, but also from the general shape of the skull, cranium and facial skeleton. I confirm that the age, well confirmed, I determined that the age from my assessment, was fairly young and under 40 years. I also measured the stature, measured the bones, individual bones and especially the femur, the thigh bone, which indicated to me that this was a considerably short individual and again the bones showed features overwhelmingly of being those of a female.
The final finding in this case was that I found features of a gunshot wound of the head, observed, and an object identified to be a bullet, discovered inside the cranial cavity. It fell out as I was examining it.
MS THABETHE: From looking at the bullet wound on the skull, what was the angle?
DR NAIDOO: It appeared to be a gunshot that was inflicted directly from above, it was at the very top of the vertex, very central, almost in midline, and directly from the top, at a 90 degree angle to a plane drawn at that point.
MS THABETHE: So would it be safe to say, would it be correct to say either the person might have been sitting down or the person shooting, was extremely taller than the person who was shot at?
DR NAIDOO: Well, there could be several possible positions, depending on the way the deceased was laying, sitting, standing, leaning or inclined.
CHAIRPERSON: Or whether the head was nodded down or back?
DR NAIDOO: That is correct, yes.
DR NAIDOO: But obviously, you mentioned sitting, whatever position the deceased was, the gunshot was fired from above the head, so if sitting, the shottist would have been standing at least, from the top, if laying down flat, the shottist would have to come from the head side and shoot at that angle, parallel to the longitudinal plane of the body, so various possibilities.
If the Commission were to suggest the possible scenario, then I could suggest whether this was possible.
CHAIRPERSON: And doctor, the fact that the remnants of a bullet was found in the skull, and that, does that indicate anything, or can you draw any conclusion from that?
DR NAIDOO: You could draw one conclusion, and that is that the bullet energy which then would reflect upon the firearm capability, the fire power, was probably not a high velocity gunshot, it is probably low or moderate velocity or intermediate velocity gunshot, medium range.
CHAIRPERSON: Did you find any evidence of any injury inside the skull that might have been caused by a bullet, by that bullet, other than the hole that it made in the vertex, was there any other indication that you observed?
DR NAIDOO: There was a fallout, if I may put it that way, a fallout, the fragile nature of the base of skull, just fell out as I was cleaning it, of the base of the skull. That is, the base of skull that is at the roof of the nose, roof of the nose and slightly behind the ...(indistinct) sinus area and this could either be due to post-mortem erosion and degradation of bone or it could be that the base of the skull was fractured and of course, as it, the soft tissue completely disintegrates and it is completely absent.
Whatever this soft tissue is holding it, it is disappearing, it falls out when you are examining.
MR LAX: Can I just ask one follow up question on that. You indicated a possible trajectory?
MR LAX: Given that possible trajectory, would one anticipate the sort of damage you have indicated?
MS THABETHE: What did you do with the metallic object that appeared as a bullet, after you had discovered it?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I gave it to, I handed it to Mr M. Moodley of our Department, who is a messenger-cum-technician, to take it personally to the Ballistics Unit in Amanzimtoti.
I have been given to understand that Capt Richie examined the exhibit.
MS THABETHE: Would this appear on page 35 of the Bundle.
CHAIRPERSON: Repeat that page please?
DR NAIDOO: That is correct. Page 35 and the report goes on to page 38, so pages 35 to 38.
MS THABETHE: And would you summarise his findings?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. He simply confirms that this was a bullet and it was a fired bullet and he indicates the calibre as being that of a 7.65 calibre bullet.
MS THABETHE: Sorry, if the Committee would bear with me. MR LAX: Just for the record, that last finding, is at page 37 under item 5.1.
MS THABETHE: Okay. With regard to the other parts of the body, of the skeleton, did you find any fractures or anything irregular?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. I found several fractures and I read in the, on page 2 of my report, which is page 25 of the compiled Bundle, the last paragraph
"... the bones are extremely dry and fragile, crumbling easily beneath finger pressure and several bones show post-mortem erosions at the edges, including the ...(indistinct), vertebrae, pubic bones, ribs, both ...(indistinct), eroded blades and multiple ...(indistinct) of long bone. The features do not suggest anti-mortem injury on the peripheral ...(indistinct) skeleton."
I was of the opinion that this is most likely post-mortem artefact rather than trauma, injury before death.
CHAIRPERSON: Doctor, on that, just wondering, we have heard that the body was exhumed and taken out of the grave and then it was put in a bag and then it was transported, how would that bag be carried? Did somebody put it over his shoulder, or would the bones move around in the bag during transportation, or would it be placed in a coffin and brought in that fashion?
DR NAIDOO: In my experience I know that it would be usually handled by two attendants, one on either side, but there would be a fair amount of movement, rocking movement. There would be certainly tumbling and disarticulation of the bones if they were intact. I cannot comment on what actually would happen, how would they handle it, in a very careful way or not. But I would think from my knowledge, that no particular care would be taken and that in the movement, it would be roughly moved from place to place. I have seen this happen.
And also in the transport, in the back of a vehicle, there would be a fair amount of bumping. I know that normal fresh bodies do suffer injuries like that.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you doctor. Ms Thabethe?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Dr Naidoo. Now, I want us to come to how you came about determining what the height of the person could have been.
It is on page 28 of the Bundle?
MS THABETHE: Can you inform us as to how you came to the conclusion that the body's height is between 1.35 to 1.42 metre in height?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. We do know that the best bone that reflects or parallels the height of a deceased, would be the long bones, and especially those of the lower ...(indistinct), and in fact, I've got seven measurements taken, and they are in order of preference. For example I would prefer the femur length, rather than the head of the radius or the length of the humerus. What we do is we know that because there is definitely a, shall we say a mathematical relationship between the length of the long bones to the person's height, for average people, what we do is, we use a formula created by a chap called J. Lundi. He measured and he calculated for both South African black males and females, he calculated ...(indistinct) formulae mathematically. We use the formula, we insert the measurements into the formula and come to a height, this is a calculated height, living height.
In this case, my calculations showed that the deceased would have been between 1.35 and 1.42 metres in height. I think this is, I am not a statistician, but this would represent a 95 percent confidence in the law.
CHAIRPERSON: If one takes a look at Lundi's formula, that +32, is that part of the formula, or is that ...
DR NAIDOO: That is part of the formula.
CHAIRPERSON: And age, does that play any role? I mean if you were doing this in the case of an infant's remains and that of an adult, would it be the same formula?
DR NAIDOO: No Mr Chairman, no. This is for the South African black adult and there is a provision, should you find degenerative changes in the skeleton because when you have a very old person, you do get shorter, because the vertebra, the spinal bones shrink. Then you put in a correction, but once you have determined your age, and you have decided that it is not an elderly and not infantile person, then you can use the formula fairly happily.
MS THABETHE: So do you confirm in short that the above formula as written in your report, provides not for precise estimation, and the actual height calculated may be considered to be inaccurate?
MS THABETHE: However, the figures do point to a considerably short individual?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, the figures can reliably say that, although it cannot point to the precise height of the deceased.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I haven't worked it out. If I look at the formula, you are getting a figure times another figure, plus another figure and then you've got plus minus?
CHAIRPERSON: What is that plus minus?
DR NAIDOO: That simply, once you have come to 32, you add and then you subtract, so in other words you add and get your 1.42.
CHAIRPERSON: And then 1.35 for the subtraction?
CHAIRPERSON: That gives you your range?
MS THABETHE: Now, Dr Naidoo, I want us to proceed to other endeavours you took in trying to establish the identity of the skeleton remains.
I will start with the dental records, or rather the dental expert you tried to seek.
MS THABETHE: Can you inform us as to what you did, what steps you took to try and get dental identification?
DR NAIDOO: The, Dr Spears, Dr K.D. Spears used to work at Addington Hospital until recently before he emigrated and he regularly did the dental examination of our skeletal remains for a few reasons, mainly to determine the age, but also to look for some specific identifying feature in the dentition, such as fillings and bridges and caps.
MS THABETHE: In terms of determining the age, is it correct...
DR NAIDOO: Yes, in this case, I asked him only to assess for, to measure dental age. In this case, using a system devised by ...(indistinct), he came to a conclusion that the deceased was approximately 35 years of age, with a nine year standard deviation.
MS THABETHE: I am just looking for the relevant page in the Bundle - 39.
DR NAIDOO: Nine year standard deviation with an age of 35, which if I may just interpret for the Court, would be 35 minus 9 and 35 plus 9, giving you the age, that would be 26 to 44 years as a range.
CHAIRPERSON: That is quite a large range?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, Mr Chairman, that is quite large. Sometimes dental age can be more precise, more closer, but in this case, just a large range.
MS THABETHE: Did you manage to get any identifying features from the teeth?
DR NAIDOO: Apart from what I had already mentioned about the irregularity of the lower front teeth, he did not find any specific identifying feature. What he did find, for example, the extract number 3/5, which is the fifth tooth on the left lower side, we unfortunately did not have any dental records during the life of the deceased, that we could compare with.
MS THABETHE: For the record, Dr Naidoo, you know that we tried to ascertain dental records from the husband of Ntombi Kubheka, but we couldn't because apparently the doctor or the dentist she had consulted, she paid cash and there were no records or X-rays. That is just for the record.
CHAIRPERSON: Doctor, just before you move on to something else, if you look at page 39 one can see that some teeth were missing, is that right?
CHAIRPERSON: Was there anything significant about that fact to you, yourself?
DR NAIDOO: Not at all. Mr Chairman, the teeth are likely to fall off when they are loose, in a decomposed body, in a skeletalised skull. They easily come off and in handling, in the grave, during the exhumation, they just fall out.
MS THABETHE: Were there any other tests that you tried to do?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I then considered specific identification. By that time, generally I would stop there, and only take it further unless asked. By that time, an interim report to the Truth Commission was presented and they asked me to consider further specific identification of this person. I called Cape Town, the laboratory in Cape Town, they gave me the instructions on how they would like the specimens to be taken, and I took bone and teeth samples from the skull.
MS THABETHE: There was a question that came up earlier on during these proceedings, as to the hair. Did you take any hair, hair sample?
DR NAIDOO: No, hair was not taken for DNA.
MS THABETHE: Will you maybe advance a reason as to why?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, the best samples, well, I am told the best samples would be those tissue samples that were ...(indistinct) and hidden, so right inside bone and right inside teeth, would be less susceptible to the effects of weather and weather changes and the elements.
Hair would be less advisable. I should have, one would consider that it would be nice to take it, but I thought that the teeth and the bone would have been sufficient and be the best sample to take.
DR NAIDOO: For DNA testing, yes.
MS THABETHE: What were the findings of the DNA?
DR NAIDOO: The laboratory came back to me after quite some work on this and said that they had been able to isolate some DNA from some teeth, one tooth I think and one bone, but unfortunately the DNA was so degraded that it wouldn't be able to replicate.
You must replicate in order to subject it to testing. It was too degraded DNA. But what they advised me with that negative report, they advised me that they would like to send the specimen to what they would consider ...(indistinct) in the European countries, Prof Brinkman and Munster, Germany, and it would not cost anything. I waited several months more for a result.
They did write back to say that in spite of exhaustive tests carried out and in spite of mitochondria DNA being sought, they were unable to get a positive result. The laboratory tests are telling us then that they were unable to isolate DNA, to make it available for testing.
MR LAX: Just for the record, doctor, are these letters and reports which you got at 43, 44, 45 and then 46 appears to be from Germany?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Lax. What other attempts did you make in trying to get identification of the skeletal remains?
DR NAIDOO: Finally what I did was, thank you, I was asked to pursue, well, we did this parallel, just in case we were not able to get good results and typable DNA's, good isolated DNA, I then consulted a local Durban cranial facial expert, Dr Olsbrook who in discussions with me, suggested that I first try the quicker and more updated procedure of computerised cranial facial reconstruction. He gave me three or four names of people to consult, two were from Briton, one from Germany, one from Japan.
The only one I knew, was one of the two from Briton and Prof Vanezis. I consulted him and he was happy to do this. It was some time before we sent the skull, the specimens were all the time in my possession.
Prof Vanezis' result, the Commission does know at the moment.
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. If the Committee would bear with me.
With regard to the conclusions that were reached by Dr Vanezis that it is highly likely that the skull is part of the remains of Ntombi Kubheka, what is your comment to that?
DR NAIDOO: I find that his conclusions support and add to my findings in that it does not represent, it represents one more addition to the constellation of features that I find that do match those of the alleged deceased.
It does not for example, give me a finding that, tells me that we have a different feature or a non-identifying feature or an exclusionary feature in this case. His report supports the general constellation of features that tell me that or suggests to me that this could be very high likelihood of positive identification.
MS THABETHE: Okay. Sorry Dr Naidoo, just to take you back a bit on the DNA. Did you at some stage take the blood samples of Ntombi Kubheka's relatives?
DR NAIDOO: I didn't do it myself. I requested by telephone consultation and by letter, my colleague in Pretoria, I think it is Pretoria, to assist me, which they gladly did and it kept the chain of evidence, by recording the seal numbers, etc.
Louis Pasteur Building, I think it is Dr Ferreira, that took blood samples for example from Sibongile Kubheka, Gugu Sibongile Kubheka? I must just check my record.
MS THABETHE: We do have the records.
CHAIRPERSON: We know that the DNA wasn't positive, it doesn't take it any further, does it really?
MS THABETHE: Thank you, I just wanted to put it on record. DR NAIDOO: I do recall, I took one sample of the son of the alleged deceased.
MS THABETHE: Now, coming back to the dress.
MS THABETHE: That was found, or that was together with the remains when it was presented or handed over to you, did you examine the dress in any way?
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, your first question I didn't hear?
MS THABETHE: Did you examine the dress.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I did examine the dress.
MS THABETHE: What were you looking for, or what did you seek to find in examining the dress?
DR NAIDOO: The two things I was looking for, were evidence of injury or particularly characteristic defects that could tell me that there was injuries to the body itself, and secondly just to record the special identifying features of this, of these clothing for future identification.
MS THABETHE: Did you make any findings from examining the dress?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Yes, I described it as a burgundy short-sleeved, thin nylon dress, showing large white and red flower prints around the lower portion - I am reading on page 25 of the Bundle, the second paragraph - lower portion and fine pale and red/white oblique stripes across the upper front and rear, with a thin fabric belt around the waist, through loops, showing a label "swing set" and a button with a loop, the rear neck, and the other clothing.
MS THABETHE: So my question is, did the clothing, did you make any findings in relation to the identifying, the identification of the skeletal remains from examining the clothing?
DR NAIDOO: I mentioned that the clothing didn't specify size, that there were no characteristics, defects of trauma that I could link together with bone injuries, and there was definitely extensive discoloration and staining by post-mortem fluids.
At this stage, you cannot make out whether this is just blood, or if it is blood stained post-mortem fluid. Those were, there were no special identifying features apart from that.
MS THABETHE: Okay. From the type of gunshot wound that was on the skeletal skull, on the skull, would you say there would have been bleeding?
DR NAIDOO: There probably would have been a little bleeding, and if there was bleeding, it would have probably been from the mouth and nostrils a little, rather than from the vertex.
Because the bullet remained there, there was no exit wound, there would have been a little bleeding from the nose and mouth and from the vertex, the entrance hole, but little. There is also a possibility that the hair would have been, would have dampened the flow, and you don't get a visible amount of bleeding.
MS THABETHE: Okay. I want to come now to Dr Chetty's report, which is on page 67 of ...
CHAIRPERSON: Just before you move on to that, also just mainly for record purposes. I see from your report that you say the probable cause of death was a bullet wound?
CHAIRPERSON: You are still of that view?
DR NAIDOO: Yes Mr Chairman, I am.
MR LAX: Just on that issue if I may, Chair. If I was to say to you that this person died of a heart attack, what would your comment there be?
DR NAIDOO: I wouldn't be able to reconcile that with my findings, at all. That would be one, secondly, of course, I have no soft tissue, this is only skeletalised remains, so I wouldn't be able to comment on that, and thirdly is that I find in a young black female of 40 years old, it would be something hard to buy, hard to swallow.
MR LAX: Can I, assuming the person had died of other causes and being shot after death, would you be able to determine any difference to the injury?
DR NAIDOO: No. There wouldn't have been, in other words, I wouldn't have been able to make out whether this was an anti-mortem or post-mortem wound of the skull.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Thabethe.
MS THABETHE: Thank you, just to follow up on the question posed by Mr Lax. You say it would be unusual of a person in the age of 40 to have a heart attack, why is that so?
DR NAIDOO: Well, two reasons. First of all the race being black, Negroid, it is a very rare occurrence, extremely rare occurrence to find a heart attack in a young woman. This is still, I would consider quite young, in heart disease terms in the black population.
For that matter, even in the older black person, it is not quite common, although we are seeing the early creeping of heart disease into this group in the urban black population, not so much the rural.
Secondly, sorry, what was your question?
CHAIRPERSON: Why was it unusual?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, oh, I was trying to - the second reason ...
CHAIRPERSON: Would you get a difference between, would there be, usually speaking, I am not talking about this case now, but generally speaking, the chances of getting a heart attack while you are sitting on the bus or sitting at your office desk or laying asleep in your bed, as opposed to being involved in a highly traumatic situation such as an assault?
DR NAIDOO: Well, as the Chairman would know, the Committee would know that the instance of heart attacks or precipitated heart attacks is higher in stress situations, so that would be the circumstances under which, as I know it, this deceased, the alleged deceased here, alleged individual was placed under, which would be a highly stressed situation, but even so, I have not seen a black female, and here female, not black male, black female of this age, collapse with a heart attack under these circumstances, even in the most extreme circumstances, the heart does not give up.
MR LAX: Did I hear you say it was extremely rare, were those the words you used?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. In fact there is one case that I recall in my experience of a youngish black female having a heart disease, heart attack, but that was due to some affliction of the coronary by some other inflammatory auto immune process, that doesn't relate to degenerative coronary disease as we know it, because of affluence.
It is another condition causing, by chance, affecting the coronaries.
MS THABETHE: Thank you. I want to move on now to Dr Chetty's report. It is on page 67 of the Bundle. First of all, before I ask you to comment, would you say you are qualified or you are in a position to comment about generally the kinds of post-mortem examinations done by District Surgeons?
MS THABETHE: In the province, yes?
MS THABETHE: And why would you be qualified would you say?
DR NAIDOO: Simply because throughout my practice, while as a trainee doctor in the speciality and after I qualified, I have been a consultant for the province of Natal, doing problem solving, repeating post-mortems, correcting the deficiencies, teaching and training and I have an intimate knowledge, if I may say, of the way post-mortems are carried out in the rest of the province. We have done some research if I may call it, ...(indistinct) research work into this, in the effort to try and straighten out and correct these deficiencies.
MS THABETHE: Okay. Would you like to comment and inform us about how these post-mortems are done generally?
DR NAIDOO: How the post-mortems are done?
MS THABETHE: Yes, by District Surgeons?
DR NAIDOO: Suffice it to say that I have a tendency to try, to convert this into a lecture, but with due respect, suffice to say that there are very many deficiencies in the autopsy service, considerable deficiencies, and it is a strength at the very heart of my motivation to work and continue work in this field.
I have made many, many protests to the Department of Health, Department of Justice, Department of Police about the deficiencies to the effect that I have actually said this open in court, in High Court, and it led to some changes because I mentioned it in High Court.
Prof Dada and myself, the Department when I was still there, tried to look at it and tried to identify the deficiencies, and at the moment the Department of Health and the University is in a programme to improve the quality of autopsy work, which if I may use a term, is sometimes in some places, appalling.
DR NAIDOO: I will just give you a brief idea. I think there is very little insight into the way evidence should be presented in court, in the justice system.
There is little insight into for example things like chain ...(indistinct) evidence, into proper identification, proper storage, proper receipt and documentation of specimens, proper handling of biological assessments and exhibits, and of course, the proper way to write out a post-mortem report, as simple as that.
So there are deficiencies in that respect, and also there is a lack of training in the presentation, verbal and otherwise, of presenting evidence in court to the detriment of the justice system.
MS THABETHE: You were present when Mr Ismail gave evidence.
MS THABETHE: Were you present, you heard what he said?
MS THABETHE: Would you like to comment about that, I mean would you like to support or comment, give comment about what he said and refer to the specific paragraphs, let's say for example paragraph 3 where he says decomposed bodies were regularly brought into the mortuary?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. I can as a general idea, I can only but support Mr Ismail's statements, in general and say that what he says to be common practice, to have been common practice then, I think is quite true.
In fact, a little bit of that still persists now, at this very date and time. That is the own initiative of our work, to go and correct those deficiencies. Regarding the specifics, the fact that, first of all, not all bodies, not all decomposed bodies if suspected a gunshot, would come to Gale Street, I was at Gale Street at that time, and it would only be done with consultation and what he said about only if the Police indicate on the SAP180 form that there is foul play, a murder, shooting, then only would they consult us for an X-ray.
MR LAX: Sorry, are you confirming that aspect of his evidence?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I am supporting that.
MR LAX: It wasn't clear what you were trying to say.
DR NAIDOO: I am supporting that, yes.
DR NAIDOO: Secondly he says ...
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, are you saying that, because my notes are different, I must have made a mistake, that every body found for instance in the jurisdiction of the Verulam mortuary which was suspected of a gunshot, to have a gunshot wound, would be sent to Gale Street for X-rays?
CHAIRPERSON: Because that is what I thought Mr Ismail said, and then he said the only ones where post-mortems would be performed, would be where a policeman was involved in the alleged or suspected killing?
CHAIRPERSON: Then Gale Street would keep the body, otherwise all bodies with bullet wounds would go to Gale Street and then be returned?
DR NAIDOO: But Mr Ismail did indicate that it was left to the discretion of the doctor and if he felt he could do the post-mortem without an X-ray, then he went ahead without the X-ray.
CHAIRPERSON: In your experience, how often do you get these bodies from other mortuaries for X-ray purposes and which are returned later for post-mortem to the mortuary from whence they came?
DR NAIDOO: I will speak about the time when I was there.
DR NAIDOO: There was a period in which there was a request from the police and an affirmation by the Professor Forensic Medicine at that time, that Gale Street does all the bodies that were shot by, all the people, examination of the people and the bodies that were shot by the police.
It may have been in that time that Mr Ismail was talking about. There came a stage that we were doing so many at Gale Street, that we had to put a stop to that and say "consult us when you've got a problem. You look at the body, decide whether you can do it, if you've got a problem, call us and then we will help you, or call us any way and we will tell you what to do and what to make sure of, make sure you have photography, etc" and we then went into consultation.
We didn't accept or receive all the bodies at that stage, at that eventual stage.
MS THABETHE: Would this have included the period of 1987?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. I remember this because Prof Botha, who initiated that process, was our Head of Department, at that stage.
MS THABETHE: Now, coming back to Dr Chetty's report. There are a few discrepancies with Dr Chetty, for example with regard to height, he has indicated, or he has recorded that the height was 1.6 metre and yours is 1.35 to 1.42?
MS THABETHE: Can you explain why there would be such a discrepancy?
DR NAIDOO: Well, I don't believe that height. I think strongly that this is a mere estimate. I would rather depend or rely upon my measured height, it is a scientific calculation, proven scientifically and although it gives me a range, I know that I've got 95 percent confidence in that, that the height would fall in that range that I have given.
I don't believe that this is the correct height, I really believe it is an estimate.
MS THABETHE: What would be your reason for not believing, for believing that it is an estimate?
DR NAIDOO: First of all, as I mentioned just earlier on that I know what was common practice and I know it is quite common practice to simply estimate a height, just because you have a space on a form, to fill.
You will remember that I mentioned there was no insight as to the purpose of the post-mortem report. Secondly, in a skeletonised body, may I ask respectfully, how long, if this is the alleged deceased that we are looking about, we accept, let's assume that this is the right person, how long was this body laying ...
CHAIRPERSON: The body, according to the evidence, was laying in the veld approximately just short of two months. It was disposed of some time in May, around the 19th, somewhere, the 20th, let's say the 19th to the 25th of May and it was found on the 15th of July, so it was winter months, exposed in the veld.
DR NAIDOO: It was above ground level?
CHAIRPERSON: In Umbayi, above ground level, Umbayi area.
DR NAIDOO: Thank you Mr Chairman, that does support what I was going to say, with two months of exposure and decomposition, progressive decomposition, even in winter, in this coastal region, I would expect the skeleton to be almost completely disarticulated, that means bones out of joint with each other, disarticulation.
If those bones were scooped, even scooped up very, very carefully by the persons at the scene, in the transport and by the time it got to the doctor, those bones will be in a jumble, because two months of decomposition, which means seven weeks of decomposition, there would be almost total soft tissue lost.
Therefore you would not be able to get an anatomical height from head to toe because the body wouldn't be in a straight, neat position unless of course the doctor was called to the scene and examined the bones.
CHAIRPERSON: It would seem from what we've got and I am just, not making any findings here, but in my belief, it can be disputed, is that the body was found by the police upon receiving of a report, the police collected the body and took it to the Verulam mortuary.
CHAIRPERSON: That was where it was I believe, it was first seen by Dr Chetty, if it is the same one.
MR LAX: Can I just ask you something, apropos the height and all these questions of disarticulation, etc. Would this discrepancy of 1.6 versus your calculated height as such have to be a factor that for example would make you conclude that this couldn't possibly be the same body?
DR NAIDOO: No. Simply because I know that the practice in those days, well even today in some of the peripheral areas in the province, is that it is purely estimated height, I wouldn't place any reliance upon that. I would in fact, trying to decide whether this is the right body or not, I would disregard the height completely, in this circumstances, skeletonised body.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Lax, there is a weight there of 60 kg. Did you weight the bones at all, Dr Naidoo, I cannot recall? I am just wondering how much would a skeleton weigh?
DR NAIDOO: To be correct here, my report does not give a weight, simply because I left it out of my schedule of observations.
I believe as I do now, that it wouldn't have contributed to this, it is dry bone weight. In fact I believe that 60 kg is also very - estimate.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that might include, we don't know, the ...
DR NAIDOO: Soft tissue and clothing.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but I was just wondering what the bones that you were confronted with, would have weighed more or less, how far out is this 60 kg?
CHAIRPERSON: In other words, we don't know what the weight of the clothing is, but that might be giving an indication how much soft tissue there might have been at that time?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Unfortunately I have not recorded a weight.
MS THABETHE: And, why do you think Dr Chetty missed the gunshot wound on this skeleton?
DR NAIDOO: Two reasons, two possible reasons. Firstly, with due respect to Dr Chetty, I am not reflecting on his capacity, but I think there was an inadequate post-mortem, it wasn't properly done, that is one reason. I think maybe just a viewing as Mr Ismail said, would have been done.
Secondly, I, what happens after death is that the skin, the skin containing the scalp, tends to most commonly dry out and desiccate and it shrinks and forms a leather cap on the skull. What happens is, that is several weeks afterwards, of course by the time I saw this, 10 years later, it is a different picture. But immediately in the first few weeks, it forms a leather cap and it is frequently a very nice position to identify still remaining hair.
You can easily overlook or mask a gunshot wound, if you don't remove the scalp tissue.
MS THABETHE: And do you want to comment on the cause of death as undetermined? Would you say that makes a discrepancy between your report and his? The fact that he says the cause of death is undetermined and you say the cause of death is a gunshot wound.
DR NAIDOO: Yes. I think for the same reason as I mentioned the inadequate nature of their observations, I would not rely upon their cause of death. I have seen even similar misses, shall we say, deficiencies, in fresh bodies, so I would still think that, I wouldn't be able to exclude that this is the same body that I am doing, simply because of the way that they did post-mortems in the past.
MS THABETHE: Just for, you know, information, what does it mean to say that the cause of death is undetermined?
DR NAIDOO: He wasn't able to determine the anatomical cause of death.
MS THABETHE: Okay. Please bear with me, Mr Chairman.
MR LAX: While you are busy, can I just ask something. There is a term that is used throughout this post-mortem "completely decomposed". It appears in two, the hand-written one, and then the word decomposed is used, body completely decomposed, decomposed on the other pages. We are told there is a page missing and I would have preferred you to see the complete document, so that you can have a complete picture. For example page, of these documentation, page 69 is from a different post-mortem, so it would appear on the face of it, and then there is a page missing ...
MS THABETHE: I've got an original here, but I don't know whether I can hand it in.
MR LAX: No, what we should probably do is copy the missing pages from that original, distribute them to everybody, but perhaps for the time being, if Dr Naidoo can refer to the original and not the photocopies, that would be a good start at least.
All I was really wanting to get from you was a sense of, we see this term used here, and firstly, what in your view, does it mean, and secondly does it have any specific, is it a term that is used with a specific meaning in the context of post-mortems or is it just a generalisation?
DR NAIDOO: Firstly, decomposed, completely decomposed would correctly mean so surviving soft tissue. But often times, this is a loosely described entity, there may still be some surviving soft tissue, but it is such a process of advanced skeletonisation, it looks to be just bone and this term is often loosely used.
MR LAX: We heard yesterday about the difference between completely decomposed and skeletonisation and there was a distinction drawn between the two terms that if a body has become skeletonised, that would be different in other words there was no, there was no soft tissue remaining at all?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Well, I could agree with that loose definition, that is completely skeletonised bone would almost be ...(indistinct) almost, a skeleton in a museum, just the bone, or even after several years in our context. But a completely decomposed body would be just at the end of decomposition, and just attached by bits of a leathery ligament and ...(indistinct) in some sort of anatomical continuity.
MR LAX: Thank you, that is very helpful.
ADV BOSMAN: And that would be compatible with a body that had been laying in the veld for two months?
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair. There is a question I omitted to ask you Dr Naidoo. With regard to the clothing, was there any underwear?
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I didn't hear the question, was there any...
MS THABETHE: Was there any underwear?
CHAIRPERSON: Was there any underwear?
MS THABETHE: Yes, besides the petticoat and the bra, panties to be more precise?
DR NAIDOO: I did not record seeing a panty or any other underwear, apart from the bra and the petticoat. Had they been there, I would have recorded them, so I must conclude that there was no panty or other underwear apart from a bra and petticoat?
CHAIRPERSON: Were the clothes or portion of the clothing that you found when you opened the bag, separately bagged?
DR NAIDOO: No Mr Chairman. Particularly the polo-neck jersey, they were all in such a way that the bones were in the clothing.
MS THABETHE: With regard to the bone structure, can you determine the size of the person whilst she was still alive, from the bone structure of the skeletal remains that you had?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. In terms of size, the bone structure can help to determine height, principally height alone. One important point is that a bone appearance in the skeleton has a poor reflection of weight or shall we say, gird, abdominal gird, chest gird, it is a poor reflection.
So whilst we can determine height, we can rarely say weight, because people, that will fluctuate from month to month and from year to year in adults.
MR LAX: Doctor, can I just ask you something that has been worrying me, I should have asked it to you earlier when we dealt with the issue of heart attacks and so on, there is some evidence to suggest that if this is the same deceased, that Ntombi Kubheka was overweight? Would heart attacks be likely given your understanding of the demographics, etc for an overweight African person, female of that age?
MR LAX: I am just saying that is some of the evidence, I am not saying that we have necessarily made a finding that she was or wasn't overweight. I am just saying, if that is the case, what is your opinion?
DR NAIDOO: Okay, thank you. I must try and be as brief as possible in the answer, obesity we know is a factor that leads to heard disease or shall we say, that contributes to a heart disease, but only in the instance where the other factors actually produce organic coronary narrowing.
I think it is well accepted that obesity alone, like in the black female, will not cause a heart attack. It is just a minor factor in coronary heart disease. It is, in my opinion, it probably plays a lower role to the contribution of coronary artery disease, than do hypertension which is high blood pressure, and smoking and diabetes and genetic tendencies, those very factors.
Just to summarise, obesity doesn't cause heart attacks on its own. If it ever causes deaths on its own, obesity, it is something that is unknown to me, on its own.
MS THABETHE: In summary, Dr Naidoo ...
DR NAIDOO: Sorry, I thought I was also going to be questioned on, you gave me this, Dr Chetty's post-mortem report.
MS THABETHE: Oh, okay. I thought you had completed commenting on it.
DR NAIDOO: Well, I don't know if you wanted ...
CHAIRPERSON: Those questions related to the question of fully decomposed and decomposed, which has been dealt with. That is what Mr Lax raised.
MS THABETHE: Maybe what I have overlooked is the fractured ribs on both sides, recorded on page 69.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I actually ...
CHAIRPERSON: But isn't that the wrong page?
MS THABETHE: Oh, have we agreed that it is a wrong page?
CHAIRPERSON: Well, we haven't agreed, but it seems to be, but any event, did you find fractured ribs, you have mentioned some fractures?
DR NAIDOO: There were, shall we say there were defects and erosions on the ribs as I did find in the right forearm and the pelvis, which I was under the impression that was post-mortem artefacts.
MR LAX: Can I just ask something. You have been given what appears to be an original?
MR LAX: Is there a page 69 equivalent amongst that, and does it refer to fractured ribs on both sides?
DR NAIDOO: Actually Mr Chairman, I actually brought this to the attention, I find that the problem is blurring. When I looked at the docket yesterday, I phoned through to Phoenix mortuary to see, because this is really 530, to find out exactly does this belong to another post-mortem examination, and I believe it does, from what was read out to me on the telephone.
DR NAIDOO: What I believe is, in 1987 we didn't have computers at the mortuary any way at that stage, what I believe is that the typist, what they did was, make copies, typed copies in triplicate or duplicate, what was done was a simple page that was thrown off into a discard tray, from another post-mortem was used as the backing sheet on this one, this is a backing sheet.
DR NAIDOO: A carbon copy backing sheet.
MR LAX: Just to save the forest, basically?
MS THABETHE: Do you have any other comment or additional comment on the post-mortem report of Dr Chetty, that you want to bring to the attention of the Committee?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, and that is that to replace that page, paragraphs 10 to 21, it is there. There is the correct page substituting that, nothing is really missing, it simply says from paragraphs 10 to paragraph 21 "decomposed".
CHAIRPERSON: Decomposed and ditto marks right down the page?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. So Dr Chetty's full report is ...
MS THABETHE: To sum up Dr Naidoo, we are trying, we are arguing that the body or the remains that you examined, have features which match those of Ntombi Kubheka, would that be your conclusion as well after examining the body, sending it for facial reconstruction?
DR NAIDOO: Well, that will also be my conclusion in that, to put it, to word it correctly that all the features and all the findings that I found, do match that of the alleged deceased, that there was nothing whatsoever that I found that does not match the alleged deceased, and from my findings, everything corresponding, age, race, sex, race, stature and then ...(indistinct) facial identification. The reconstruction, I will ignore the reconstruction because if I, I don't know if I can comment on it, that part, because it was the result of an investigation returned to me for my final compilation report, that I would ignore the reconstruction as Prof Vanezis did say that that just puts it in the right race group and sex group, but the ...(indistinct) appears to me to my untrained eye, and subject to the experts there, it seems to be a very good match.
That, his finding, does support my findings and adds to the number of corresponding features. I find that there is nothing that would tell me that this is not the person and everything that I found, supports that.
MS THABETHE: That it is the person?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. That is all I can say.
MS THABETHE: Last question. Having said this, Dr Naidoo, what would you respond to an argument that the DNA test was necessary to identify whether this is Ntombi Kubheka or not, what would you say to that comment?
DR NAIDOO: I would have been very pleased professionally, if I did get a result. I am not saying that it would have matched the deceased or not, I would have been pleased that I would have got
a DNA profile, whatever that might be, because it would mean that I had success in extracting DNA out of bone that were at least ten years old.
That is one point. The second thing is, I am not surprised that we had such difficulty, because one of the worst things that can happen to biological matter is that it dries out. A third thing is, had we got DNA, we would have had biological certainty, which we are short of.
MS THABETHE: But does that fail our case, our argument, on the other features that match the body of Ntombi, can we safely rely on those since, at the absence of the DNA test?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, oh yes, well right up to now and until the DNA had been used, in fact DNA is still sometimes contested to the extent that we have to determine when and what quality of work, DNA work will be acceptable in a court.
Up to now, we have done all our ...(indistinct) short of DNA and we have had multiple positives.
MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I see it is just after one o'clock, this would be a convenient stage then to take the lunch
adjournment and if we could take the lunch adjournment now and start, what time, would quarter to two be, or do you need time, or two o'clock?
MR VISSER: Chairperson, yes, we would certainly need a little time to go through this, a lot has been put on the table.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, two o'clock then.
MR VISSER: I must tell you that I am not entirely certain whether we could cross-examine this witness at this time. We can certainly put some questions, that is already an indication that we might have to have his cross-examination stand down until we have spoken to our experts. I would like to discuss this with my Attorney.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. We will now take the lunch adjournment.
SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: (s.u.o.)
CHAIRPERSON: I see most of us are here, but the witness is not here.
MR LAX: I see he didn't go for a pub lunch.
CHAIRPERSON: Also if you see Messrs van der Merwe and Nel, you could inform them.
MR VISSER: ... statements to Dr Naidoo at the present time, without having consulted. We find it a pity, but we didn't have a report beforehand from Dr Naidoo and we didn't know he was going to say exactly what he did.
Chairperson, the same applies as far as the evidence of Dr Vanezis is concerned, particularly to his standard of certainty of high likelihood. It is clearly of some importance and we would have to do that, so it seems Chairperson, that we will not be able to complete the evidence, we will go as far as we can, which will be most of the questions which we have, but we won't be able to complete the cross-examination. We do apologise for the inconvenience to the doctor, but there seems to be nothing we can do about that.
CHAIRPERSON: What do you foresee Mr Visser, with regard to the evidence of Prof Vanezis and Dr Naidoo?
CHAIRPERSON: You will go as far as you can as you have done with Prof Vanezis, and you will go as far as you can now with Dr Naidoo and then what?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, well Chairperson, then we will have to go to Pretoria and we will have to consult with Dr Loth and or others and we will have to come back another day.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. All right, and then, would you know, would you say now that you definitely have to come back another day or you might have to come back on another day, depending on the outcome of your consultations?
MR VISSER: Yes, Chairperson, no, I cannot say that. There are some permutations in the answer to your question. One would be the easy one where we say we are satisfied as matters stand, and we don't wish to call any further evidence; the next permutation would be that we would need to call further evidence, and then you have two possibilities. We would then draw a proper report by the expert and we would let all the interested parties have it, beforehand, to which they may agree. If they agree, then again, we don't have to come back, if they disagree, well, then we have to come back. So it seems to me.
I don't know whether those ...
CHAIRPERSON: Then there is another permutation that you might consult and then feel "well, that is it, we won't call anyone"?
MR VISSER: Yes, well, that was my first permutation, that is the easy one.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, okay, so at this stage we will continue with Dr Naidoo as far as you are able to do so.
MR VISSER: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Are there any other witnesses besides, at this stage, besides Dr Naidoo from anybody?
MS THABETHE: From my side, Mr Chair, this was my last witness.
MR WILLS: Mr Chair, we will probably lead two witnesses, but we would want to do that at the conclusion of the proceedings as I think is the standard procedure for applicants.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but, if the proceedings are going to just be concluded with, maybe with some further technical medical evidence, then I don't think there would be any problem to fit them in before then, would there?
MR WILLS: Mr Chairperson, possibly I can consult on that.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because we would like to use the time that we have, rather than try to arrange a longer session next time, that might be more difficult, and I don't know what the witnesses would say, who you are calling, but if it is not technical medical, then I cannot see any reason why they shouldn't be called, just because there is going to be, there may be some technical medical evidence after them.
MR WILLS: Well, Mr Chairman, if I could consult, there are certain comments that I would like to place on record.
MR WILLS: The family are anxious to finalise these proceedings.
MR WILLS: There is also the issue of the remains of the deceased and the ceremonies and the emotional aspects attached to that, and that whole process has to be finalised. There is also the fact that the report of Dr Vanezis which was provided well in time, before this hearing, I think in November last year, indicated that, what his findings were, that it was highly likely and I am quoting from the report, "that the skull is part of the remains of Ntombi Kubheka", so that couldn't with respect, have taken my learned friend, by surprise.
And also, whilst there are certain aspects of Dr Naidoo's evidence which could be considered novel, in the main his report has been before us since the beginning of these proceedings. Our position on an adjournment, if I could also just consult on that, we don't want to unnecessarily be obstructive in the matter, but we are anxious and my instructions are, we are anxious to finalise these proceedings.
Also bearing in mind the costs involved and the emotional costs, particularly.
CHAIRPERSON: And I can assure you Mr Wills, we are also anxious that it finishes as soon as possible. As you know, we are getting close to the end of our process and deadlines are looming, etc. We would for obvious reasons also like to terminate matters as expeditiously as possible. But let us at this stage continue with the questioning of Dr Naidoo.
MS THABETHE: Mr Chair, sorry there is one aspect of evidence that I overlooked, and I would like to be given an opportunity to cover that before Adv Visser proceeds with his cross-examination. May I do so Mr Chair>
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. From Dr Naidoo?
MS THABETHE: Yes, from Dr Naidoo.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, all right, certainly Ms Thabethe.
FURTHER EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr Chair.
Mr Naidoo, earlier on in your evidence you spoke about the fact that you have been involved in other, in examining other bodies that were exhumed by the TRC, is that correct?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is right.
MS THABETHE: Are there any similarities or, in those cases, was there any similar, were there any similarities with regard to this case?
DR NAIDOO: There was one case, it was one of three that we exhumed, one of several that we exhumed at Pilanskop. The only other female that I recall, was only short and in a similar
fashion in which a bullet had entered the vertex and passed down into the base of the skull.
If I am correct, if I recall correctly, the deceased in that case, may I mention a name? It was Phila Portia Ndwandwe, I think, identical, or almost identical manner of gunshot.
MS THABETHE: Was that the only thing identical, the manner of gunshot?
DR NAIDOO: Well, the other pattern that we did see in all the exhumations that I conducted, and I conducted most of them in the province here, for the Truth Commission, they were all shot in the head, some from the back, these two from the top, and one or two from side to side.
MS THABETHE: And what was the calibre used?
DR NAIDOO: There is only one other case in which we found a bullet if I recall, and that was the same calibre, 7.65 calibre. The other gunshots, the other cases, we didn't find the bullets, so I am unable to state that.
MS THABETHE: Which case are you referring to, the one you found the bullet of the 7.65 calibre, can you remember off hand?
DR NAIDOO: No, I cannot remember off hand.
MS THABETHE: And would you say those types of bullets were used by everybody or they were used by certain types of people?
DR NAIDOO: I am not in a position to comment.
MS THABETHE: You are not in a position, okay. Thank you Mr Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Ms Thabethe. Mr Visser, do you have any questions?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson. Doctor, when you explained your qualifications, I did not hear you stating that you had any qualifications in forensic anthropology, did I hear you correctly?
MR VISSER: Alright, and we heard from Dr Vanezis, that forensic anthropology keeps itself busy with the identification of people from skeletal remains?
MR VISSER: Did you hear, you were present when Dr Vanezis gave his evidence over the video link or the TV link in America, is that correct?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I was present.
MR VISSER: Did you agree with his evidence?
MR VISSER: Alright. I am going to follow as far as I can, the order in which you gave evidence, and attempt to keep it in that order, but at some stage I would deviate.
The first thing that I want to ask you, possibly it was just forgotten to ask you, do you in fact confirm the correctness of your report at Bundle 2, page 24 to 30 and the annexures as far as you have personal knowledge of them?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, as far as I have gone through in preparation for this case, I didn't find anything that I need to correct.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I do confirm it.
MR VISSER: Fine. You say that you received the body and I am going to refer to it as PM1155, as opposed to PM580, being the body on which Dr Chetty did the post-mortem examination?
MR VISSER: You received PM1155 on the 9th of May from Sgt Swart?
MR VISSER: And you added that he identified the body?
MR VISSER: Would you please tell us as what or as who did he identify the body?
DR NAIDOO: Oh, yes. What he does, he identifies it by number, not by name, largely because the deceased is either unknown at the time when he identifies the body to me, or in fact, if the deceased has a name, it is often not the correct name.
He identifies it by number, simply in this fashion, he hands me the docket, the first page, which is the SAP180 that we have heard of earlier, police report accompanying the body, and he says, he hands it to you in the presence of the remains.
What we do is look at the 180 and we confirm and verify that that is in fact the body that relates to that piece of paper. That is the extent of the identification.
MR VISSER: Surely he must identify the body as something?
DR NAIDOO: Well, in this case he identified it as, well, I don't know what he called it at that time, or what they called it on the SAP180, but what he pointed out in a manner of speaking, was the bag with human skeletal remains.
MR VISSER: Yes, all right. Is that as you can remember what the identification by him was about?
MR LAX: Can I just check something Mr Visser? Was the bag marked, did it have a tag on it or a number or a koki pen or a something?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, it is usually either in the form of a plastic band, that usually goes around the hand of the deceased, but in this case, it would be attached to the bag. It would bear the number, the post-mortem number 1155/97, attached to the bag.
In addition to that, I also saw in the bag, another label Groutville post-mortem number 109/97.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry in the bag was a tag?
DR NAIDOO: Which bore the words "Groutville post-mortem number 109/97".
CHAIRPERSON: Groutville post-mortem 109/97?
MR LAX: Was there, sorry, I was just going to say was there a paper trail relating to that number at all?
DR NAIDOO: No, it wasn't identified to me by that number. I took it that this was the number of the mortuary, the intervening mortuary that received the body before they transported it to Durban.
MR VISSER: Now I have forgotten what I had asked you. Oh yes ...
MR LAX: About the pointing out of the body.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the pointing out.
MR VISSER: You see, on Exhibit R1 there is a tag?
MR VISSER: And that tag says PM1155/97?
MR VISSER: Now, is that the tag that you have now just referred to on questions asked by Mr Lax?
DR NAIDOO: This is a tag that I would write, simply for the purpose of photography, I or my technician would write that.
MR VISSER: All right. Were you now referring then to another tag?
DR NAIDOO: I don't think it is actually reflected in the photograph.
MR VISSER: Well, look at figure 2, is it there?
DR NAIDOO: That would be the same one that I would write.
MR VISSER: I am looking for the other tag that you are referring to.
DR NAIDOO: You are referring to Groutville?
MR VISSER: Well, any other tag?
DR NAIDOO: No, that is not reflected in the photograph.
MR VISSER: I thought I just heard you say that in the bag there was another tag?
MR VISSER: Was that the only other tag that you are referring to, the Groutville 109?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is the only other tag.
MR VISSER: Well, let's look at that Dr Naidoo, that is at page 25 of Bundle 2?
MR VISSER: That is the last sentence of the first paragraph? It says
"... the remains Groutville PM109/97."
MR VISSER: What does that mean to you?
DR NAIDOO: It simply means that it has another identification booking in number, and presumably by another mortuary.
MR VISSER: What does PM stand for?
MR VISSER: Yes. Does it seem to suggest that another post-mortem was conducted on this body?
DR NAIDOO: No, not at all. As soon as it gets into a mortuary register, it is given a post-mortem number, also called DR number, death register number.
MR VISSER: Was this body taken to Gale Street?
DR NAIDOO: No. Just to enlighten the Commission, during that period, we had transferred operations from Gale Street to Pinetown. The Gale Street mortuary was in the process of being refurbished, and during that process, we were at the Pinetown mortuary.
This post-mortem was done bearing Durban's post-mortem 1155/97, but done at Pinetown.
MR VISSER: And bearing a Groutville number?
DR NAIDOO: Also bearing a Groutville number.
MR VISSER: Because you see, at page 82(a), I was under the impression that what Dr Aiyer said in his last paragraph before the NB note, was that "the remains were placed in a blue plastic body bag, sealed, assigned, the label unknown from Charlottedale cemetery." Can I just stop there?
Did you find a label from Charlottedale cemetery in the bag?
DR NAIDOO: I cannot recall and neither have I made a note of that.
MR VISSER: Would you have made a note if you had found it?
DR NAIDOO: Not necessarily, I will be looking for a Groutville number.
MR VISSER: Why wouldn't you have made a note of something you found in the bag, doctor? Especially an identification number?
DR NAIDOO: A number? This doesn't have a number.
MR VISSER: I am assuming, you wouldn't put a label without a number?
DR NAIDOO: No, you would, Dr Aiyer at the time, at the exhumation site, he wouldn't have a number.
MR VISSER: Well, it is an assigned label from Charlottedale cemetery, so I am not suggesting he put the number there, I am just reading to you what is here.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, but it doesn't have a number.
MR VISSER: All right. Did you have this exhumation report before you when you did your post-mortem?
MR VISSER: All right. Now let's just continue, he says
"... and he handed it (that is the remains) to Insp Andrew Hadi Moolan from the SAPS Stanger (and now I come to the words) for transportation to the Police mortuary in Stanger."
MR VISSER: Does that make sense to you?
MR VISSER: From Stanger, where does it go?
DR NAIDOO: No, I have no idea.
MR VISSER: Will you assume - neither do we.
CHAIRPERSON: If I could just get a bit of geography, where is Groutville?
DR NAIDOO: It is in the same area, North Coast, I assume that the Groutville area is served by the Stanger mortuary.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you. Sorry.
MR LAX: I was about to say that Groutville is in Stanger, it is part of the Stanger district, it is right next door to Stanger.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I think it is served by the Stanger mortuary. In terms of drainage of bodies.
MR VISSER: Did I hear you correctly to say doctor, that you opened the bag and you found an ID tag, PM1155 from Gale Street, is that what you said?
DR NAIDOO: The outer blue bag would be additionally tagged, with PM1155/97 yes.
MR VISSER: Yes, but from Gale Street?
MR VISSER: What does that signify to you?
DR NAIDOO: It is simply the, how it happens is upon transport from Stanger, Groutville, whatever to Gale Street, it gets into Gale Street's book, so they assigned a second number to it.
MR VISSER: That is exactly what I want to know from you. so there would be a record in Gale Street about this particular body?
MR VISSER: That you did a post-mortem examination on?
MR VISSER: Have you ever seen that entry or that record?
DR NAIDOO: I probably, I cannot recall, it was our practice at one stage to sign the register as soon as we have completed the post-mortem, but that fell away because we left it to the police to do their paper work correctly, and we don't fill in the register any more, I mean at least until I was there. I cannot recall whether I have looked at the particular register on that particular page.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Visser, I just want to clear up something, is there a mortuary in Groutville?
DR NAIDOO: I don't think so, Mr Chairman, I think that that would go to Stanger.
CHAIRPERSON: But then why would somebody put Groutville PM109 if there is not a mortuary in Groutville?
DR NAIDOO: I cannot explain why they would actually write the words Groutville, only what I could assume is that it is an additional entry on that ticket.
Perhaps it is the, this is a pure speculation, perhaps it is a habit of the policemen at Stanger mortuary.
CHAIRPERSON: Strictly speaking it wouldn't be correct?
DR NAIDOO: It wouldn't be correct, or it would not reflect truly.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because there is no mortuary in Groutville, and they don't do post-mortems there?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. But if one may, you just understand sometimes, and this is what we tried to explain to the police, that you put in the name of the mortuary. For example if you go to day to Gale Street mortuary, the bodies are just tagged by a number.
If for some reason or other, the bodies from Stanger and bodies from Durban are being carried in the same van, you might mix them up, so a better practice would be to put the mortuary name down next to the number and call it Durban PM1155 as opposed to Phoenix PM1155.
But with due respect, each mortuary works and continues its work as if it is the only mortuary in the world.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, one would think if I was a police or if somebody was a police attendant at the Stanger mortuary and he has to write a number, he would for two reasons write Stanger PM such and such, rather than Groutville PM such and such, one because Stanger would be correct and two, because it is shorter to write.
MR VISSER: Putting it bluntly, here is a problem with identification, isn't here? You cannot tell us, you are speculating because you don't know?
DR NAIDOO: Identification of the body by means of the tag?
MR VISSER: We have a brand new piece of evidence by you which we heard for the first time today, that there was an identification of a PM1155 from Gale Street?
DR NAIDOO: That would be very simply clarified by asking Insp Andrew Hadi Moolan to actually indicate whether that body did come and originate at his mortuary.
MR VISSER: Yes. Would you imagine that this body PM1155 from wherever was sent to Gale Street for X-rays?
DR NAIDOO: It wasn't sent to Gale Street for an X-ray, it was sent to Gale Street for my attention.
MR VISSER: How do you know that?
DR NAIDOO: It was pre-arranged.
MR VISSER: Is that the only, so you are speaking from recollection?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, before the exhumation actually was carried out, I was asked to do this case. I asked Dr Aiyer to do the exhumation for me and arrange for the transport to Gale Street, via Stanger mortuary.
MR VISSER: All right. Any particular reason why an X-ray wasn't done?
DR NAIDOO: Well, I did an X-ray after I found the bullet.
MR VISSER: I didn't ask you when, I simply asked you did you do an X-ray?
DR NAIDOO: I did an X-ray to show up the density of the bullet.
MR VISSER: Okay, that is not the X-ray I am talking about. What would the normal X-ray be all about that we heard from Mr Ismail about?
DR NAIDOO: That would be X-ray plates.
DR NAIDOO: Prominent plates. Those were not done.
MR VISSER: Was that done in this case?
MR VISSER: You say that you cannot remember whether the bag was sealed, which bag are you referring to?
DR NAIDOO: The bag, the blue body bag in which I had received this entire compliment of material.
MR VISSER: Yes. All right. Would I be correct in assuming that if the body bag in which the remains were found in the grave, had been carefully lifted and placed in this blue plastic bag that you refer to, that none of the contents would have gone lost, either there or in transportation, because it would have been inside this blue plastic?
DR NAIDOO: Well, one thing I can say that I cannot really comment, I wasn't there at the exhumation, that is one thing, so I wouldn't be able to say. The other thing I can say is that I can vouch for the quality of the exhumation done by somebody like Dr Aiyer. That is the reason I asked him to do it. He is particularly meticulous in his work, and if I were to suggest, I would think that he would have removed the complete remains from the coffin or the ...(indistinct) that it was in.
MR VISSER: That is what you would have expected, yes?
MR VISSER: Okay. When you opened whatever bag, you saw first of all what we see on figure 1 of Exhibit R, the photograph?
MR VISSER: Predominantly a maroonish fabric laying on top, if I may put it that way?
MR VISSER: And as I understand your evidence, when you investigated further, you found what inside, all the bones, all the remains?
DR NAIDOO: Well, as I gave evidence ...
DR NAIDOO: I found most of the bones.
DR NAIDOO: Bones. Not the soft tissue.
MR VISSER: Yes. So that would be, if one assumed that that is what Dr Aiyer found, that would be an additional reason to believe that all the bones of this skeleton would have been present when you opened the bag?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, allowing for fragile disintegration into dust, because to be correct, that is exactly how the bones were, so fragile.
DR NAIDOO: Apart from the remains of dust, they were largely complete.
DR NAIDOO: If I may just add there, if bones were missing, it was probably because of inadequate recovery at the very original examination, before the very original examination, more than ten years earlier.
MR VISSER: If bones were missing?
DR NAIDOO: If any bones were missing yes, such as the small bones of the feet and hand.
MR VISSER: But doctor, I thought that you found no anti-mortem fractures of bones?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Well, apart from the gunshot wound, no injury to the bones that I could reliably state, were definitely ...(indistinct)
MR VISSER: Yes, so I don't understand your answer that they could have been lost in 1987?
DR NAIDOO: Well, I am commenting on those bones that we had, which were largely a complete set.
MR VISSER: But please explain this to me, because I understood you to say that you found no anti-mortem fractures, now you are assuming that there would have been because you say in 1987, no bones would have gone lost. How would they have gone lost, if there weren't fractures at that stage?
DR NAIDOO: All right. Let me just clarify that. Of the bones I examined, I found, which were largely a complete set, save for some small bones of the feet and hand, those bones, apart from the gunshot wound in the skull, showed injuries predominantly to the right forearm, ribs and the pelvis which I determined to be more than likely post-mortem.
MR VISSER: We will come to that.
DR NAIDOO: And I didn't think that any of them were anti-mortem fractures.
MR VISSER: Yes. We will come to that issue. I was just trying to understand why you suspected that there might be a possibility that some bones might have been lost in 1987, but let's leave that at that.
MR LAX: Sorry, shouldn't you clarify this matter, rather than leaving it hanging in the air. I certainly want to know why you say it is possible that bones might have got lost in 1987.
DR NAIDOO: Well, a largely complete set, that means for example three ...(indistinct) vertebrae means that I found just three.
DR NAIDOO: Instead of seven. One ...(indistinct) - I am reading on page 25, page 2 of my report, cervical vertebrae, nine ...(indistinct) vertebrae, that is nine out of twelve. I am reading on the third paragraph. Four lumber vertebrae, that is four out of five. And then I read one phalanx of the big toe, right at the bottom. One ...(indistinct) and one phalanx, that is the ...
CHAIRPERSON: (Microphone not on)
DR NAIDOO: One phalanx out of fourteen.
CHAIRPERSON: (Microphone not on)
DR NAIDOO: ...(indistinct), there is one ...(indistinct) on either side.
CHAIRPERSON: (Microphone not on) Those bones that were missing, that four cervical vertebrae, the pharisaic vertebrae, the lumber vertebrae and the phalanx, what is your opinion relating to those missing bones?
DR NAIDOO: Well, they could either have not been fully recovered at the original discovery, that is one, the other possibility is that they have crumbled into dust. There was a last amount of debris, sandy debris in the remains.
MR VISSER: Yes, there is a third possibility, the one that we are investigating now, and that is that they were lost originally in 1987?
DR NAIDOO: During what process?
MS THABETHE: That is what he said, in the first discovery.
CHAIRPERSON: He said the first one is that they might have been lost at the place of discovery, the 1987 discovery.
CHAIRPERSON: And secondly they might have crumbled to dust.
MR VISSER: I thought you were referring to the exhumation. All right.
MR LAX: Just one last thing, how might they have been lost at that stage?
DR NAIDOO: Many possibilities. We, in fact it is very rare to recover an entire skeleton especially on the surface of the ground. At about two to three weeks after the successive wave of insect activity that ...(indistinct) the soft tissue of the corps, it leaves individual bones amenable to predation by carnivores and predators and rodents, so the usual picture is that you have to scour the entire veld for about a radius of a kilometre and you might in fact pick up the bones taken away by predators.
DR NAIDOO: Dogs are predators.
CHAIRPERSON: And small bones might just get washed away in the rain even?
CHAIRPERSON: When I say washed away, away from the main skeleton?
DR NAIDOO: That is correct. Mr Commissioner, the recovery process, unless you have a doctor, in fact, a doctor whose got insight or an anthropologist you may loose ...
CHAIRPERSON: Go through the area with a fine tooth comb?
MR VISSER: Yes. That is assuming a skeleton was found in 1987?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, and I was told it was found in a state of complete decomposition.
MR VISSER: You see Dr Naidoo, I am very interested to hear your evidence about the so-called difference between a completely decomposed body and a skeleton which I must tell you, I agree with your answer, I have never seen a difference between the two, maybe a question of degree.
MR VISSER: When you talk about a completely decomposed body, then you are talking about a skeleton, not so?
MR VISSER: Yes, but I frankly agree with you. But it seems to me that we are the only two in the hall, we are the only two in this hall.
CHAIRPERSON: I take it you've got no further questions, Mr Visser?
MR VISSER: No, I do Mr Chairman. Coming to the question of the stature doctor. You clearly, page 28 of Volume 2, you clearly refer to the living tallness of the person?
MR VISSER: Can I ask you, when you speak about a 95% confidence ...(indistinct), is that what you said, or did I hear you incorrectly?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I am assuming that the standard deviation that Lundi gives us, like with any similarly expressed figure, is with a 95% confidence ...(indistinct)
DR NAIDOO: I am assuming that.
MR VISSER: Which, to put it conversely, you have a 5% error factor?
MR VISSER: Do I understand it correctly?
MR VISSER: And when you say between 1.35 and 1.42 metre, are those the limits, the outer limits?
MR VISSER: And what your finding would then suggest is that the person was somewhere in between?
MR VISSER: Now, you say that in, in your further evidence that you don't believe that the 1.6 metre that was found by Dr Chetty is of any real value?
MR VISSER: And you have said that the reason for that, and in fact you said we can discard it or disregard it, because it was probably an estimate?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, not only that, even if Dr Chetty had to conscientiously and painstakingly put the skeleton in line in anatomical continuity, it still does not give you a correct height.
MR VISSER: Of the body which you ...
DR NAIDOO: That is it. Well, with any case. If you take a skeleton, and you talk about a case of total, complete decomposition, we agreed that it is a skeleton, if you put the bones in line, the vertebrae next to each other and all the bones in the sockets, from head to toe, you won't get the correct height. That is an anatomical method that we don't use. We just use that illustration, that picture to say to people you cannot use that to measure height, it is quite incorrect.
DR NAIDOO: Because of a various number of factors, and for example, the thickness of the intervertebral discs that is spacing between the bones of the spine, you don't account for that.
So what I am saying is, I would rather go on the mathematical calculation on a formula used and proven to reflect living height.
MR VISSER: All right. That assumes a number of things. It assumes that the body which Dr Chetty had in front of him, was indeed loose skeletal remains? If it were a body that was still fairly intact, although decomposed, what would the position then be?
DR NAIDOO: Well, allow me to just say this, because you know, I am sure you probably don't know what a arm that is completely decomposed, you call it a completely decomposed body, it is rarely, it has no soft tissue, apart from a little attaching, little ligaments together, it is quite disarticulated, the bones are out of joint, they are out of position, they are not in a straight line of a person laying flat out.
MR VISSER: That is your interpretation on what you told us, but I am asking you it assumes that the body was not intact any longer, in the sense of it still being there with some tissue joining the skeleton together, it must assume that, surely?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, but unless encased in a slab of mud, like you would find in a buried bone, buried remains when you do an exhumation, I have never seen completely decomposed remains in a state of anatomical continuity.
MR VISSER: Yes. And when you, I want to put to you a further assumption for you to make, to say that Dr Chetty probably made an estimate and he is wrong, is of course that you must assume that he did an autopsy on the same skeletal remains as you did?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is the assumption.
MR VISSER: Yes. Coming to the question of fractures, etc, and I am returning to page 25, I want to ask you if you look at the photograph of the skeleton, that is Exhibit R8, do you have that in front of you?
MR VISSER: Would you look at, first of all, would you look at the left radius ...(indistinct), that is the forearms?
MR VISSER: Did you find any hand bones that could match up with the missing hand?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, if you look at 7 at the preceding page, you will find at the foot of the table, a clump of short long bones, and round bones.
DR NAIDOO: Those would be a clump of unassembled long small bones of the feet and hand.
MR VISSER: Yes, and would those belong to the feet and the hands that you spoke about?
DR NAIDOO: Well, I don't have the detailed anthropological knowledge to be able to put, no, I could, I could do it if I had the time, to piece out individual bone and find out where it came from, but it was in that case, I think irrelevant at that stage.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Visser, these missing bones, the cervical vertebrae, pharisaic vertebrae, lumber vertebrae and phalanx, are they big or small bones?
DR NAIDOO: They are small bones.
MR LAX: Are vertebrae small bones?
DR NAIDOO: Well, if I may say the biggest vertebrae would just fit in the palm of my hand, I considered this small as opposed to the long bone of the thigh.
ADV BOSMAN: In relation to a hand bone, doctor, it would be a fairly large bone?
DR NAIDOO: It would be a large bone, yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, so this clump at the bottom of figure 7 probably does not include vertebrae?
DR NAIDOO: No, but if one looks at the figure 8, I have put the vertebrae in between the legs.
CHAIRPERSON: Okay, I see that.
MR VISSER: Yes, but you have accounted for them in your report?
MR VISSER: And you say there are some missing?
MR VISSER: What the Chairman is asking you is, would those missing ones be included in the bones in figure 7 at the foot of the table?
MR VISSER: Yes, thank you. And would any other long bones be included, from the arms or the legs for example in that clump of bones at the foot of the table, on figure 7?
DR NAIDOO: No, long bones will be easily identifiable, I would put them into the right positions, so those between the legs and at the foot of the table, will be vertebrae and those of the feet and hand mainly.
MR VISSER: All right, small bones?
MR VISSER: All right. Can we return to figure 8 of Exhibit R, look at the right arm?
MR VISSER: What do you see there?
DR NAIDOO: It is deficient from the level of mid-shaft, so at the radius ...(indistinct)
MR VISSER: The arm is broken, both bones?
MR VISSER: And you say that you thought that was a post-mortem fracture?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, they had, if you looked in the whole set of bones, and looked at the nature of the preservation, they were extremely porous, extremely porous and fragile. I simply am saying that they do not suggest anti-mortem trauma. If you look at the pelvic bones, that is fairly tough bones, and even that was eroded away and they crumbled, so I was of the opinion that this is likely post-mortem trauma although one could never say categorically.
MR VISSER: Yes, well, let's investigate that. Did you find any of the matching bones from this broken arm?
MR VISSER: I wonder whether you could possibly look at Exhibits 1 and 2 of the clothing, if you don't mind, I want to please show you something. Exhibits 1 and 2.
MR LAX: The dress and the jersey?
MR VISSER: The dress and the jersey, the polo-neck jersey.
You don't have to get up, I think that the panel would also like to have a look at what I am trying to show you. The photographs, the equivalent photographs of the exhibits are at Exhibit R5 and R6 Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the witness is being shown Exhibit 1, the dress, the burgundy dress or maroon dress.
MR VISSER: Yes, would you please look at the right hand sleeve?
MR VISSER: That seems to be tarnished?
MR VISSER: Tattered? Yes. If you could possibly now look at Exhibit 2, the polo-neck jersey? Ms Thabethe, I would appreciate it if you could hold the jersey so that the left and the right are properly placed when you show it to ...
CHAIRPERSON: I think that is right, because it would seem that the back of the neck has what would appear to be a place where there might have been, I might be mistaken, is it, a cutting, yes it has been cut.
MR VISSER: Mr Chairperson, we submit that on inspection it would appear that it is the right hand sleeve that is tattered.
CHAIRPERSON: Can you determine what is the front and what is the back of that?
MS THABETHE: (Microphone not on)
MR LAX: Is there a seam? The seam is usually at the back?
MR VISSER: The seam is right at the top normally. All right, we, I will put my questions to you on the supposition and we can establish that later.
DR NAIDOO: I just wanted to make an entry that I made a note that ...
MS THABETHE: This is the back.
MR VISSER: That is right, that is how we've got it. The way Ms Thabethe is holding it up now, with the portion that is pointing in your direction, we regard that as the front after we looked at this jersey, so it is the right hand sleeve that appears to be tattered Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Can you hold it up please Ms Thabethe. Yes, she holds it up and ...
MS THABETHE: Judge, I am confused ...
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well, as it is being held up now, it would appear that the right hand sleeve is tattered.
CHAIRPERSON: Whether that is the right hand sleeve or the left hand sleeve, I don't know. As it is being held up now, the left hand sleeve is tattered. One sleeve is a lot more tattered than the other sleeve.
MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson. Dr Naidoo, what I want to ask you - I am sorry, do you want to add something?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I just want to say that I made a note in my report that the left arm of the jersey and the right sleeve was tattered. I don't know why I made that finding. I am assuming perhaps there was a label at that time, but I don't know how we can conclude that that is front and that is back.
MR VISSER: Let's just leave that for a legal argument. I am putting to you my questions on an assumption.
MS THABETHE: ...(indistinct) that there was a label in?
CHAIRPERSON: I just want to ask one question, were any cuttings taken from any of the clothing, doctor?
MR VISSER: The Chairperson is asking you ...
CHAIRPERSON: Were any cuttings taken from the clothing at all, any samples cut out from any of the clothing?
DR NAIDOO: Not by myself, Mr Chairperson.
MR VISSER: Have you now established that it is the right hand sleeve?
MR VISSER: Are you satisfied with that?
MR VISSER: I didn't ask you specifically but while we are busy with the clothing, you mentioned that there might have been a small amount of blood from the gunshot wound. Did you look at the clothing at all to try and find blood stains on the clothing?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Yes, I did and I made a note that blood stains not ascertainable, not that it wasn't present, but not ascertainable due to discoloration and staining by post-mortem fluids.
MR VISSER: Yes. Now coming back to the right sleeves of both Exhibit 1 and 2, I want to ask you does this not reasonably suggest to you some anti-mortem trauma?
MR VISSER: No, no, I am not asking about necessarily, just reasonably?
MR VISSER: If I put it to you as a possibility?
DR NAIDOO: Well, it is always a possibility.
MS THABETHE: The witness was trying to answer the question, and he was cut, I think he needs some protection. If he can answer the question, if he can be allowed to answer the question.
DR NAIDOO: The, well, let me answer this way, you cannot discount the possibility at all, but you used the word reasonably. I think it doesn't reasonably assume anti-mortem trauma?
DR NAIDOO: Simply because the nature of the deficit or the destruction of the right sleeve of both the polo-neck and the dress, suggests an irregularity that is not usually compatible with that of a transection wound of the arm by a knife or a bush knife, etc. It actually suggests to me as I mentioned earlier, post-mortem predation of an arm that is fully sleeved.
If you look at, if you have ever seen a national geographic picture of how predators go for a limbs, they grab onto it, and shake it to get it loose, they grab and shake. So, it suggests to me predation by dogs perhaps, or whatever.
MR VISSER: I see. Do you rule out as a reasonable possibility the fact that this lady's arm was broken before she died?
DR NAIDOO: No, you cannot rule it out completely, but ...
MR VISSER: Well, in fact not broken, cut off? Broken in the sense of, I just want to make myself quite clear, the bones being fractured, not the arm itself being cut off, but the bones being cut by fracture?
MR VISSER: Severed, severed is a better word, thank you.
DR NAIDOO: Well, you simply, it is unreasonable to rule it out, but its absence from the remains is also something that suggests predation and removal of that limb, of that severed limb.
I am simply saying that to me it suggests more likely post-mortem predation.
MR VISSER: Yes. I heard that evidence. You see, I just want to take it one step further, doesn't the fact that you found no corresponding parts of that arm in what you examined from the bag, doesn't that suggest that the arm was in fact severed?
If one assumes for a moment this happened ...
DR NAIDOO: Yes. It was severed.
DR NAIDOO: But what I am suggesting is that it was probably, more likely done post-mortem.
MR VISSER: Yes. No, I understand that, thank you. You thought that the dental abnormalities, if I may call it that, which you found, may be a specific identifying aspect. Are you in agreement that this could never be followed up, because there were no dental records available?
CHAIRPERSON: Were those abnormalities the sort that would require a dentist to determine or could somebody see that from just knowing the person?
DR NAIDOO: You could. I believe, I believe that someone with intimate knowledge of the deceased, of this body, this person here that we examined, could probably suggest that the lower teeth in the front, had malpositioning to some degree.
MR VISSER: And that malposition in your opinion, would that have been an identifying feature that would set this particular person apart from any other person in the world?
DR NAIDOO: I don't think I am qualified to say that.
MR VISSER: I am happy with the answer. Then you refer to the dental identification by Dr Spears in regard to the age of this person?
MR VISSER: And you stated he came to the conclusion, or his report says 35 years, with a nine year deviation?
DR NAIDOO: Simply because the test he uses, or the procedure he uses, may not be very sensitive.
MR VISSER: Yes. Yes, fair enough. There are far more accurate procedures, rib end for example?
DR NAIDOO: Well, not really. ...(indistinct) method was about the only method in adults ...
MR VISSER: Are you saying in 1987 or up to now, today.
CHAIRPERSON: 1997 it was done, wasn't it?
DR NAIDOO: Up to 1997. As far as I know, I could be corrected on this, but recently there was another publication, I think this year, just an improvement called the Limendin technique which gives you a closer range, a little more precision.
MR VISSER: Four and a half years, I think it is?
MR VISSER: All right. We know that Ms Kubheka was 41 years old?
MR VISSER: Your conviction was that it was a young person, of less than 40 years?
MR VISSER: Are you giving yourself also room for deviation?
DR NAIDOO: Well, it all depends what we consider young, it depends on what your age, the observer, is.
I felt that this was still a youngish person. I would certainly put her into early middle-age, at about 40. I wouldn't call her old, so I called her young, but under 40 years.
MR VISSER: What I want to ask you is, were there indications that led you to this conclusion, rather than concluding that she was around, just simply around 40 years? In other words, giving you the scope of saying "well, she might have been older than 40 years"?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. What I would say is that my osteological observation that led me to that conclusion, is independent of the dental report and then the other thing is, I would rely more upon the dental age because that is a calculated age, rather than a general opinion.
My observation of under 40 years, is a very general opinion, it is subject to a broad range.
MR VISSER: Yes. But influenced also as you have just said, by Spears' finding that it was 35 years?
DR NAIDOO: Well, it doesn't deviate very much, it is still compatible.
MR VISSER: Were you influenced by his finding?
DR NAIDOO: Oh no, his report was made subsequent to my examination.
MR VISSER: Yes. Did you know Dr Chetty personally?
DR NAIDOO: No. I had met him just before he passed away, because he lived in the same area that I lived.
MR VISSER: How long, do you know how long he practised?
DR NAIDOO: Not at all, except that he was quite old, probably about 69, 70 when he died.
CHAIRPERSON: When was that Dr Naidoo, that he passed away?
DR NAIDOO: I may be incorrect, but maybe seven or eight years ago.
MR VISSER: Do you know anything about the quality of Dr Chetty as a doctor?
MR VISSER: I am going to tell you why I am asking this question, because I find it rather surprising how glibly some of the witnesses have assumed that Dr Chetty didn't do his work properly. I want to include you.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I am simply, I will simply comment on this post-mortem report. That was inadequate to a degree, a great degree. I am not reflecting upon his capacity as a physician, he may well have been a very good family physician.
MR VISSER: Yes. All right. Doctor, Prof Vanezis said that he sent the skull and some photographs back to you, would that be correct?
DR NAIDOO: He sent me the skull and some photographs, yes.
MR VISSER: The skull in the position in which he sent it back to you, was that in the reconstructed condition?
DR NAIDOO: No. Remember this is computerised reconstruction. The reconstruction only is done on a computer programme.
MR VISSER: Yes, so there was no physical reconstruction done, because he explained to us that would have taken a long time, and it would need special skills, etc, etc?
MR VISSER: So you got the skull back?
DR NAIDOO: I got the same skull back.
MR VISSER: How many photographs?
MR VISSER: How many photographs?
DR NAIDOO: I am not too sure, I sent him four and I assume, because I didn't make a note that something was missing, that all four came back.
MR VISSER: Right. Who provided these photographs to you?
DR NAIDOO: Let me, I haven't made a note of exactly who.
MR VISSER: Well, would they have come from a family member?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. It came from the family, but it might have come through Ms Miller.
MR VISSER: Yes. Doctor, in your experience, when you did a post-mortem and you thought that the person had died of unnatural causes, would there be a special procedure which you would have to follow, or that you followed in that event?
DR NAIDOO: Well, once it is unnatural causes, you record it as such.
DR NAIDOO: And you must submit a report, because it should naturally follow towards an inquest.
MR VISSER: That is right. There was no inquest held as far as you can tell, on PM1155?
MR VISSER: Nor does it appear that there was one held on PM580?
MR VISSER: Yes. Chairperson, if you are interested, it is the inquest at 58/59 and it is Section 2, "duty to report deaths", which speak of unnatural causes.
Do you have any personal knowledge of the burial of corpses in paupers' graves, or does that not fall within your knowledge?
DR NAIDOO: No, it doesn't fall really within my understanding or ambit, yes.
MR VISSER: All right. Have you ever heard it being said that more than one corps is buried in paupers' graves?
DR NAIDOO: Well, I haven't heard of a particular instance in which it happened.
MR VISSER: Would you be surprised if somebody said so?
DR NAIDOO: Not completely, it would be surprising, because I think there is an Ordinance, Burials and Cremations Ordinance that probably provides for, it is a Municipal Ordinance that a single body has to be in a grave. It will be surprising, but you know, today, what is surprising?
MR VISSER: You say there is a Municipal Ordinance? We will check on that.
DR NAIDOO: I think it is a Municipal Ordinance.
MR VISSER: What would the normal depth of a normal grave be, do you know?
DR NAIDOO: No, idea. All I know is the proverbial six feet.
MR VISSER: You wouldn't expect to find a body buried at 1 metre for example?
DR NAIDOO: In the few exhumations I have done in proper cemeteries, they usually were at a good enough depth.
MR VISSER: Yes. Because I should have said I am talking about a proper cemetery where there are people in the employ of the municipality or the burrow or the State or whoever.
MR VISSER: And they work, presumably, according to the regulations and the guidelines, whatever, they are told what to do. They are told what to do, how deep to go and so on. That is the situation I am talking about.
MR VISSER: Thank you. Have you heard of Dr Susan Loth?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I have heard of her.
MR VISSER: Have you read any of her papers?
DR NAIDOO: Not a paper, but I came across her name associated with Jassar ...(indistinct), they worked together or he was her mentor and she was his student. I think she is well qualified now.
MR VISSER: If Prof Vanezis considers her as an expert in the field of forensic anthropology, would you agree with him?
DR NAIDOO: Oh, I wouldn't disagree.
MR VISSER: Have you heard of a Prof Maryna Steyn?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I last knew her as doctor, she has been promoted, that is very nice, yes.
DR NAIDOO: I heard of her from the University of Pretoria.
MR VISSER: Yes. And would you regard her as an expert?
DR NAIDOO: I don't know her very well, she is well thought of I would think.
CHAIRPERSON: What is her expertise, Mr Visser?
MR VISSER: As far as we know Chairperson, Forensic Anthropology.
DR NAIDOO: I think she is an Anatomist.
DR NAIDOO: With an interest in forensic anthropology.
MR VISSER: I may stand corrected in that regard. I am not going to refer you to any of her views, I am going to confine myself to Dr Susan Loth and where necessary, then to Mr Iskan as well, Prof Iskan as well. I am sure you have heard of him too as well, I think you have already said so.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I use his work, I have a book of his as well.
MR VISSER: Dr Naidoo, I want to ask you, are you saying that on what you observed, you can positively identify the skeletal remains PM1155 as belonging to Ntombi Kubheka?
DR NAIDOO: No, I cannot say so positively. What I can say or - would you like me to continue?
DR NAIDOO: What I can say is that given the characteristics of the unknown person and given the findings that I made myself, plus with the added cranial facial investigations, that the two areas match in very many respects.
In fact, to say that there are no points of non-matching.
MR VISSER: Well, we will talk about that a little later on.
MR VISSER: All right. Can we just go through these identification issues? The first thing is you would have heard me asking Prof Vanezis whether he agreed that as far as identification is concerned, there are basically four categories. The one is not really a category, the one is a rule out, but if you want to, you can call that a category, but the other two are indeterminate, possible and positive.
Do you agree in general, with that?
DR NAIDOO: I would accept that, yes.
MR VISSER: And what Prof Vanezis said and I am quite aware that you are basing your opinions on other things that he didn't have in front of him, but leaving that aside for the moment, but what Prof Vanezis told us is that on what he was busy with, he cannot make a positive identification of the skull which he examined, with Ms Kubheka.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, and the same goes for myself.
MR VISSER: And the same goes for yourself? Now he said that there is a strong likelihood or something like that, highly likely, highly likely that it was, but he added that that doesn't place it in the category of positive. Are you also in agreement with that?
MR VISSER: Your evidence here today doesn't take that issue further, the question of the likelihood or does it?
DR NAIDOO: No, it doesn't push it into a further category. Any other further category, yes.
MR VISSER: Thank you. You see, let's immediately say to each other that we are not concerned about race or sex, particularly in this case, because it must be accepted that the person that you had on the table before you, must have been a Negroid female person, so leaving that aside, coming to age and you have spoken about Dr Spears and I am not going to spend too much time. The only thing is I wish to differentiate as far as age is concerned, the age of the person to whom the skeleton, 1155, belonged at the time of death, as opposed to the time of the skeleton since death. Now, what has happened in your case is that an attempt was made at establishing age by both yourself and Dr Spears and you made it clear, of the living person, in other words at the time of death, that would be correct?
MR VISSER: Was any attempt made at establishing the age of the skeleton since death that you know?
DR NAIDOO: No. What you must understand is that any age determination that we do on skeletal remains, refers to an age at the time of death.
DR NAIDOO: The age determination that we make, doesn't refer to post-mortem ...(indistinct), that is a separate aspect.
DR NAIDOO: So, and another thing is the bony ...(indistinct) or the dental ...(indistinct) that have occurred, that was present at the time of death, will persist because biological processes have ceased. So even if you are examining this remains ten years later, and you are doing it twice, doing it at the time of death and doing it ten years later, the dental, the tooth will still show the same age.
I have clarified, that is living age.
DR NAIDOO: The other thing we talked about is post-mortem interval, that is how long has the bones been laying there.
MR VISSER: Yes. I have just noticed here, yes, I don't believe too much turns on that, I am going to step off that for the moment.
Sorry, are you busy reading something?
DR NAIDOO: Sorry, I just want to refer to page 27.
DR NAIDOO: On the file, and that is period of interment, it is actually intermen, not interment. "Soft tissue in absence ...(indistinct) suggest a passage of several years." That is the other age I am talking about.
MR VISSER: Yes. Obviously that is more difficult to establish with accuracy than the age at death?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, very much more, yes.
MR VISSER: Because in cases such as this, if there was a foolproof method of establishing age since death, it could have been conclusive one way or the other, not so?
DR NAIDOO: Well, that is assuming that there were no other bodies that were found at the same time.
MR VISSER: Well, you only have to assume that this body is five years old and it could never have been Kubheka, because we know she died ten years ago.
DR NAIDOO: On, you mean in that conclusion?
MR VISSER: Yes, in that sense?
MR VISSER: Chairperson, I am just going through my notes and it seems that I have covered almost most of them. Now, coming to the question of stature again, if you assume that the body of PM580 in the form of its skeletal remains, in fact belonged to a person that was 1.6 metre tall.
DR NAIDOO: Sorry, can you repeat that question?
MR VISSER: If one assumes that it is a fact that the body to which the skeleton remains in PM580, Chetty's body, was in fact 1.6 metre tall, and we know what you found, wouldn't that be a rule out factor, that the two bodies are the same?
DR NAIDOO: Not really. Well, shall we say this is the reason why I say I won't rule it out completely, simply because I believe that the measurement that he had taken, for several reasons that I mentioned earlier, I believe that is incorrect.
MR VISSER: All right, let me put it to you this way, forget about Dr Chetty, if there is evidence say of the family, that Ms Kubheka was in fact 1.6 metre tall in her life, are you still saying that ...
DR NAIDOO: Oh, in that case, then I would say that the variation, the difference between my calculated age and the set age would be quite significant.
DR NAIDOO: Then it will introduce a measure of doubt.
MR VISSER: Yes, wouldn't it just be too great?
CHAIRPERSON: Just one thing Mr Visser. For me to ask you a question, you talked about those four categories, rule out, indeterminable, possible and positive. Those are academic categories, is that so?
CHAIRPERSON: Okay, so they are not just words that you have made up?
CHAIRPERSON: No, why I am asking is, possible would then include as us lawyers, we distinguish between possible and probable, so possible would include probable?
CHAIRPERSON: This is why I am asking, if there are four categories, then surely there should be five if it doesn't include probable?
MR VISSER: Yes. Chairperson, yes ...
CHAIRPERSON: I am just worried about the use of the word possible and ...
MR VISSER: I may respond as far as I thought that we established with Dr Vanezis that probable is in the category of positive, not possible.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that is what I understood.
MR VISSER: Probable is in positive, not ...
CHAIRPERSON: No, no, my understanding was highly likely.
MR VISSER: That is how I understand ...
CHAIRPERSON: My understanding was highly likely was possible.
CHAIRPERSON: And highly likely is probable?
CHAIRPERSON: Or is an excellent match, highly likely?
MR VISSER: Yes. Chairperson, you will recall ...
CHAIRPERSON: But there isn't a probable category, that is what I am asking?
CHAIRPERSON: This is just an academic categorisation done by forensic anthropologists and we as lawyers must possible to include anything up to and including probable?
MR VISSER: Yes, yes, and when they come to court Chairperson, then of course, when they are confronted with the legal terms, then they've got to explain that.
But you will recall that it was made quite clear by Prof Vanezis that his highly likely did not include probable.
MR LAX: It didn't include positive, not probable.
CHAIRPERSON: Positive. We didn't use the word probable.
MR VISSER: It was in fact, but we can look at the record.
MR LAX: While we've got Dr Naidoo, I wanted to ask this question earlier, but I thought I was interfering too much in your cross-examination, but we are here now. What does positive mean, does it mean 100%?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. It means conclusively, 100% certainty.
MR LAX: And so that anything short of positive is then probable or possible or any, in that whole spectrum of possibility and probability?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is right. Yes.
MR LAX: That is what I understood by positive.
MR LAX: So that probable and positive are not compatible with each other, because if it is positive, then it is not a question of probability?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, it is 100%, yes.
MR LAX: It is certain? That was my understanding of the term, and that is why I disagreed with Mr Visser now.
MR VISSER: All right. I don't know whether I should go through this evidence again, but according to, perhaps I am putting it incorrectly to you, but I thought that the evidence of Dr Vanezis was that even if there is a strong probability, it does not make it possible and in medical terms I thought what he was saying is he would then not be able to say, I am sorry, did I say possible again, I mean positive, I mean positive, so he as an expert in that field, would not say "this belongs to that person" in that sense, that is how I understood it? Not so?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. Well, I am going to answer by rephrasing what you say. Even if Prof Vanezis say it was very highly likely or using another word, very probable, it doesn't equate to a positive.
MR VISSER: I accept that, but now working from the other side in order to attempt to answer Mr Lax's question, working from the issue of positive, from a medical point of view, forget about lawyers, even if it is very highly probable, when you say it is not positive, what you are saying is "I don't, I think it is very highly likely or very highly probable even, but I cannot say that that body relates to that person"?
DR NAIDOO: That is correct, simply because we don't have the last diagnostic or ultimate test.
MR VISSER: Yes, I am sorry if I phrased it incorrectly, but that is the context in which I ...
The question of the stature, have you heard of the Trotter formula?
DR NAIDOO: Trotter formula? I think I have, but I am not too sure.
MR VISSER: It is very much the same as the other formula which you spoke about.
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I am not sure exactly what it would be, I can...
MR VISSER: But just to ask the last question on this issue, when you describe a person as a considerably short person, we now know it would fall within the ambit of 1.35 to 1.42, do you confine it to that kind of length?
DR NAIDOO: No, I just, I was inferring that it was shorter than average.
MR VISSER: What would you regard as average?
DR NAIDOO: As a male I would think I am average height.
MR VISSER: I think you are tall.
DR NAIDOO: Maybe slightly, slightly higher than average. I am 1.78, so I would think maybe 1.75 would be right average.
MR VISSER: Average. And a female?
DR NAIDOO: From a female, I am just speculating, but maybe between 1.68 and 1.70.
DR NAIDOO: Maybe a bit shorter. It depends upon the race group we are talking about, because some peoples are much taller.
That is basically all I was saying.
MR VISSER: Yes. Well, let me ask you the question straight out. Would you say that a Negroid female person of 1.6 metre would be described by you as a considerably short person?
DR NAIDOO: No, at 1.6 I wouldn't say considerably short, no.
MR VISSER: All right. Just to give the figures perhaps to save anybody else who is interested in having to work it out, but on the ...(indistinct) scale the difference between PM580 and PM1155 and I am going through the same exercise as you explained in your evidence-in-chief, if one subtract it from the 1.6 metre, the difference, you will find that on Mr Chetty on the 35 mm ...
MR LAX: Sorry, how on earth are you doing the calculation without the femur measurement?
MR VISSER: Well, I am taking what we have as a fact from Dr Naidoo, and I am taking 1.6 metre, because that is the evidence before you.
CHAIRPERSON: What are you trying to get?
MR VISSER: Well Chairperson, I am just trying to indicate the difference in height, but perhaps I am wasting time, perhaps because Dr Naidoo has already conceded that that is considerable. So perhaps I should just leave that.
If necessary, I will give that to you later, Chairperson.
MR LAX: Can we just come back to, while we are still on height, I had one other question that was worrying me.
Your height is worked on averages?
MR LAX: And do those averages take account of someone being shorter than usual for example?
DR NAIDOO: I am assuming, these figures give me the 95% confidence interval, so I am assuming that there is a 5% of people that would fall slightly outside that average, but here again, not way out, because in the ...(indistinct) shape distribution of biological values, you should fall in that range.
MR LAX: Yes. But if you came from a family that was dramatically shorter than average for example, the 5% is not the 5% variation in height, it is the 5% in terms of the distribution of population?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is right.
MR LAX: In other words it is a statistical 5% per however many of the population, not a variation in height that the 5% relates to?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is right.
MR LAX: And so, if you came from a family that was, whose mean height was much shorter than usual, you would need to add another factor into this to take account of that, for example?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I see what you mean. Although, I think, maybe we are going very technical, although the measurement of the femur is calculated to be itself scientific.
MR LAX: Yes. I mean just to show you, some people have short upper bodies, but long legs, for example?
MR LAX: Or long upper bodies, and short legs?
MR LAX: And what I am asking is does the 5% take account of all of that or are those the people who fit into the 5% for which the formula is not as accurate as it would otherwise be?
DR NAIDOO: No. No, you are quite right. Well, shall we say the 5% doesn't consider individual or familial or genetic variation, but purely to the public population.
CHAIRPERSON: But do you know how Dr Lundi arrived at his formula?
CHAIRPERSON: You don't know what he has built into that formula?
DR NAIDOO: I cannot recall the exact technique, but what I do know is that there were known living heights of deceased. All the deceased that he had examined, had known accurate living heights and upon their deaths, having those bodies being donated for research, he then measured the femur, so what he's got is an accurate measurement, right, and he's got correct living heights.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. I have had a request for a short adjournment, we will take a break.
MR VISSER: Yes. I am almost through with what I can do in any event, Chairperson, but I have no objection to an adjournment.
CHAIRPERSON: I would like to finish with Dr Naidoo, subject to what you have to say, because then also I have been requested by Mr Wills that we adjourn by four o'clock, he has an important engagement shortly after that.
If we just have a very short adjournment now, so that we can be sure to finish.
SEGARAN RAMALU NAIDOO: (s.u.o.)
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: (Cont) Thank you Chairperson. I don't propose to be much longer.
I want to put it to you, doctor, that on what we have on paper in front of us, it does appear that between PM580 and PM1155, there are three factors which have to be taken into account when coming to a conclusion on whether it was the same skeleton.
The one is the height. You said we must disregard Dr Chetty's specification of height. I understand what you are saying. That is a factor and that is your answer to it. The next is there was a broken arm on yours, you said it is probably post-mortem, I understand that to be your answer, that is a fact.
MR VISSER: Excuse me, you must forgive me, it is going to happen to you too, just give it time. I forget things, I am sorry.
MR WILLS: Can I help you Mr Visser, it is probably the PM number.
MR VISSER: No, no. I am embarrassed Chairperson, one moment ago, I remembered the three of them.
CHAIRPERSON: Maybe you forgot that it was two, not three.
MR VISSER: It is the length, it is the arm ...
MR VISSER: And - it will come to me some time, but it is obviously going to be too late for today, Chairperson. Chairperson, at this stage I cannot take the matter any further with Dr Naidoo.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER: CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, and if you remember the third, you can just tell us.
ADV BOSMAN: Wasn't it the age, Mr Visser? Wasn't it the age? No?
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Hugo, do you have any questions that you would like to ask Dr Naidoo?
MR HUGO: No thank you Mr Chairman.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR HUGO
MR NEL: No thank you Mr Chairman.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR NEL
CHAIRPERSON: Mr van der Merwe?
MR VAN DER MERWE: No, I don't want to consult, thank you.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VAN DER MERWE
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Wills?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Dr Naidoo, just concerning your report on page 25, page 2 of your report, and I am referring to the Groutville PM number 109/97. Is it my understanding that, I mean your assumption as regards this, was that the body was taken from the exhumation to Stanger?
MR WILLS: And that that PM number 109/97 will be reflected in the Stanger register as 109/97?
MR WILLS: And that the reason Groutville is written there, is because the body was exhumed in the Groutville area?
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, just one point Mr Wills, while you are talking about it. Was there any particular reason for the remains to be taken to Stanger, why I ask is, you had asked Dr Aiyer to go and attend the exhumation and it was to everybody's mind and intent, that the body would go to Pinetown for examination?
CHAIRPERSON: Why then to Stanger first?
DR NAIDOO: Unfortunately the doctors, medical people, don't have the logistic ability to transport corpses, we had to rely upon the police, and since this is the Stanger area, Stanger mortuary area, it is the Stanger mortuary, police, that would do the transportation.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Wills?
MR WILLS: Yes, and I just want you to refer to the exhumation report, that is 82 of Bundle 2.
MR WILLS: Page 82(a), Mr Chairman, and in fact from page 82 and in fact, I will start from 82(a) where it is clear that Charlottedale cemetery is in Groutville, and I am referring to the site?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, that is correct.
MR WILLS: And also if Ms Miller's memo is correct in the fourth paragraph, she refers in I think the fourth sentence
"... the deceased was buried at Charlotte cemetery in Groutville."
So that would support your contention that Groutville reflected the geographic area from which the body was exhumed?
MR WILLS: Yes. Now, just also, I refer again back to your report, where you again on page 25, you refer when you describe the dress, you refer to it as being a nylon dress, in the first line of the second paragraph.
MR WILLS: Was that an assumption or are you pretty certain that it was nylon?
DR NAIDOO: No, it is an assumption. It was nylon like, you know, not being a fabric expert, but it is an assumption.
MR WILLS: Yes, and obviously that assumption would also be based on the fact of your knowledge that a natural fabric being subject to the elements for a long periods of time, would disintegrate more quickly than a synthetic fabric?
MR WILLS: Looking at the injuries, you indicate that you are of the view that the only injury, well, you say that you cannot be sure that the injuries that you noted to the skeletal remains weren't anti-mortem, but you thought that in the circumstances, they were post-mortem injuries?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. There is very little, one cannot really confidently make a finding there.
DR NAIDOO: It is an impression one gets and, by looking at these remains, and using the experience that you have to make the finding, that these are likely post-mortem. I don't want to get too technical about why I thought so, because it might just confuse the matter.
MR WILLS: Yes. But as I understood your evidence, I am not wanting you necessarily to get technical, but as I understood your evidence, and I think you said so in as many words, that you couldn't definitely, positively, exclude the fact that some of those injuries might have occurred anti-mortem?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, no you cannot exclude that.
MR WILLS: So if we have a situation here where I think it is common cause that the woman was assaulted with a sjambok and it is possibly not common cause, the intensity of that assault, you cannot definitely exclude the fact that some of those injuries arose from that assault?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. One cannot make an exclusion, except that it would be a little unusual to find an injury to the pelvis like that, in a common assault. The ribs and the forearms, the rib fractures that Dr Aiyer commented on and I found, could be due to assault, but the forearm could also be, it is not an exclusion, but because of the defects on the arm, on the sleeve, I thought it was likely to be predation.
MR WILLS: Yes. But just, for argument sake, if someone's arms were not bound and as seems to be one version of this assault, somebody was putting up her arms to ward off blows by people who were whipping her with an object which has been described as a sjambok, you cannot exclude that that right arm might have been injured in that way?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, except that a sjambok would not, probably not produce the kind of defects in the clothing, but I hear what you say. You cannot exclude the injuries, you cannot in fact exclude fractures of the bones, forearms, for example in warding off the blunt blow. But the defects in the clothing would, and as was ably demonstrated, all on the right side, we all accepted that, portrays that pictures of predation.
But here again, I cannot exclude it. There is one other possibility though, that if the right arm had wounds on it, and they were bleeding, the attract predation. They attract predators to it. Blood is an attractant, so that may also be a possibility.
MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Wills. Mr Samuel, do you have any questions?
MR SAMUEL: No questions, thank you Mr Chairman.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR SAMUEL
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Thabethe, do you have any re-examination?
MS THABETHE: No re-examination Mr Chair.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax, any questions?
MR LAX: Thank you Chair, just one. In instances of predation, one sometimes find marks compatible with that on the bones?
MR LAX: Did you see anything like that?
DR NAIDOO: No. Nothing at all. Nothing that I could clearly say were predation.
MR LAX: Thank you Chair, I have no further questions.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Adv Bosman?
ADV BOSMAN: I have no questions, thank you Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Was Dr Aiyer present at all during your examination of the bones?
DR NAIDOO: Not that I can recall, independently recall, or recorded, but it is common practice that we all work together in one establishment. Our work is done together, in fact, I may well have called the others to come and have a look at this case.
There must have been four or five doctors working at one time in the mortuary.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. And that body bag, the blue one, the one that was used after the exhumation, is that still extant, does it still exist?
DR NAIDOO: I don't, no, I don't think so. I think that would be destroyed.
MR LAX: Just one last question Chair. The plastic, what has been referred to as "the other bag", inside the blue bag, that the remains were in, Dr Aiyer suggested that that might be the lining of a coffin rather than a body bag?
MR LAX: He said that, he said that, his recollection was that it wasn't a body bag per se, but it was just what the remains were in?
CHAIRPERSON: Because he did say when he was at the exhumation, he, when the grave was dug, there appeared to be the remnants of a disintegrated coffin, chips and wood and stuff and he thought that that bag was actually the lining of a coffin, rather than a body bag as such?
DR NAIDOO: That may well be. I am inclined to agree with him. Let me just look at my report, I just called it a discoloured plastic, I am afraid I cannot say more into that, but I am inclined to agree with him.
MR LAX: If it was a body bag, you would have named it as such probably, or would you not have?
DR NAIDOO: If it was a body bag that required an opening for example, it had the pocket like we have on the edge, the slide in body bag, or the one that zips around the side and flops open to form a sheet, that I would in all likelihood have made a note of.
MR LAX: Yes. And what kind of body bags, if you can remember, were you using in 1987?
DR NAIDOO: I don't think they were varied, I think they were simply the zip up ones, you get both types, and I think both were in use. You get the one that is tubular and open at one end and you slide the body in, or the one that zips up from the side, at three sides, to open to form a sheet.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, were they black in colour or colourless, transparent?
DR NAIDOO: It was usually white.
MR LAX: This wasn't one of those then?
DR NAIDOO: I don't think so. I am just, I cannot independently recall, but I believe that had I seen an independent body bag, I would have made a note of that.
CHAIRPERSON: Dr Naidoo, you said that you sent Dr Aiyer to exhume the, to attend the exhumation because you weren't available, otherwise you would have gone yourself, so you sent him there in your place?
That was done and then when after that, can you recall, would you have received that bag?
DR NAIDOO: Only in the morning that I did the post-mortem examination for the first time.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but when was that in relation to the exhumation?
DR NAIDOO: Oh, I did the examination the 9th of May and Dr Aiyer did his exhumation on the 5th of May, so there are four days.
CHAIRPERSON: Now, were you satisfied that that body that came, was the same one that was exhumed, did you have any doubts or difficulties in that regard?
DR NAIDOO: No reason to doubt that Mr Commissioner. No particular reason to doubt it at all.
CHAIRPERSON: If another body, or set of remains had been brought, would they have been brought with an explanation, or would it just have been handed over to you by a policeman?
DR NAIDOO: It would be just handed over.
DR NAIDOO: There have been instances of mixed identity, but we are particularly careful to make sure that we screen the cases, and ensure that this is accept to be the one that they say it is.
CHAIRPERSON: And you did, did you do that?
CHAIRPERSON: You were satisfied?
DR NAIDOO: I would go through that procedure, ask the person "is this the one that was exhumed at this cemetery" and receive that affirmation.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you. Are there any questions arising out of questions that have been put by members of the panel?
FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Chairperson, no, except that I remembered what I wanted to put.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the third point?
MR VISSER: In fact there are four points, Chairperson. May I just repeat them?
CHAIRPERSON: You have said height and you have said the broken right arm as factors?
MR VISSER: As factors and pointing to a mismatch. And then of course the bullet hole which Chetty didn't find?
MR VISSER: Yes. And then also as we have learnt from Dr Aiyer's report and from what I asked you here today, the pelvis, the broken pelvis.
MR VISSER: Perhaps not a great point, but that was also not noted by, because he obviously noted nothing?
MR VISSER: So that is also perhaps a difference, would you agree?
DR NAIDOO: Yes. You were pointing out four differences?
DR NAIDOO: I am accepting that what you say, are differences in the report, in two reports?
MR VISSER: Yes, and on the evidence Dr Naidoo?
DR NAIDOO: Yes, I don't know how to answer this, except that I should say that I am suggesting an explanation for each one of those.
MR VISSER: Yes, no, I in fact conceded that you had an explanation for each of them.
MR VISSER: Yes, thank you Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER
CHAIRPERSON: Any questions arising out of questions put by the panel?
MR LAX: Just one thing Chair, just for my own benefit, Dr Naidoo, maybe I am just being a bit obtuse here, but are you saying that these four factors that Mr Visser has just put to you, you don't regard them as significant?
DR NAIDOO: I don't, for reasons which I have already given.
MR LAX: For the reasons you had already given?
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Dr Naidoo, we are not sure exactly what the position is relating to whether or not you have completed your testimony.
Mr Visser has indicated that he will probably consult with certain expert witnesses, there may be a requirement for a further attendance.
CHAIRPERSON: But I would like to thank you for attending today and for testifying and it may in fact be the last time that you testify in this matter. Until otherwise advised, that is the end of your testimony. Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON: I think we can adjourn now. Mr Wills, as indicated earlier, we would prefer it as a panel if we could finish the evidence this session, despite the uncertainty about the recall of Dr Naidoo because we had rather have the possibility of finishing the evidence, then a definite part-heard, because to get us all together again, is always difficult, not only the panel, but all the legal representatives.
MR WILLS: Yes, I appreciate that Mr Chairperson. I would suggest that we reconvene tomorrow and we finish the evidence.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Would half past nine be convenient tomorrow morning?
MS THABETHE: Sorry Mr Chair, before we adjourn, should we prepare argument, should we assume that ...
CHAIRPERSON: Well, I asked Mr Wills, Mr Wills came to see us about adjourning at four o'clock, because he informed us that he had another matter at half past four, and I asked him if he would speak to the legal representatives on this question of argument. I know Mr Visser has indicated that they would like to prepare written heads of argument, Mr Wills I think also indicated that. I think if we can finalise that tomorrow, but I would prefer it if the legal representatives spoke to each other, and arrived at some arrangement amongst themselves in that regard.
MR VISSER: Chairperson, if you will allow me, if the matter is going to postpone, and if we might go on later, there is no point in arguing now.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Yes, it might be premature if there is further evidence.
At this stage we will work on the basis that there will be written Heads, but we will get to the details of that later.
Thank you, so we will adjourn now to the same venue tomorrow, half past nine. Thank you.