Shepherds and Butchers

by Chris Marnewick

  The plan was simple. Modise was to be called over and would then be killed. Mpipi would grab him by the neck and Wesie was to hold his legs. Mpipi called Modise over. He had chosen the spot very carefully: that small area against the door where they would be out of the sight of the warders on the catwalk. He asked Modise to sit down and as he did so Mpipi and Wesie grabbed him as planned. Mohapi, Dube and Koopa then trampled Modise until he no longer moved. Then Mpipi and Wesie also trampled him. Mpipi then called another inmate to come over and told him to make a bed for Modise. Mpipi and Mohapi laid Modise’s lifeless body on it.

  When the bell rang at seven o’clock, signalling bedtime, Mpipi heard some noises from the deceased’s bed and went over and lifted the blanket, exposing Modise’s upper body. Mpipi called Wesie over and said, ‘The dog is still alive.’ A death rattle escaped Modise’s throat. Mpipi ordered Wesie to stomp on Modise’s neck, which he did. Mpipi then ordered Wesie back to his bed and Wesie complied.

  A while later Modise’s death rattle started again. This time Mohapi came over to Mpipi, who took a belt from another inmate and said to Dube that they were going to strangle Modise with it. Dube said, ‘No, don’t do it,’ but Mpipi paid him no heed and Mohapi and he went on to strangle Modise with the belt. Mohapi then lay down next to the body and slept.

  The killing had taken almost an hour. The next morning Mohapi took the bloodstained belt from Modise’s neck and handed it to Koopa. They flushed it down the toilet after Koopa had cut it up with a razor blade. When the cell was unlocked for breakfast, Warrant Officer Mkatshwa immediately asked why the deceased was not up. Mpipi said that Modise had sworn at him. Mkatshwa asked if that was reason enough to kill a man. There was no reply. He then asked the prisoners in the cell who had taken part in the killing to step aside and to hand over their prison tickets. Each prisoner had a ticket with his name, prison number and date of release. In prison this served as an identity document. The five accused stepped aside and handed over their tickets. In the culture of the prison, this was as unequivocal an admission of guilt as the circumstances allowed.

  They were later formally arrested and taken to court for a first appearance.

  The post-mortem examination on Modise’s body revealed an inordinately large number of injuries. He had not died easily or quickly. He had suffered multiple injuries, spread across the face and head, his neck and his upper torso. Internal injuries corresponded with the external signs of trauma. There were eleven separate injuries to the face and head alone, to the left and right cheekbones, above the left eye, both eye sockets and both sides of the face, to the left ear, lower jaw, both sides of the neck, and to the throat extending into the chest area below the neck. Internally there were large amounts of blood in the muscles of the chest and all the strap muscles on the right side. There was severe internal bruising of the muscles of the neck and of the back. There was a swelling of the brain. The lungs were filled with blood and the muscles of the heart were bruised. The liver was congested with blood and the left kidney showed some bruising.

  The trial was a farce, a condition into which many trials involving prison gangs and cell murders degenerate. Wesie raised the defence of coercion. He pleaded that he had been forced to participate in the attack on the deceased. The test for this defence to succeed was whether the evil threatened to the person who claimed coercion as an excuse for killing weighed up equally to the evil done. There was good legal precedent for this principle.

  The Court found Wesie’s evidence to be true in substance and found him not guilty on the basis that he had acted under coercion. The other four accused were convicted, Mpipi and Mohapi of murder and Dube and Koopa of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

  Each of the men had a long list of prior convictions. Each of them had previously been convicted of offences involving serious violence. Mpipi, Mohapi and Dube had killed before. Mohapi had been previously sentenced for trampling a fellow prisoner to death, and was serving that very sentence when he participated in Modise’s murder. Mpipi had previously kicked a man to death in the cells. Dube had twice been convicted of murder; the second had been a cell murder.

  The Judge sentenced Mpipi and Mohapi to death as there were no extenuating circumstances. Dube and Koopa received two years imprisonment each for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

  On 27 November 1987 Mpipi and Mohapi were informed by the Sheriff that they were to be hanged on 3 December 1987.

  They had been in the death cells for a year and four months. Mpipi was forty-eight years old and Mohapi forty-nine.

  There was still some time left before we had to be back in court. I asked Wierda, ‘Do the judges in this division regard being sworn at as sufficient provocation to constitute an extenuating circumstance?’ I was grasping at straws. In my division it would count for nothing.

  ‘Why are you so concerned about these people?’ he asked with a sweep of his arm. ‘There is nothing you can do except getting rid of them for good.’

  I was staring in the distance and did not concentrate on Wierda’s words.

  ‘They kill even in prison,’ Wierda continued, speaking more to Roshnee than to me, as we were making our way back to court. ‘You can see that prison is no deterrent to them and no safeguard for us.’

  I did not know what to say and Roshnee had given up arguing with Wierda. We crossed the street in silence, but the case had planted a seed of hope in my mind. The decision on the absence of extenuating circumstances in the prison murder case had been a majority decision, which meant that either the Judge or one of the Assessors had felt that the conditions in the prison were so degrading and inhuman that the actions of the killers were, from a moral point of view, less blameworthy. I immediately decided to concentrate our efforts even more on the special circumstances prevailing in Maximum, but I was not sure how Judge J P van Zyl would react to that.

  According to his record of previous convictions Koopa had stood trial in C Court at the Palace of Justice in 1981. I remembered graffiti with his name on the wall in Cell 6 but I would have had to revisit the cell to recall its detail:

  DANIEL KOOPA WAS HERE

  DANIEL KOOPA

  3/9/81 = 19 YEARS

  6-10-81 = 29 YEARS

  TOTAL = 48 YEARS

  When we were seated at the defence table waiting for the Judge and his Assessors to make their entrance I asked Wierda to remind me to concentrate more on the Assessors. Anonymous though they were – I had forgotten their names as soon as we had left the Judge’s chambers after the introductions of the first day – they could swing a decision in our favour, or against us should we have persuaded the Judge but not them. Their votes carried exactly the same weight as that of the Judge on questions of fact. Winning 2–1 would be good enough for us, and it did not matter how the majority was made up.

  Palace of Justice

  22

  ‘Tell us in your own words what happened the second day after your arrival at Maximum Security Prison, Mr Labuschagne. Start from the time you went on duty.’

  Labuschagne squared up.

  ‘I was there just before six. The Warrant Officer inspected us in the passage. He put me fourth in the line. He told us to follow him. He went into A1 Section. He unlocked the cells one by one. Each of us stood at the door of our prisoner’s cell. The Warrant Officer came and stood next to me. He told my prisoner to dress in his day clothes but without shoes or underpants. When the prisoners were dressed they came out and we lined up behind the Warrant Officer. He told me to take my prisoner by the arm and to follow. We came to the table in the passage.’

  So far he was following Wierda’s instructions, but I still expected him to let us down.

  We were into the second day of the defence case and I would have expected James Murray and Sanet Niemand to have prepared overnight to counter what we had produced and to prepare themes for their cross-examination. They were both working with their heads down, scribbling furiously as the evidence was given. Apart fr
om saying good morning we had not exchanged any words.

  There was a man sitting in the row behind the prosecutors whom I had not previously seen. He looked like a policeman, tough and hard, with his jaw set square and with strong, thick-fingered hands. He had not taken an overt part in the proceedings, although Murray and Niemand spoke to him from time to time. I thought that he might be a prosecution expert, someone who would be called to rebut the evidence of the defence experts. I decided to keep an eye on him.

  ‘What happened there outside the office?’ I asked Labuschagne.

  ‘The prisoners were fingerprinted. They also checked their photographs.’

  ‘Could you look at the register and give us the v-numbers of the prisoners? Don’t mention their names,’ I cautioned.

  ‘Yes.’ Labuschagne read the numbers quickly.

  I looked up at the bench. ‘M’Lord, we have prepared an extract from the different pages of Exhibit G. I ask leave to hand up a copy.’

  Judge van Zyl merely nodded and I handed copies of the list to the usher. He went round to the prosecutors and the registrar and handed them out.

  EXTRACT FROM EXHIBIT G

  SERIAL NO NAME V-NO PLACE SENTENCED DATE JUDGE OUTCOME DATE

  4299 Willem Scheepers V3430 Grahamstown 29.10.85 Cloete Executed 24.6.86

  4300 Matthews Maluleka V3431 Johannesburg 31.10.85 Heyns Executed 24.6.86

  4316 Zathini Mduduzi Shange V3447 Durban 29.11.85 Shearer Executed 24.6.86

  4317 Aaron Mzamo Mhlungu V3448 Durban 29.11.85 Shearer Executed 24.6.86

  4319 Lawrence Tuntubela V3450 Cape Town 29.11.85 Van den Heever Executed 24.6.86

  4320 Hendrik Fielies V3451 Cape Town 29.11.85 Van den Heever Executed 24.6.86

  4333 Anthony Fredericks V3464 Cape Town 18.10.85 Lategan Executed 24.6.86

  I waited while Judge van Zyl and his Assessors read the extract. When the Judge looked up from the page and nodded, I turned my attention back to the witness box.

  ‘Mr Labuschagne, could we return to the events in the passage outside the office? What did you do after the fingerprinting had been completed?’

  ‘We took them to the chapel and they had a church service. After the service we lined them up and handcuffed their hands behind their backs. I just did what the others did. The Warrant Officer walked with us and checked everything and gave orders. The Sheriff came up too. We went up the stairs to the first room before the gallows. I just followed the others. The prisoners were difficult and we had to push and drag some of them to get them to the top floor. At the top we put them in a line against the wall. The Warrant Officer told them to turn and face him and he checked their photographs again. The Sheriff asked them if they had last statements or requests and he made notes. Then we took them through to the gallows room.’

  It was necessary to make some of the main points of the defence case in a more dramatic fashion and I broke the chronology of events to achieve that.

  ‘Had you been up to the gallows room previously?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had you received any training for what you were about to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had you been screened or assessed in any way to ensure that you were suitable for the job you were about to do?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Were you given any choice with regard to the question of whether you were willing to do this work or not?’

  Labuschagne looked puzzled. ‘No,’ he said finally.

  ‘How many days had you worked there when you were called upon to help hang these men?’

  ‘One.’ His voice was tight.

  I kept up the pressure. ‘Please describe your reaction, your feelings, how you felt when you entered the gallows room.’

  Labuschagne looked up at the crest above the canopy over the bench. All eyes were on him. The Judge had put his pen down and the two Assessors were watching Labuschagne in identical poses, their heads inclined slightly backwards. Judge van Zyl was leaning into his chair.

  Labuschagne’s sigh could be heard in the public gallery. His knuckles were white on the front of the witness box. He spoke softly.

  ‘The ropes were right there at about eye level. That’s what I saw first as we walked in. When I looked down I saw the little feet painted on the trapdoors. Then I tried to look away but the ropes were right next to my face. I felt my prisoner shiver in my hand. He walked slower. They all slowed down. I felt dizzy. Then the man behind me bumped into me and I had to keep walking forward. I walked my prisoner further onto the trapdoors. Then we stopped again.’

  He stopped speaking and I decided to help him a little.

  ‘Take your time,’ I suggested. ‘Speak when you feel ready.’

  He stood completely still. I thought of the demons that had to be raging inside him. I found that I had synchronised my breathing with his, taking deep breaths and exhaling slowly. We stood like that for a minute or more. When he spoke again his voice had dropped to hardly more than a whisper but the Judge did not have to ask him to speak up. The courtroom was absolutely silent.

  ‘I was right next to one of the ropes. I could smell it. It was like a wet doormat. It was frayed. I tried not to look but it was there, right in my face. I couldn’t hear anything except a rushing noise in my ears. Everything was hazy. I felt the whole of my left arm shaking. I don’t know if it was the prisoner shaking like that or whether it was me.’

  Labuschagne demonstrated with his arm, as if holding onto his imaginary prisoner.

  ‘A man came moving up the line from the back, on the left side. I was afraid. When the man stood next to my prisoner he put the rope around the prisoner’s neck and pulled the white hood down over his face. Then he went to the ones in front. It felt as if my prisoner was falling and I held him tighter.’

  We waited for him to continue. I wanted him to tell as much of his story in his own words and at his own pace as he could.

  ‘Suddenly there was a loud noise and he just disappeared. The one moment I was holding onto him and the next he was gone. I felt as if I was falling too. I fell against the rail and held on.’

  I intervened. ‘How did you experience the execution from that moment on?’

  Labuschagne spoke fast. ‘I saw his head just below my feet, with all the others. They were hanging there and turning. I looked up and saw everyone looking at me. The other warders and the Warrant Officer were looking at me and they were smiling. I looked down again but there were the prisoners, turning on the ropes and with the white hoods over their heads. Their heads were pointing to the side, the right side, at an angle. I couldn’t look any more. The Warrant Officer came up to me. You’ll be okay, he said. Don’t look down. Just breathe deeply and relax for a moment. I tried but I was wheezing. The air was trapped in me. Then the Warrant Officer said, Don’t hold on so tight the next time or he’ll pull you down with him. And then you’ll look stupid and he won’t be dead. The others were looking at me. They were laughing.’

  Labuschagne had paled visibly during this account. He stood with his head bowed low, heaving deeply. ‘It was hard,’ he added, shaking his head. ‘It was hard.’

  I did not give him a breather. ‘Did anyone speak to you after that, to offer you advice or counselling or anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No one at all?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sir, no one.’

  ‘What about the Warrant Officer, or the Major?’ I ventured.

  He thought about it. He exchanged glances with the man sitting behind the prosecutors. ‘No one said anything, sir.’

  ‘What else did the Warrant Officer have to say to you at that time?’

  Labuschagne turned slightly away towards the Assessor nearest to him and looked him in the eye as he spoke. ‘He told me that I would be doing that job two or three times every two weeks, and that he had other jobs for me. He again said that I should not hold onto the prisoner so tightly as I might be pulled down with him. He also said that if I were
to take some of the prisoner’s weight the drop calculations would be nullified.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you might have misunderstood my question. I want to know whether anyone said anything about how the execution might have affected you and whether you needed any help or counselling.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Wierda passed me a note: He is not ready to deal with what happened in the pit room.

  Wierda sat with his pencil between his teeth.

  I turned my attention back to the witness box. Labuschagne was as pale as a sheet. I gave him time to recover, to take a sip of water, but then I couldn’t wait longer and asked, ‘Did you eventually find out what other jobs the Warrant Officer had for you?’

  ‘He told me to service and check the gallows equipment and later taught me how to do the drop calculations for him.’

  ‘We can deal with that later,’ I suggested. ‘I would like you to tell the Court how you coped in the beginning with the new job and your new duties.’

  ‘Do you mean the hangings?’ Labuschagne asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, I got used to the work after a while, a month or so, the hangings, the cleaning up and the burials. But some hangings were worse than others.’

  ‘Can you give examples? I mean of hangings that were worse than others.’

  ‘Yes. The first one was when we had to hang a father and son together, in October. I heard that they had killed the old man’s father. They were in C Section. And on the same day we hanged two brothers, also from C Section.’

  Wierda gave me the places in the register:

  v3367 John Steytler

  v3368 William Steytler

  v3320 Johannes Nel

  v3321 Willem Nel