‘The worst was in that last week. We had called them out the week before and put them in the Pot. The mistake we made was to think they had been broken completely so that there would be no resistance. But when we put them into the Pot they suddenly became difficult.’
‘Be more specific please. What happened?’
‘In the Pot they could talk at any time and to anyone. They must have planned everything then, because they had a plan. I thought we were going to get rid of them quickly, but they had a plan.’
Labuschagne took a sip of water from the glass on the witness box. He was about to put it down again when he changed his mind and put it back to his lips. The usher stepped over and refilled the glass. Labuschagne kept glancing in the direction of the Warrant Officer. The Judge was sitting back. He was not taking notes any longer, either because he had decided to obtain a printed transcript of the evidence or because he was not taking any real interest in this evidence. The third possibility, that he was so absorbed in the evidence that he did not need to take notes, escaped me at the time.
I let Labuschagne tell the story without interruptions or prompts; that way his evidence would probably sound more genuine. He took a deep breath before he started.
‘We lined up as usual and the Warrant Officer made his allocations. We waited for the bell. We went in. The prisoners immediately started shouting and screaming abuse at us. The Warrant Officer unlocked their cells and we took up our usual positions, one escort in front of each cell door. We went in and told them to dress and to come out, but they refused. The Warrant Officer ordered us to drag them out. We tried, but it is almost impossible to drag someone out of a two-by-three-metre cell. The door got in the way. They held on to the fittings in the cell, the bunks, the tables, even the toilet bowls. We just could not get a decent hold of them and we were not getting anywhere.
‘The Warrant Officer ordered us to withdraw and we regrouped at the end of the corridor, but we were now locked in with the prisoners in A1 Section, and these seven were out of their cells. The Warrant Officer called for gas masks and reinforcements. The seven prisoners stood at their cell doors in their pyjamas. All the other doors were still locked, and the bathroom, the office and the chapel too. The backup arrived with gas masks and riot gear. We put the riot gear and the masks on. Then we drove all of the prisoners back into their cells with our batons and gassed them until they were down and unable to resist.’
I held my hand up to indicate that I intended to interrupt the narrative. Though there could hardly be a South African who did not know how teargas is used to quell riots or to break up demonstrations, the record of the evidence had to be maintained for any possible appeal. ‘Could you explain what you mean when you say you gassed them?’
‘Just a moment,’ said Judge van Zyl. He had his left hand up in Labuschagne’s direction and was busy writing a note. We waited for him and when he had finished, he addressed the prosecutors.
‘Mr Murray, if the purpose of this evidence is to show that the execution process was traumatic for the defendant, I am sure the State will be prepared to admit that. Would you be prepared to admit that, Mr Murray?’ he asked.
‘We are prepared to admit that,’ Murray said quickly.
‘Is there any need for this detail then?’ Judge van Zyl was looking at me.
Wierda’s pencil went tap tap tap between his teeth. ‘They are doing damage control,’ he whispered. He was right.
Murray was trying to do to our case what we had done to theirs. By admitting the salient facts of the prosecution case, we had denied the prosecutors the opportunity to parade their case through the evidence of a line of emotional witnesses who would have laid the emphasis on the consequences of Labuschagne’s actions. We had admitted that Labuschagne’s hand had held the gun that had fired the fatal shots. We admitted that the killings had been unlawful. We admitted the identification evidence so that the deceased’s relatives did not have to be called as witnesses. We admitted police plans, photographs of the scene and the deceased on the mortuary table, and the post-mortem reports, and by doing that we had robbed their contents of their emotional and persuasive impact.
But we did not want that for the defence case. We wanted everyone to feel the emotion and the pain experienced by Labuschagne in the line of his work, so that they would empathise with him and believe him. We had to make it possible for the Judge and Assessors to believe him. Without that, we were doomed.
I took a deep breath before I made my point. We needed to be gracious and tactful, and I started with an expression of gratitude. ‘We are grateful for the concession by the State, but there are two reasons why we are going to have to lead the evidence, unpleasant as it may be.’
Labuschagne watched as I spoke. He appeared as disappointed as the Judge at my persistence, but my job was to make him tell it all. The Judge made his own displeasure known by sitting back and folding his arms across his chest, the classic sign of disengagement.
I had to press on. ‘The first reason is that what we, M’Lord and the Learned Assessors and our Learned Friends may imagine, and what the State has conceded was a traumatic experience, does not come anywhere near the true horror of that particular day, and with it, the true effect on someone like the defendant. I can assure the Court that all of us in the defence team are conscious of our duty not to waste time and not to lead unnecessary evidence, but we are equally conscious of our duty to present the defence case fully, so that this essential part of the defence evidence is heard from the mouth of the defendant, speaking his own words, giving the Court an insight into the effect of the events he will describe and giving the Court an opportunity to gauge his credibility.’
I could see that Judge van Zyl had been persuaded, but he still asked, ‘What is the second reason?’
Now I had to be even more tactful. It was a question I could not answer in Labuschagne’s presence. I chose my words carefully. ‘I am afraid I am not able to disclose that to the Court at this time; I can only do so through one of the expert witnesses we intend to call.’
The Judge pondered the issue for a while and then made his decision known with an abrupt ‘Carry on.’
I reminded Labuschagne of the question. Murray and Niemand went into a little huddle, their heads close together. ‘The question was, could you explain what you mean when you say you gassed them. Please tell the Court.’
Labuschagne had been watching the exchanges and responded immediately.
‘We used teargas.’
‘How did you remove the seven you were due to hang that morning?’
‘We tackled them one by one and trussed them up in straitjackets over their pyjamas.’
Every now and then he slipped into the prison jargon.
I had to keep the record accurate. ‘Describe the straitjackets you used, please.’
‘The straitjackets are sort of canvass tubes with leather straps. They fit like a jacket that you put on back to front and you fasten the straps at the back. The prisoner’s arms are caught against his body so he can still walk, but he can’t do anything with his arms or hands. We cuffed their hands in front, under the straitjackets, and we put them in leg irons as well.’
Labuschagne was almost breathless. I noticed that he was sweating, almost as if he was engaged in heavy physical activity again. ‘What did you do after removing them from their cells?’ I asked.
‘Well, we still had to get their fingerprints. We dragged them over to the table at the entrance and put them face down on the floor. The policeman brought his fingerprint pad over and we rolled each prisoner over and lifted his hands up to put the right and left thumb impressions on the form. If anyone wouldn’t open his hand we just stomped on his fingers until he opened it and then took the fingerprints. They were kicking and screaming and cursing all the time. They resisted. They fought and tried to bite us; they did everything they could. But we were too many for them and we simply put a boot on their necks while they were on the floor. We still had the gas mas
ks on because the gas was still floating around. We were fighting for breath ourselves.’
‘And after you had finished the fingerprinting process, what did you do then?’ I asked, standing with folded arms.
‘We dragged them up and hanged them.’
‘You mentioned earlier a last church service in the chapel before prisoners are taken up to the gallows. Did you have a church service for them?’
‘No, sir. The Warrant Officer told us to take them up straightaway. So we dragged them up the stairs and onto the gallows. We threw our gas masks down at the top of the stairs. We didn’t stop for last requests or the hoods; we just lined them up in the right order and went straight in. We put them on the trapdoors. There were two of us for each of them, one on each side. Then the Hangman came and put the ropes on. We held them fast. Then the Warrant Officer shouted to let go and they went down.’
‘How did that execution end?’
‘One of the prisoners did not die immediately, but we were too tired to pull him up again and the Warrant Officer said to leave him. It took about fifteen minutes before he was dead. Then we were told to report to the Medical Officer after we had taken the bodies down and we were given the rest of the day off.’
‘How did this incident affect you?’ I had to ask.
Labuschagne closed his eyes and pulled his head back until he looked almost straight up at the ceiling. He exhaled noisily through pursed lips.
‘We all got very sick. I was nauseous and my eyes were burning. I could taste the gas in the back of my throat for days. I also had a tick in my one eye and I had a rash.’
‘How did you feel inside?’ I insisted as he had not answered my question fully.
‘I felt nothing,’ he said. He was not helping, or perhaps he was.
‘Did you feel regret?’
‘No.’
‘Guilt?’
‘No,’ after a pause.
‘Were you proud of what you had done?’
He did not hesitate. ‘I did my job.’
We stood looking at each other, neither willing to back down.
‘Did you receive any treatment or counselling after this event?’ I asked.
‘Some eye drops and some Valoid.’
‘Were you offered any counselling?’
‘No, sir.’
‘None at all?’ I wanted there to be no doubt about this.
‘No.’
‘Didn’t anyone say anything?’ I asked.
Labuschagne pulled at his ear as he thought about it. ‘We got a lecture from the Warrant Officer. He reminded us that we were not allowed to discuss the incident with anyone. He did say that we were entitled to psychiatric treatment, as he put it, and said that our medical aid scheme covered the cost. But he said that we should not tell the psychiatrist what work we did. And he said it would go on your record and could affect your promotion.’ The incongruity did not appear to strike him, seeing a psychiatrist but concealing the true causes of your problems from him.
I checked the time on the clock. We had a lot of time left.
‘Was there ever an occasion when something went wrong during the execution process itself?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ the answer came on cue, ‘but that did not happen often.’
‘Could you give us some examples, without going into too much detail?’ I suggested. ‘Please leave out the names of the prisoners or warders concerned and deal with the matter in broad outline only.’
Labuschagne nodded and answered methodically, raising a finger to count off each example. ‘Yes. When a prisoner fainted or was unable to walk to the gallows or stand on the trapdoors. Or when a warder fainted or was sick. Or when the prisoner did not die immediately.’
I interrupted quickly. ‘Please don’t go into the detail. Just tell the Court briefly how you dealt with those situations.’
‘Well, we had special aluminium chairs, like a barstool, for the prisoners who could not stand up. So we would sit them in the chair and put the chair where they had to stand. The chair would then drop down with them. One prisoner was in a wheelchair. The calculations were made with the distance he had to fall from wheelchair height and the wheelchair fell down into the pit with him. If a prisoner resisted violently we would tie him in a straitjacket onto a lightweight aluminium stretcher. Then we would stand the stretcher upright with the prisoner strapped to it on the trapdoors.’
There was still too much detail, but the Judge and Assessors were listening intently, so I allowed Labuschagne to proceed at his own pace.
‘If a prisoner did not die when he dropped down, we had to pull him up again and drop him from the right height. We were not allowed to touch him while doing that. The Warrant Officer said the law required the man to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, and that it was the Hangman’s job to kill the prisoner. We were there to help only so far as putting the prisoner in the right spot. Then we had to let go. After letting go of their sleeves we did not touch the prisoners until later, when they had been certified dead. So what we did, was to …’
This time I had had enough and I interrupted him without any apology. ‘We have dealt with what you had to do and how you did it, haven’t we?’ Then I added, ‘When you told the Court a few minutes ago about the seven prisoners who fought all the way from the cells of the Pot to the trapdoors.’
‘Yes,’ Labuschagne agreed readily, ‘I have told all that.’
It was my turn to look for the water jug. I took a sip of water and turned to the next page in my trial notebook. It was heavy going and I was feeling Labuschagne’s anguish. The thought crossed my mind that I was matching him sip for sip.
‘Did anything ever go wrong at the service you had to attend?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the members of the family sometimes threatened us, said we had killed the prisoner, that we were as guilty as the Judge and the State President and the Hangman.’
‘Did anything ever go wrong at the burial sites?’
‘Many times.’
I nodded for him to continue.
‘Sometimes the graves were half full of water and then we had to drain them first. Sometimes we just lowered the coffins into the water and filled them in. Locals threw stones at us. We had to take police protection with us. We were attacked by bees. Sometimes we found that the graves were not ready and then we had to wait for the municipality to send a digger. It could take all day, and then we had to face the Warrant Officer when we arrived back at the prison late. Sometimes there were not enough graves and we just put two or even three coffins in one grave.’
‘Wouldn’t that make a mess of the record-keeping, putting two or three in one grave?’ I asked.
‘Sir, no one ever called for the grave numbers. And what else could I do?’
I was about to change the subject when the door next to me opened and the Chief Registrar came in after bowing to the bench. Judge van Zyl held up his hand and I had to wait. The Chief Registrar spoke hastily with the court registrar and she turned to the Judge. They had a whispered conversation.
‘I have been called to the Judge President’s chambers for an urgent meeting,’ explained Judge van Zyl. ‘We’ll have to adjourn for a few minutes.’
‘Tell me about your next case,’ I said to Wierda as soon as the Judge and Assessors had departed. ‘But make it short.’
V3769 Sizwe Goodchild Leve
35
Lungile Tandamisa, Sizwe Leve and Vuyani Pikashe robbed and murdered Mrs Anita Webber.
Mrs Anita Webber was a forty-one-year-old housewife who lived with her husband and two children, twelve and fifteen years old respectively, in a suburban house in Paarl. On Thursday 19 June 1986 Mr Webber went to work and the children went to school. Mrs Webber had previously invited a neighbour, Mrs Aletta Ferreira, to come over for tea at ten-fifteen that morning. Mrs Ferreira told the Court that she had seen three men working in Mrs Webber’s garden and when the agreed time approached she went across to the Webbers’ house. She pressed the doorbell aft
er hearing something in the Webbers’ bedroom. She called to Mrs Webber when there was no response. Then she saw three men coming out of the garage. One of them said, ‘Madam is in the kitchen. She just paid us.’ She went in but could not find Mrs Webber in the house. She left and called her husband. They returned to the Webbers’ house and eventually found Mrs Webber’s body in the garage. There was a wire ligature around Mrs Webber’s neck which Mr Ferreira untied. They called the police, who arrived promptly. When a detective picked up a blue tracksuit top next to the body, the handle of a knife fell out of it.
The Senior District Surgeon was called to the scene and he certified that Mrs Webber was dead. He also performed the post-mortem examination on her body the next day and found four groups of serious injuries. In his opinion any one of these on its own could have caused Mrs Webber’s death. The first of these injuries consisted of an eight-centimetre-deep stab wound on the chest, on the right side, which had penetrated the right lung and caused it to collapse. Secondly, there was a five-centimetre-deep stab wound on the left side of the neck, the blade of the knife impacting on one of the vertebrae and cutting into it. The blade of the knife was still in the wound; it had the inscription SABLE and the cutting edge was seven point one centimetres long. Although the blade had missed the carotid artery, there was some bleeding in the sheath of the carotid. Thirdly, ribs six, seven, eight and nine on the left and one, two and three on the right side of the chest were fractured. In the fourth place, there were internal bruises on the neck associated with a central depression around the neck caused by the wire ligature. The bruising was deep enough into the structures of the neck to affect the trachea and bony elements of the neck. The hyoid and thyroid cartilage bones were fractured. All of these injuries were suffered while the deceased still had a heartbeat.
These were but the main injuries. Mrs Webber had been struck so hard on the left eye with some blunt object that she would have lost her sight in that eye had she survived. There were fourteen stab wounds altogether, including a further one to the neck and eleven to the chest. According to the pathologist the most brutal force would have had to be used to inflict the injuries he had found, but after the ligature had been tied around Mrs Webber’s neck she would have expired from lack of oxygen within minutes.
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