The death of a key state witness has put the spotlight on inadequacies in the protection programme, writes Nombuyiselo Maloyi
A RENEWED call for a radical change in South Africa’s witness protection programme was sounded this week by Brian Currin, director general of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), days after the killing of a key state witness in a robbery trial.
Mandla Lucky Dlamini was shot dead last Friday by gunmen in front of his girlfriend’s Soweto home. He was scheduled to testify for the state in a Pietermaritzburg trial of men accused of an attempted bank robbery.
Last week’s killing was the latest in more than 30 attempts on witnesses this year — among them the killing in July of two witnesses in a murder case and the two Soweto policemen who had accompanied them to the scene in Orlando East during an investigation. In October, two Goldstone Commission witnesses were shot at near Tugela Bridge in kwaZulu/Natal while being driven to safety by police. They had received death threats after giving evidence before the commission.
Yet a protection programme is in place, according to the attorney general’s office in Johannesburg. At the moment witnesses are offered the opportunity to testify in camera, when everyone who is not essential to the case is excluded from court. In criminal cases, the state often makes application in chamber for witnesses to be detained for their own safety and to prevent them from absconding. The press is allowed to report what the witness has said but not the details that might disclose his identity.
Deputy attorney general Michael Attwell says this is the maximum protection witnesses get in South Africa. In the United States, some witnesses are offered new identities, but “it would be very difficult to follow the American style. You can’t send a Zulu to Transkei because the person would be easily identified and would be in danger.”
“To relocate a witness and the entire family will cost money,” said deputy Witwatersrand attorney general ZJ van Zyl. He agreed a sophisticated scheme could be devised if enough money were directed to the programme.
However, he added, there is a less expensive way: “The attitudes of people against witnesses must change and all this won’t be necessary.” Witnesses testifying in political trials often fear reprisals from political party supporters — and in criminal cases where big crime syndicates are involved, people fear for their lives.
Currin said: “Many witnesses with critical evidence will certainly refuse to testify, and that on its own will undermine justice in the country.”
In 1993 a man who witnessed a massacre in Tembisa, during which more than 30 people were killed, went into hiding after receiving death threats. One witness in the trial of Pan Africanist Congress supporters accused of killing American student Amy Biehl said he feared for his life if he gave evidence against them, and witnesses who gave evidence did so in camera.
The PWV government’s position is that the witness protection programme should be thoroughly investigated, said Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for the provincial government.
Mamoepa said the government supports the suggestions put forward by the LHR and all suggestions from the public around the issue are welcome. “It is an idea which is long overdue and should have been put in place.”
International experience provides ideas on witness protection. The new identities offered some witnesses in the US, for example, include the provision of plastic surgery and relocation to new cities.
Public defender Carol Bruyns said the steps taken in South Africa are not only limited but inappropriate. “If a witness is threatened by the accused, then the latter can be taken back to court and bail be forfeited because one of the conditions of bail is not to interfere with witnesses,” she suggested.
The Goldstone Commission provided the most successful attempt to protect witnesses. In 1992, Mr Justice Richard Goldstone announced that witnesses testifying before the commission would be given protection.
Working with the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Nicro), the commission set its own programme in motion. This included providing safe houses, allowances and undisclosed identities of witnesses (backed up by fines of R10 000 or six months’ imprisonment for disclosure).
In 1993, the commission refused to identify one of its informers, Mr Q, whose identity was known only to a few individuals, including two police officers and Judge Goldstone.
Mr Q, a long-serving police officer involved with the Vlakplaas hit squad and a former Civil Co-operation Bureau agent, blew the lid off police involvement in dirty tricks. His identity was protected and he is probably still serving in the police force.
Other witnesses chose to leave the country. Some 390 under the Goldstone protection scheme left South Africa.
The scheme fell away after the commission presented its final report to the state president. In the report, the commission called for the establishment of a proper witness protection programme and the adoption of a number of LHR suggestions, including 24-hour protection of witnesses and family members during the trial and, where necessary, the relocation of the witness and family — even a complete change of identity.