MONDAY, 4.00PM:
FORMER security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt has won the right to a new panel to hear his application for amnesty for the 1977 death in detention of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko.
Nieuwoudt — already convicted of four murders — has been named repeatedly in Eastern Cape torture cases. He argued on Monday that the panel hearing his Biko amnesty application is the same one that last week rejected his amnesty application for torturing former activist Mkhuseli Jack in 1985. The panel found that Nieuwoudt’s version of events differed substantially from Jack, whose version seemed more plausible.
Panellists Judge Hassen Mall and advocates Ntsiki Sandi and Denzil Potgieter agreed that Nieuwoudt’s application would be separated from the rest and a new panel would be formed to hear his application.
“We are satisfied that there must not be the slightest suspicion of bias, not only in the mind of Mr Nieuwoudt, but also in the mind of any member of the community who is reasonably acquainted with these proceedings,” Judge Mall said.
MONDAY, 2.00PM:
THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings into the death of black consciousness leader Steve Biko opened again on Monday, with the police captain who drove him across the country saying that he did not realise his passenger was dying of fatal brain injuries.
Captain Daantjie Siebert, who has admitted to punching Biko, said he drove the injured activist on a 1 200km journey to Pretoria. Biko had been unresponsive to his questions, and had simply lain in the back of the truck, breathing heavily.
He was under the impression that he was taking Biko to Pretoria for medical treatment, because district surgeon Dr Benjamin Tucker was unable to work out what was wrong with him. He assumed that Biko’s semi-conscious state was due to sedatives Tucker had given him.
Siebert said Biko was dressed only in his underpants — another witness claimed he was naked — but conceded that this was still “an insult to his humanity”.