TESTIMONY_GIVER:
My son was Sam Daseko. Your son was Sam Daseko. I would like to know how old was Sam,what he was doing at the time of his death, does he have brothers and sisters,does he have a father? --- Sam was a student. He was my son. He was the onlyone. I have got two children. The other one is older. I was staying with Sam.At that time he was in standard nine. Every Saturday when he was at home heused to get piece jobs, then he would further his own education with the remunerationthat he got. It was on Saturday and I was in Bloemfontein when Sam got injured,and I heard from Brother Montsiwa. Sam was at Mr Groen's farm, at his grandmother'shouse, and grandmother's son came to me. It was on a Sunday. It was late inthe afternoon when I came back from Bloemfontein, and he came to me and he said,"Can we please go to the police station. We have to go and look for Sam, becausethe police came, they took him, and they beat him up. He was already injuredand we tried to stop them. The two policemen left and they came back. When theycame back the kicked the door at Granny's house and they picked Sam up. Oneof them - they held him with both his hands and his feet, and they threw himinto the van and they drove off." When we arrived at the police station on Sundaywe didn't find them, but we did ask them. We did ask a few policemen who werethere. We asked them, "Do you know anybody who is called Sam?" They looked intotheir files and they didn't find anybody by the name of Sam, and they said tous, "No, we don't have Sam on our files." It was Sunday afternoon and we hadto come back home. On Monday we went back to the police station. We wanted tomeet Mr Morakile and Shele. We only got hold of Morakile, and Brother Montsiwaasked him, he said, "Morakile, where did you take Sam, because you pickedhim up yesterday?" Morakile's response was, "We took Sam and we dropped himoff at number one. Brother Montsiwa asked him further. He said, "How could youdrop him off at number one after having assaulted him in that way? You shouldhave taken him home." Morakile said to him, "I promise you we dropped him offzone one." After a while that we've been there speaking to Morakile anothergentleman came in. He was working at the municipality, because he used to drivethese big lorries, these lorries with big tanks to sprinkle the water in ourroads so that there is no dust. And he said, "We've seen a body in the bush,"and he said, "I think it's a boy." I said to them, "I am sure that is the bodyof my son." The police said to me, "No, don't mind, you will go to the hospitalso that you can identify whether is it your son or not." Truly we went withmy brother, Mr Montsiwa, we went to Maroka Hospital, and when we arrived theremy son was there at the mortuary. I think they have been kicking him aroundlike a ball. He was full of soil. You couldn't look at him. (Pause)