MR BERGER
Chairperson perhaps my learned friend, Mr Dorfling in all fairness should put to the witness what Judge Nugent said at page 132 of his judgment about the evidence of Sergeant Gollach. If I could just read what the judge said. He said: "Sergeant Gollach said that the ANC guards kept saying that they were going to shoot and that he kept cautioning them not to do so. He said that after the shooting broke out he shouted at them to stop shooting." And this is the important part; "We would hesitate to accept all his evidence at face value. I have already referred to the fact that there are material contradictions between his evidence and the statement which he made. What is significant too is that Constable Skippers in his statement purported to corroborate the evidence of Sergeant Gollach when it is clear that if he was there at all he was some distance away and was unable to hear what was alleged to have passed between him and the ANC guards. Sergeant van Grenan said that when the ANC guards assembled on the corner one of them said 'Let us kill some Zulus, they are going to attack Shell House.' In a statement which was taken from him 3 months after the event there is no mention of anything having been said by the ANC guards. When examined on this issue his answers were most curious." This is at the top of page 133 Chairperson. "He said that if the other policemen had not mentioned this in their statements then he was not sure whether it had been said. In his evidence Constable Potgieter also said that the ANC guards were saying that they were going to shoot and that he told them not to do so. This is in conflict with what he said in his statement 3 days after the event. In that statement he said no more than that one of the guards said he was going to shoot which he immediately did. And this was followed by shooting from the others." I am nearly finished Chairperson. "It is quite possible that there was some remonstration between the policemen and the guards but we do not think the evidence of the 3 policemen as to what was alleged to have been said can be taken at face value. It seems to us that much of this evidence, including in particular the evidence that the ANC guards repeatedly said that they were going to shoot is likely to have been the product of reconstruction a considerable time later." So it is quite clear that even on the findings of Judge Nugent the evidence of Sergeant Gollach was not regarded as particularly reliable.