MR RICHARD
Thank you.
	As the Committee is more than aware, there is a huge distinction between the first and second applicants before it.  On the one hand we need remind ourselves that the test which should be applied to an applicant, is what his honest and bona fide, but subjective intention was when he did what he admits to doing.  
	In Michael Phasha's case, and for the sake of formality I'll call him the first applicant, he gave evidence first, he admits the crime of murder in that he certainly joined in with the crowd by associating himself by the act of throwing the first stone.  However, if we look further in his chain of perception, what he perceived and saw then was that he was stoning a person who had been part and parcel of the chain that had led to the death of his brother, Moses Phasha.  His evidence was straightforward and clear and I believe credible.  The questions that we need ask when we talk about witchcraft, is not whether the belief is reasonable in the logical sense but whether it is reasonable in the cultural sense. 
	The evidence before the Committee is clear, that the applicant comes an area where belief in witchcraft is rife.  We all know, and I don't intend labouring this argument by quoting from the various volumes of Commissions and Reports that we all have copies of, they do establish the prevalence of the belief.  What's further, they also establish that at this time, that is January 1991, there was a very strong politically motivated, anti-witchcraft mood.  Without arguing chapter and verse from the various reports, I believe it may be submitted, and one may in the year 2000 say with good reason, that for political reasons the crime or the practise of witchcraft was seen as reactionary, oppressive and counter to the development and movement towards a democratic State at the time.  And indeed it might well have been perceived so, for good reason.  Without labouring the argument, the coup in Venda had happened, the case can be made clearly that as a result of the political failure of the homeland structures, homeland leaders and the security apparatuses of the old State, did have an ascendancy and they were seen as the enemy.  Evidence in other hearings has been led, to the effect that crowds such as the 500-crowd that we talk about today, did chant freedom slogans and did chant praises such as "Kill the impimpi, kill the moloi".
	Now one then need go no further than to think of a matter that I know Adv Sandi and I are both familiar with, and that's the decision in the Sekela Dlomo matter.  There the decision was that when an ANC MK operative shot his junior, who was found not to be an impimpi, he was entitled to amnesty on the basis that subjectively he bona fide and honestly believed that the non-impimpi posed a threat to his unit.  Here there is much stronger and far more cogent factual reason for it to be argued and held, that Michael Phasha had an honest and bona fide belief that Madibeng Phasha posed a threat to the liberation movement of which he was an associate and with which he had an associated himself.  
	It is also useful when reflecting on other decisions, to think of those where ANC supporters/members has decided to go out and put an end to criminal gangsters.  In those cases the act of murdering a gangster was not held to be one committed with a political motive.  However, they are clearly distinguishable.  The subject of belief held by Michael Phasha, was that whether it was the unknown molois or the named molois, or the fatality, that is Madibeng Phasha, they were seen and believed to be persons operating with a political agenda against the cause he was associated with.  And I don't believe it would be a violation of the expectation of consistency to distinguish between the two situations.