Mr X flayed at Farlam inquiry

22 July 2014 - 02:02 By Niren Tolsi
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Dali Mpofu. File photo.
Dali Mpofu. File photo.
Image: Sunday Times

Dali Mpofu, the advocate representing the miners arrested at Marikana on August162012, pulled a rabbit out of he hat at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry yesterday when he introduced to the hearing miner Devana Madumbe.

Mpofu claimed that Madumbe is the man whom the police's controversial witness, known only as Mr X, had identified as himself in photographs taken at a meeting of strike leaders on the day of the arrests. Madumbe was wearing at the hearing the shirt he had worn that day.

Mr X responded that he did not know Madumbe and remained adamant that he had been present at the meeting: "Mr Mpofu, I do not know what you are saying... I'm not changing what I am saying; the police are innocent; we were going to kill the police."

Mr X endured a gruelling day of cross-examination by Mpofu, who accused him of being "delusional" in much of his testimony.

Mpofu said that he would argue that Mr X's evidence at the commission was "irretrievably destroyed to the point of non-existence".

The inquiry is investigating the circumstances that led to 44 deaths during an unprotected strike at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine.

Mpofu charged that Mr X's testimony was driven by ulterior motives - including bolstering the credibility of the version of events given by the police and the National Union of Mineworkers - and should be "discarded as a whole".

Mr X responded: "I don't have any motives. I am telling the truth - I am Mandela."

When Mpofu pushed Mr X on whether he believed he was Nelson Mandela, Mr X said that he was "just like Mandela".

Mr X's "delusions", according to Mpofu, included his testimony that he was part of a group of 15 strike leaders at Marikana and had been one of five leaders at a meeting between Lonmin representatives and miners after a miners' march on August 10 2012.

Mpofu said there were contradictions between Mr X's testimony and his written statements to the commission.

These included Mr X's claim that he saw Joseph Mathunjwa, the head of union Amcu, at the Marikana koppie on August 14 - two days before the police killed 34 miners on it.

Mpofu suggested that the claim that a linguistic problem explained Mr X first describing the killing of two sheep in a muti ritual and then saying it was two goats was a red herring designed to cloak the witness's lack of credibility.

Mr X revealed earlier yesterday that he had converted to Christianity and no longer believed in muti.

He grew increasingly prickly as the cross-examination progressed.

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