Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
6th June 1997
PRESS RELEASE RE: POSTPONEMENT OF CAPRIVI/OPERATION MARION HEARINGS
The Truth Commission today decided to postpone the planned hearings for next week (10 - 20 June) to a date to be announced. The hearing has been postponed for various reasons, prominent among them being the fact that a large number of the people to whom warning letters were addressed by the Commission, advising them that they would be implicated in a detrimental way by witnesses at the hearing, did not receive the notices. These notices (sent in terms of section 30 of the Act) were sent at the beginning of May, to these persons, many of whom are retired or former members of the South African Police and South African Defence Force, via nodal points or central communication points in the SA Police and Defence Force.
The Commission has only now become aware of the fact that many of the people to whom warning notices were sent, did not receive the notices at all, and in other cases, only received the notices during the last week. Lawyers acting for the persons named in the notices, have indicated to the Commission that their clients require further time within which to consider the allegations against them, and to prepare for the hearing.
Furthermore, after studying documents which certain witnesses who are to appear at the hearing will refer to, it became clear to the Commission that such documents refer to persons to whom warning notices had not been sent.
In all the circumstances, the Commission has decided that in order to ensure that there can be no possible prejudice to the rights of any person who may be detrimentally implicated at the hearing, that it would be in the public interest to postpone the hearing for approx. 6 weeks.
The hearing will now take place towards the end of July, on a date to be announced by the Commission.