Roper was not impressed with this response and pointed out that Patsima could have easily been brought to the court if Tammai or his attorney had asked for him. The interrogation then moved onto Tammai’s friendships with some of the witnesses and their reasons for giving evidence in the trial:
I had left my bottle at home and I was surprised that the children gave it to the police. I think Morobe lied to the police about the bottle because she was in trouble or was told to do so by other Masarwa. Morobe is my step-daughter and I have always treated her well. Rekisang acted the way she did because of the hatred that exists between the Masarwa, especially between her and her father. Rekisang is my uncle’s daughter and she hates me because of the hatred between my father and her.
Temee only gave evidence because he was ill-treated by the search party. The same goes for Toi Toi and Kico. I heard they were all thrashed by the Bangwato.
Resetora is still my friend. I think she only talked about the axe because she had heard rumours that the police were looking for one. My mother will confirm there was only an adze, not an axe, in the hut.
An adze is an instrument very similar to an axe, but the cutting edge, instead of being parallel with, is perpendicular to the handle. It is fair to say that someone not familiar with them would today describe them both as axes. Roper next asked about Tammai’s actions when the plane was found:
I did not look all around the aeroplane as I did not want to disturb the ground and any possible footprints.
Roper then pushed the point, asking what ‘all around’ the aircraft meant and how did he expect to find footprints without a proper search. Tammai then changed his story slightly:
We did go all around the aeroplane, but we did not go to the engines. Twai Twai also walked all around the aircraft until we were sure there were no footprints. The aeroplane had been there a long time so all the spoor had disappeared. The others only told of any footprints after they were mistreated.
Finally, Roper asked about the blood on Tammai’s trousers that had later been turned into shorts. Tammai initially claimed it was animal blood from when he was hunting, but when Roper used the South African lab report to refute this Tammai said that the blood was his. The blood was there from when he was sick.
Fraenkel then used this opportunity to clarify a few points of his witness’ evidence. This was limited to three areas:
The trousers were last washed at Nekate, long before the hunting trip.
We did walk all around the aeroplane looking for spoor.
Resetora is still alive, but he has given no evidence either here or in Francistown.
The various officers of the court then took their chance to question Tammai’s account. Mackenzie wanted to know how Tammai could have had change from buying tobacco when Tammai claimed to have no money. Tammai explained that he had sent somebody with meat to barter for the tobacco. The other questions related to finding the aeroplane:
I never left the hunting party while we were at Kuaxaxa so I can say that nobody heard the aeroplane. The first time we saw it was on the ground after it had landed.
FRIDAY 29 SEPTEMBER
Defence Witness –
Keree Oitube (Third Accused)
The last of Fraenkel’s charges to give evidence was Keree. Another young man, he was tall and dark-skinned like Twai Twai, but there the similarity ended. Keree had much less force behind his personality and had spent much of the trial either day-dreaming or drawing animals. This doodling of elephants, giraffes and impala, scratched out either on the floor or on his own arm using matchsticks, had earned him the nickname of ‘the artist’ among the watching press.
He had given some strange and contradictory evidence in the Francistown hearing, where he seemed to be angling towards giving King’s Evidence. This would be a key part of the prosecution cross-examination. However, Keree would start his testimony with a very brief outline of what had happened on the hunting trip:
Twai Twai and Tammai are my fathers-in-law. When they were out hunting they found an aeroplane. I was not with them and did not see the aircraft. I did not see any white men, any clothing, or an axe on this trip. After they had seen the plane I went to my home at Cutico.
Later, a messenger from the chief came to ask me to show him where the white men were. He was very angry and told Sergeant Preston-Whyte to arrest us. Preston-Whyte thrashed me and Orai. The others were also thrashed.
At this Roper objected, pointing out that this had not been mentioned before. The judge agreed that this point should have been brought up earlier, preferably when Preston-Whyte was on the stand. Certainly Preston-Whyte or Captain Langley should have been made aware of the allegations. Despite what had just been translated, Fraenkel claimed that he was not sure who had committed the beatings and he was allowed to re-question his witness:
I do not know the name of the sergeant who beat me, but it was the one who came from Francistown. Before that I was beaten by Xewema, a Masarwa who was part of the search party. He wanted me to show him where the white men Twai Twai and Tammai had murdered were. The chief’s messenger told me that Xewema was also a policeman. My father was also thrashed by him. I did not actually see any of the other witnesses beaten, but I heard about it.
Roper started his examination of Keree by asking about Keree’s relationship with the other defendants and by pointing out that it is impossible to have two fathers-in-law, something Keree was adamant about:
I do have two fathers-in-law for I am married to their daughter, Autwa. I am related also to Toi Toi, Morobe, Rekisang, and Temee. I have always been on good terms with them all.
Given this, Roper then asked why they would give evidence against him.
Temee and Rekisang were told what to say. I don’t know why, but I do know that Ramestane, the chief’s messenger, told Rekisang what to say.
Roper then moved onto what happened when the aeroplane was found. It must be remembered that Keree was the only one of the main defendants, and the only male accused, not to have been part of the party that found the aeroplane:
I spoke to Temee and Orai when they returned; they came back just before Twai Twai and Tammai returned. They said they had found an aeroplane, but there were no men with it. They both said they had seen footprints though.
I asked Twai Twai and Tammai about this. They said they had not seen any prints, but they were old men and perhaps the young boys had better eyesight.
Temee and Orai lied about finding the white men because they were thrashed.
The court then moved onto perhaps the strangest piece of evidence presented in the case. During the hearing in front of Mr Midgely, the District Commissioner in Francistown, Keree had made a bizarre statement telling of a dream that he had had. The statement was made while Keree was under arrest and despite warnings that he did not have to say anything and that his statement could be used in evidence against him. Roper got Keree to confirm his earlier evidence:
There is a dream that I believe is also a lie, that we murdered two white men. There was myself with Twai Twai and Tammai, along with Temee and Toi Toi. I dreamt that Twai Twai had a gun and he shot one white man through the chest. The other white man was pierced by an assegai through the ribs and was finished off with an axe. Temee was the one with the axe in my dream, Tammai had the axe. My dream came true, as confirmed by Tammai a few days ago.
Roper then asked if Keree stood by what he had said:
I dreamt it like that, but it was Twai Twai that confirmed it, not Tammai. I had this dream while I was in the police cell. Twai Twai said it was true because I had dreamt it. Twai Twai then told me all about the murder, he wanted to know why I had been arrested because it was him that had done the killing and now lots of people had been arrested. I told him I was arrested because of Rekisang and what she had said. He told me that the white men had been shot with their own rifles and that one had been finished off with an axe. Twai Twai told me he had given his rifle to Temee to hold and then he had used the axe. I never h
eld the rifle.
Roper then asked if the story about the dream had been thought up by Keree in order to escape his responsibility for the crime. Keree gave an astonishing one word answer:
Yes.
Keree’s seemingly contradictory testimony led to a lengthy discussion as to what the court should consider to be his evidence. Judge de Beer was understandably confused by the fact that when initially giving evidence he had not seen any white men, but then the details of the murder are described in a ‘dream’. The confusion only grows as more of the original dream is read out to the court in which Keree describes Twai Twai and Tammai bringing the airmen back to the camp on a horse and a donkey. The statement continues by describing the murder and how Twai Twai’s gun did not work and how he had to use a spear instead; he then includes details of cutting up the bodies and the disposal of the remains by the act of throwing them down a well. Keree is asked what he meant by the phrase ‘How the white men suffered’.
I said that because their deaths made me sad and because I was worried. I did not see them suffer though as I was away watering the donkeys and I only heard one shot. I got the full story from Twai Twai when we were in a cell together in Francistown.
When they were searching for the aeroplane there was one nice sergeant. He spoke to me kindly and treated me well, but the other police spoilt this.
Roper then asked about other parts of the dream, to which Keree responded with a rambling statement:
Twai Twai, Tammai and Rekisang told me to say the bodies were carried a long way. Tammai told me the bodies had been carried on horses before being cut up and put in the well. I did not see this, my conscience tells me. No, I got this from Tammai, not my conscience. Tammai said Twai Twai cut the bodies up, but Twai Twai said both of them did it.
When Roper accuses Keree of telling three different stories at different times, Keree blames the District Commissioner:
The DC, he told me to hold back some information for the next hearing. He told me to make a surprise in the big court.
Faced with such perplexing statements, the court then spent some minutes discussing what to make of them. Roper suggested the statement described Keree’s own lightly disguised actions and was an attempt to plead King’s Evidence in the earlier hearing. The judge expressed some sympathy with this point of view, but could not reconcile this with other witness statements – especially the part about disposing the bodies in a well. Roper then asked why the statement was made, why the plane was not reported, and whether Xewema had really beaten him:
I was insane at the time I made the statement. I did not kill anybody, it is Twai Twai and Tammai that are the murderers. The object of the statement was to exculpate myself.
I did not report the plane because I did not see it myself. I did not resist when Xewema asked me to go with him.
With his witness now telling a very different one to that with which he had opened it was up to Fraenkel to rescue what he could from the situation as he again took charge of Keree’s evidence:
I sometimes go insane and I dream a lot, but my dreams, they never come true. When I made this statement it was with a native trooper and one of the interpreters in the court today. I was told a European would speak for me at the trial. I cannot tell which parts of my dream are true as I got a lot of the information from other people. In my statement I did say, ‘Twai Twai and Tammai are not worried; they are fit and did the murdering … Twai Twai and Tammai are Tshekedi’s equals, and Khama becomes their dog.’
The police did not ask me to show them the aeroplane as the children had already shown them. I did go once to the plane with the police when I was at Nata.
The bizarre reference to Tshekedi Khama would be contested later on, but, if true, it certainly gave some idea of how the Basarwa in that region thought about Khama. Keree ended his turn on the stand with a couple of questions from the District Commissioners that added little.
Defence Witness – Matammai
Despite having given statements in the Francistown hearing, Kelly had decided not to put any of his female defendants in the witness box. Indeed, Kelly had obviously decided that there was simply not enough evidence to convict his charges of murder and was content not to call any further witnesses at all. Fraenkel on the other hand felt the need to use Tammai’s mother as his third from last witness:
My name is Tabe, but everybody knows me as Matammai because I am Tammai’s mother. Although I live at Nekate, I was at Kombe when the hunting party returned. I remember Tammai unloading his donkey. I did not see anything unusual, no clothing, and no strange case. At Kombe, Tammai shared his hut with Chanda. I remember the police coming in the lorry because of the heavy rain. Awekeca was there when they arrived. I know Tammai’s bag, it was there in his hut that day. There was nothing in the bag. Nothing not belonging to Tammai, that is. His adze and rasp were in there. I never saw the axe belonging to the airmen.
Next we went to Nekate, I did not share a hut there with Dambe. I recognise the medicine bottle in the court – it belonged to Tammai. He has had it for three years. There was nothing left in it, but it used to have a white mixture that Tammai would put on his face. There was a thre’penny bit in the bottle. I do not know the place it came from, although I had heard its name.
Roper asked for a further description of the mysterious medicine bottle:
The mixture was a watery medicine that Tammai rubbed between his eyes. He used it about once a month. He got it from Nonga. Tammai told me this three years ago. I do not know who else bought this medicine, but it was definitely three years ago. This is the fourth year.
Given the earlier evidence about Basarwa having difficulty counting days, Roper asked repeatedly how Matammai could know it was three years ago. Matammai could not explain so Roper moved onto Tammai’s bag and the axe Awekeca had seen in Dambe’s hut:
The bag was a skin one that Tammai had used many times. I just happened to look in that day and I saw the brains and tobacco Keree had brought. I was getting tobacco from the bag and I saw nothing else in there. I was first asked about this bag by a policeman from Rhodesia. He emptied it and only found tobacco. Tammai kept his adze in that bag usually, it was in the bag that day.
I am not related to Awekeca and I understand that she says she saw an axe, but I did not. I slept in Dambe’s hut with Talifang and Awekeca is making a false statement about seeing an axe in the rafters there or at least if she saw an axe there, I did not.
Matammai was then asked for clarification of certain points by the officers of the court:
Tammai had only one bag, although he had a smaller one inside that he used to keep cartridges in. I know these were not there when the bag was searched, but Tammai did not give me or our daughter anything to look after.
I was using Dambe’s hut as mine had fallen down. It is not true that I pulled it down when I heard of the murder. In fact it was Batty, the Rhodesian policeman, who told us to pull it down so we could build a new one.
I know the bottle came from Patsima, but I did not know Patsima was a witchdoctor.
Finally, Roper asked about Matammai’s statement in Francistown where she had claimed Keree’s father had given the airmen’s axe to Letsami, Twai Twai’s brother, to hide:
I only said that to get Letsami into trouble.
This was the first mention of Twai Twai’s brother during the trial, although he would feature dramatically in the aftermath of the judgement.
Defence Witness – Mamorobe
The penultimate defence witness was Mamorobe, Marobe’s mother. Although Morobe was Twai Twai’s child, Mamorobe was at that time living as Tammai’s wife, or, in the more accurate language of the time, his concubine. ‘Tickey’ was South African slang at the time for threepenny bit:
I know Tammai. I live with him in Nekate. Tammai had gotten the medicine bottle from the village of Matidzi. Tammai told me about Patsima when he bought the bottle. He has had one bottle for two years, perhaps this is the fourth year. Inside the bottle w
as fat, hair from a white man, and a tickey – I saw this when Tammai brought the bottle home the first time. He used to smear the fat on his face, but he did nothing with the tickey.
The Attorney General was quick to point out that Matidzi was a long way from Nonga, where Tammai had claimed the bottle had been bought. Roper then asked for more detail on the strange contents of the bottle:
I do not know where Matidzi is, although I know Nonga. The hair in the bottle was European; it was very different to our hair and it was white. The fat was thin and greasy, almost like water. He smeared it on his face and, when it was empty, Morobe’s husband came with more fat. This was Vaseline, and this was all that was in the bottle when Tammai left it with me when they went hunting. The white sergeant took it when the bottle was in Rekisang’s hut. It had been taken from Morobe when she was ill in Rekisang’s hut. The hair and the threepence were still in the jar then.
The native assessor again picked up on the discrepancy in the description of where the bottle had been bought:
Tammai got the bottle from Nonga. I have never been there and I do not know the place.
Defence Witness – Talifang
The Kalahari Killings Page 14