In the Shadow of DeathKritzinger, P. H. (Pieter Hendrick)
History
In the Shadow of Death
Kritzinger, P. H. (Pieter Hendrick)
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Personal narratives
"I now come to the 4th Charge; the only charge in which Kritzinger
was said to have been present at the shooting. In the first two
charges, Kritzinger did not appear until hours after the natives
had been shot. The only witnesses who say that Kritzinger was
present at the shooting of the natives mentioned in this charge are
natives. There appear to have been no white men present. Some one
said that Schmidt was present, but it appears he did not cross the
river. We have only native evidence to this effect, and native
evidence is most unreliable, and only one of the witnesses could
identify Kritzinger. We are, therefore, driven back to the evidence
of Jan Louw. Even if Jan Louw had given his evidence in a way that
could not be shaken, it would be dangerous to convict on the
evidence of one witness alone. Natives have no idea of dates, time,
or distances. They find it difficult to identify prisoners. We have
seen that in the case of Jan Jonkers, and that shows how much
reliance can be placed on native evidence. Jan Jonkers identifies a
man in Court as being Kritzinger who was never near the place. Four
months after a man has been killed Jan Hans goes and sees his body.
He identifies him not by the clothes he wears but by his face. Is
it possible that after being for four months on the plains of the
Orange Free State, exposed to the air and the heat, a man could
identify the face of another? And the one native witness is the
witness Jan Louw. Even if Jan Louw were a strong witness, his
evidence would not have been sufficient to convict, but Jan Louw's
evidence falls to the ground under cross-examination. How did Jan
Louw identify Kritzinger? He was taken to the office at Norval's
Pont. Now, Jan Louw had only seen one commandant in his life. When
in that commandant's possession, his life was apparently not worth
very much. His companions were shot. When shown any commandant's
photo he would naturally identify it with the commandant he knew.
Now, Jan Jonkers explains to us why the photo was identified. He
was asked, 'Is that Kritzinger?' and he replied, 'That is
Kritzinger.' Now, a native is very likely, in a case like that, to
say, 'That is the man.' Then Jan Jonkers, in re-examination, tries
to get out of that. He says that he said, 'That is Kritzinger,' and
then the man in the office said, 'That is Kritzinger.' The
probability is that Jan Louw and Jan Jonkers were asked if it was
Kritzinger's photo, and they said, 'Yes.' If the Court saw the
photos they could see how much reliance could be placed on the
identification. The witnesses were taken into a room where there
were several groups of photos, but the biggest photo was that of
Kritzinger, and these natives had seen it before. Probably it is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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