e 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
the only photo they have seen in their lives. It was the same photo
they had seen at Norval's Pont. What would one expect? One would
naturally expect them to pick out that photo, and that is what
occurred. Well, after that, one can understand why Jan Louw
identifies Kritzinger in Court. He has had a photo shown to him in
town, and of course he naturally identifies Kritzinger at once. The
wonder is that Jan Jonkers did not identify Kritzinger. It only
shows what small reliance can be placed on the evidence of natives,
and that is the sole evidence on which the 4th Charge is based.

"Now let us see what Kritzinger's story is. It is a consistent
story, and it seems what probably happened under the circumstances.
He crossed without prisoners, and everyone in his commando bears
him out. He crossed before Wessels, and laagered there, and
afterwards Wessels came up. Jan Louw says that no other commando
was there when he arrived, and no other came afterwards. Jan
Jonkers says there were about one hundred men when he arrived. The
Court will have no doubt that there were two commandoes there.
Kritzinger said that he had seventy or eighty men with him. And
then again we have Jan Jonkers. If Jan Jonkers found a commando