(Persons 5, 29, 43 and 6) to conceal the truth concerning the deaths of EKIA56 and EKIA57 in the reporting of the operation.
673 The applicant submits that he and Person 5 did not fabricate the contemporaneous reporting that two squirters were killed to conceal the deaths of EKIA56 and EKIA57. The high number of persons who are alleged to have seen the PUCs alive, the likely presence of a high number of troops in the vicinity when the PUCs were allegedly executed shortly thereafter and the troop's debriefing process, which in effect requires the whole troop to contribute to the consolidated reporting, make it highly unlikely that the contemporaneous reporting about the W108 contains fabricated accounts.
674 The applicant's point is not that he is accepting that two men were taken from the tunnel. His case is that no men were found in the tunnel. He points to the unlikelihood of the respondents' case that two men were taken from the tunnel and then executed because one of the features of that case is that a large number of SASR soldiers knew about the executions and did not report them or do anything about them. There is obvious force in that point, but the respondents' case is too strong otherwise and sadly this is part of the conclusion.
675 The applicant submits that if the evidence of Persons 14, 18, 24, 40, 41, 42 and 43 is accepted, broadly speaking, EKIA56 and EKIA57 were removed from the tunnel and then shortly afterwards executed by the applicant and Person 4 in or just outside the tunnel courtyard.
676 As I have previously said, the applicant accepts that Persons 81, 80, 43, 5, 29, 18, 4, 35, 38, 40, 41 and 42 were in the tunnel courtyard either at the time of its discovery or shortly afterwards. Although the applicant accepts that Persons 18, 40, 41, 42 and 43 were in the tunnel courtyard either at the time of its discovery or shortly afterwards, he does not accept the evidence given by those witnesses as to what they saw. The applicant submits that given Person 41's time-line relating to when he left the tunnel courtyard and then re-entered it, there would have been a large number of persons in the tunnel courtyard carrying out the SSE process when the alleged executions occurred or proximate enough, as the applicant put it, for example, at the Commanders' RV, to hear them. None of Persons 18, 40, 41, 42, 43 or 81 gave evidence of witnessing executions or hearing them. I have already dealt with this point which is based on an interpretation of Person 41's evidence which I do not accept.
677 The applicant submits that the Court should not accept the evidence of Persons 14, 24 and 41 to the extent that each of them say that they witnessed an execution or executions. The
