Vlakplaas

... crucial aspects such as who was the man who pulled the trigger. Van Rensburg, Du Plessis, Erasmus and Roth all insist that it was a Sgt Roy Otto of Vlakplaas. Dirk Coetzee denies this and Sgt Otto has since committed suicide. The former Vlakplaas boss says the murder was committed in November, ...

... the man who was called ‘Prime Evil’ by his own colleagues. During his seven year reign of terror as commander of the police death squad at Vlakplaas, Eugene Alexander de Kock killed, bombed and tortured with conviction and enthusiasm. He has already been convicted for multiple murder and ...

... blamed the ANC, but in 1996 five former security policemen were convicted for these murders; one of them was Eugene de Kock, the commander of the Vlakplaas unit outside Pretoria. This week he spoke publicly for the first time since his trial. It was almost like a Vlakplaas reunion in Port ...

... because at that stage there were various rumours that the security police were involved in so-called third force activities, and specifically Vlakplaas … amongst others Coetzee and Nofemela. In other words the information that came from this incident would of course place further pressure ...

The existence of Vlakplaas was exposed by Dirk Coetzee and Almond Nofemela in a Vrye Weekblad interview in November 1989. It was met with flat denials from generals and police officers. These lies were repeated under oath to the Harms Commission of Inquiry into state death squads. Vlakplaas was ...

This week the Committee reconvened in Cape Town to hear testimony from this man, Xola Frank Mbane known as Jimmy. From 1984 to 1992 Mbane was a Vlakplaas based askari. He claims that his career spanned 40 missions; that he was responsible for at least ten killings and he also testified as Mr. X in ...

... of the whore.’ These were the words security policeman Dirk Coetzee used exactly seven years ago to describe his role as the commander of the Vlakplaas death squad. And this week Coetzee and two of his colleagues told their horror stories to the nation. They were in the heart of the whore. ...

... the arrests of two of them and on Friday they appeared in court charged with the same acts they wanted to confess to next week. The men are former Vlakplaas commander and Northern Transvaal security police chief Brigadier Jack Cronje, Captain Jacques Hechter, Captain Wouter Mentz and Colonel ...

... and sometimes bizarre acts of cruelty and cold blooded murder. And in the process the profile of another ruthless mass murderer is emerging, Vlakplaas warrant officer Joe Mamasela. But with the successes for justice and truth come uncomfortable questions. Should De Kock and the two right ...

Godolozi, Hashe and Galela were left with Sakkie van Zyl and Gert Beeslaar of the Port Elizabeth security branch. At this point Vlakplaas pulled out. They were also taken to Post Chalmers and their fate was exactly the same as that of Siphiwo Mtimkulu and Topsy Madaka. It is up to Van Rensburg, ...

Swaziland was perhaps the country that suffered most in the 1980s when Vlakplaas and other security police units raided it year after year.

In May 1990 on the instructions of Eugene de Kock we organised jobs in Johannesburg for four askaris on Vlakplaas who had AIDS, namely Ndam, Sebole, Stretcher and Vietnam. We had a problem with them on the farm because other black members did not want to use the same facilities. Dries had a friend, ...

... bad. // During the first sitting of the Truth Commission in East London last month he was already implicated in torture. In the same week, former Vlakplaas assassin Joe Mamasela confessed on this programme his complicity in the kidnapping, torture and murder of three Eastern Cape activists in ...

... to the security police version of a clinical and clean execution. Somewhere between these extremes is the story told by two black operatives of the Vlakplaas squad. Former askari Kimpani Mogoai and policeman Johannes Koole are asking for amnesty for the abduction and assault of the Pebco Three. ...

But the National Party when questioned about the widespread killing and torture of opponents and the use of covert units like that at Vlakplaas and the Civil Cooperation Bureau, was not able to explain who took the decisions and who should take final responsibility.

... criminal responsibility and I think one could actually question that. The whole concept of vicarious liability, the putting into place things like Vlakplaas, the CCB, where you must have a sense that things can go horribly wrong. Now I think that’s what we would like to get an answer on. // I ...

... questions and we offer some explanations. We also go to Paarl where the NG Kerk made an emotional confession and we talk to a former commander of Vlakplaas. But we start in Pietermaritzburg. ...

... diplomat. They too disappeared without a trace. The police claimed the men had left the country. More lies. The abduction of the Pebco Three was a Vlakplaas job. Joe Mamasela was there, following the orders of Roelf Venter who told us about his involvement last ...

... and soldiers like assassinations, torture and massacres? And, did they know of these violations committed by the security police and units such as Vlakplaas and the CCB? So far, politicians and generals, including former state president FW de Klerk have said they never ordered anything illegal ...

General JJ Viktor is a much decorated South African policeman with 45 years of service behind him. Amongst other achievements he founded the base at Vlakplaas in 1979. In September 1992 he was head of the Ciskei Police Force. // My men and I don’t reflect on the CDF. I was not their commander. My ...