Vlakplaas

Good evening. Welcome to tonight’s Special Report on the truth and reconciliation process. In tonight’s programme we report on a Vlakplaas policeman’s application for amnesty in Cape Town and the special hearings of the faith communities in East London. We also take a look at tomorrow’s ...

Boipatong, Vlakplaas job. I can assure you that Brig van Heerden and Snor Vermeulen, two of the Vlakplaas guys involved, blackened with these things that they use in plays and balaclavas, orchestrated … Boipatong, Vlakplaas job.

... do you know the name Ace Moema? // Yes I do Mr. Chairman. // From where do you know this person? // It was the name of an ANC cadre who came to Vlakplaas in the late 1980s, in the 1981s, towards the end of the year as a person that has been debriefed already through all the relative channels ...

Boipatong, Vlakplaas job. I can assure you that Brig van Heerden and Snor Vermeulen, two of the Vlakplaas guys involved, blackened with these things that they use in plays and balaclavas, orchestrated … Boipatong, Vlakplaas job.

Brigadier Jack Cronje, Vlakplaas commander from 1983 to 1985. Colonel Roelf Venter, Vlakplaas officer in 1984 and ’85. Captain Wouter Mentz, based at Vlakplaas from 1989 to ’92, contemporary of Eugene de Kock. Captain Jacques Hechter. Warrant officer Paul van Vuuren. These former police ...

Brian Ngqulunga became a problem to his Vlakplaas bosses when suspicion arose that he was working for the ANC. It was also the time of the Harms Commission and Vlakplaas suspected that Brian Ngqulunga might not be prepared to cooperate with the police cover-up. The trouble however began when Brian ...

In November 1989 a man called Dirk Coetzee gave the first documented and detailed account of the South African Police death squad at Vlakplaas. He also told of his share in the murder of activist and lawyer, Griffiths Mxenge. One of his Vlakplaas colleagues, Almond Nofemela confirmed his ...

Look your position if I understand it correctly is that Vlakplaas is an aberration like a lot of these other things that were debated this morning. And the explanation, as I understand it, that you were proffering was that it must have been an officer or two or whatever, lower down the hierarchy, ...

... South African government had never admitted to their attack. It has now come to light that the killers were all members of the security police’s Vlakplaas Unit. The leader of the death squad in Maseru was also the commander of Vlakplaas, Eugene de Kock. This information is contained in a sworn ...

... 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 ...

... 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, ...

We were instructed to make it look like a robbery. // Who instructed you? // Brigadier van der Hofen. A hunting knife was brought down from Vlakplaas, I can’t recall whether we bought the other okapi knives in Durban or whether that also came from Vlakplaas. I got a report back from him that ...

So much has been said about Vlakplaas, so much has been written about the place and this is the very first thing that a tangible thing that we can say we have discovered on Vlakplaas, Brian Ngqulunga’s remains, which were exhumed today.

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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... both particularly in the South African expatriate community – you know we have information about hoteliers who gave free accommodation to Vlakplaas, we have information on restauranteurs who would give free meals to Vlakplaas operatives. It’s not an entirely one sided story, it’s a ...

[Vlakplaas placed Cape Town on the map] // He was accompanied to Cape Town by this Vlakplaas colleague, Constable Thapelo Mbelo and two askaris. Shortly after their arrival in Cape Town their first high profile operation in collaboration with Cape Town security police took place, the killing of the ...

... On Friday Mamasela dropped a bombshell in an interview with a weekly paper ‘New Nation.’ He said five senior ANC ministers were on the Vlakplaas payroll between 1981 and 1993. He was their pay master and they were even flown in by military helicopters to Vlakplaas to be paid and ...

... 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. ...