Vlakplaas

PW Botha knew about Vlakplaas and its evil mission. Cabinet ministers Louis le Grange and Adriaan Vlok knew. Police commissioners Johan Coetzee and Johan van der Merwe knew, in fact it was their idea. The last National Party president, FW de Klerk says he did not know. When he appeared before the ...

... Sowetan. And this one is by Peter Marshe and appeared in Beeld. We translated the words from Afrikaans. So they say they didn”t know much. Former Vlakplaas commanders Dirk Coetzee and Eugene de Kock are already on record saying they had no doubt that Vlok knew exactly what Vlakplaas did. The ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

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.

... 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, ...

... 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 ...

... who reluctantly admitted that the suspected ANC cell had been infiltrated. Then, he even more reluctantly agreed that the infiltrators were Vlakplaas askaris. The infiltrators had informed them of the planned attack. The police and the Vlakplaas operatives then planned their strategy for ...

... around the Bisho massacre where Oupa Gqozo at last gave evidence and the Truth Commissioners clashed publicly and emotionally with the former Vlakplaas policemen. // Your callousness, your coldness and insensitivity shows us the kind of leaders that the South African government chose. // No ...

... 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 ...

Schoon told the TRC that he’d never been disciplined for authorizing actions of an illegal nature and said that former Commissioners and Ministers of police such as Louis Le Grange, Adriaan Vlok, Johan van der Merwe and Johan Coetzee had all visited Vlakplaas.

... and he landed on his head. The brain injury he suffered could not be explained away. Colonel Nick van Rensburg called in the expertise of the then Vlakplaas commander, Dirk ...

Wouter Mentz cries easily. He was the one applicant who showed signs of emotional distress while testifying. After being part of the murder of fellow Vlakplaas policeman, Brian Ngqulunga he was ordered to attend the funeral. I simply couldn’t bring myself to attend the funeral, it was too much ...

can be little doubt that it would stir up high emotions if these murderers were to walk free. Now that De Kock is in a maximum security cell another Vlakplaas policeman is stepping into his shoes as prime evil number two, as apartheid’s second most effective assassin. Warrant officer Joe ...

... with a pistol. I looked away because I could not handle it. I cannot remember exactly how it happened, but it was arranged that he’d be buried at Vlakplaas and his entire family was there and De Kock gave instruction that everyone was to attend the funeral. I simply couldn’t bring myself to ...

... story of the brutal execution of nine people and the elaborate lies fabricated by the state. A story of the men who never took prisoners, the Vlakplaas death squad. Last week in Durban a mother asked the Truth Commission why was my child mowed down in a hay of bullets on that night in June ...

... 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 ...

... in 1989. One wonders if we would have had a Truth Commission now if it hadn’t been for the ball that he started rolling. Coetzee and two of his Vlakplaas colleagues, David Tshikalanga and Almond Nofemela will start retelling their stories in Durban this coming week when their applications for ...

For a person to be guilty of a crime there must be intent and we cannot therefore say citizens who had no intention to set up Vlakplaas and kill people that they should carry the burden of this. We cannot hold responsible ordinary shunters, farmers and so on who supported apartheid because they ...

... the last time the embattled nationalist government used the strategy of cross-border raids. The forthcoming amnesty hearings, especially those of Vlakplaas policemen, may give us a clearer picture of who did what, where despite the fact that the Truth Commission can’t indemnify people for ...