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| 21:04 | Only four months after the assassination of David Webster the most prominent white member of the Namibian liberation movement, Anton Lubowski, was shot and killed in front of his house in Windhoek. One of the men who conspired to kill him, Irish citizen Donald Acheson, was arrested soon after the murder. After a few months he was released without being tried and he left the country. Acheson’s release was the first mistake in a long and shameful history of the grossest negligence, incompetence and corruption that I have ever seen in any judicial system. The incompetence is continuing. This week a new inquest was held into Lubowski’s assassination. It brought us not a single new fact. The only noteworthy event was that the presiding judge jailed a Namibian newspaper editor for contempt of court. The fact that Lubowski was assassinated by the South African Army’s Civil Cooperation Bureau was known a few months after the murder. The names of the conspirators were also published. It ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 22:42 | I’m the father of the late Anton Theodor Lubowski … sorry … Anton was shot and killed at approximately 20 hours 30 on the 12th September and he was about to enter his home at 7 Sanderburg street, Windhoek, Namibia. There’s no doubt that the death of Andre resulted from the politically motivated assassination. // I am requesting the Commission to help us to take away the hindrances so that untried murderers can be tried in a court of law. The assassination was planned here in South Africa by Afrikaners and was committed in Namibia when it was still under South African jurisdiction. // We still haven’t had any justice being done. We’ve tried every single avenue that is possible and we’ve had no luck. And nobody has really taken the time to explain to my parents why nothing has been done. We get excuses like the murder was committed outside the borders of the country, which is very difficult to understand because that was before independence and it was planned here. And ...more | Full Transcript |
| 24:40 | The information we have on this case come from a large number of affidavits, some by the suspects themselves, evidence before the Harms Commission and the first Lubowski inquest, interviews with CCB members and the diary of one of the CCB commanders. | Full Transcript |
| 24:54 | July, 1989. Namibia was preparing for the election campaign that would lead to independence in March 1990. In South Africa, the head of the CCB Joe Verster called in three regional structures of his murky organisation to launch a campaign to destabilize SWAPO. According to Pieter Botes, one of the CCB’s regional managers, this included the assassination of certain SWAPO leaders, sabotage of SWAPO and United Nations vehicles and offices and disruption of meetings. // The head of Region 6 of the CCB, Staal Burger and his men were eager to launch into this new adventure. They were Ferdi Barnard, Chappie Maree, Calla Botha and Slang van Zyl. Members we don’t have pictures of are Wouter Basson and Johan Niemoller. In May 1989 Donald Acheson was caught shoplifting in South Africa, the charges were withdrawn when he was recruited as an agent by Ferdi Barnard after which Acheson said he would be prepared to kill for money. Soon afterwards Chappie Marree became Acheson’s official handler ...more | Full Transcript |
| 26:51 | Niemoller and Muller made elaborate videos of Lubowski’s home and the area around his house and tapped his home and office telephones. And on the 1st of September 1989 CCB boss Joe Verster, Staal Burger, Chappie Maree, Calla Botha and Wouter Basson watched the videos in this hotel room in Johannesburg and decided on a plan of action. // Around 8 o’clock the evening of 12 September Acheson’s landlady saw him sneaking out of her property with what looked like a rifle in a bag. He got into his rented red Toyota Conquest with someone else and drove off. Prosecutors and policemen believe the other passenger was his handler, Chappie Maree. // A little earlier Anton Lubowski phoned his partner Michaela Clayton from his SWAPO office to tell her he was on his way home. As Lubowski got to his front gate a red Toyota Conquest stopped a few meters away from him. One of the occupants shot Lubowski several times with an AK47. Lubowski died immediately. Several neighbours saw the red Conquest ...more | Full Transcript |
| 28:42 | Lubowski was buried as a national hero. In the 1994 inquest in the Windhoek High Court Judge Harold Levy found that there was prima facie evidence that these men were accomplices to the murder: Ferdi Barnard, Chappie Maree, Staal Burger, Calla Botha, Slang van Zyl, Joe Verster, as well as Johan Niemoller and Wouter Basson. The controversial part of Judge Levy’s finding was that Acheson was the man who pulled the trigger. Investigators now believe he was merely the driver of the red Conquest and that one of the CCB men did the killing. | Full Transcript |
| 29:45 | Judge Levy harshly criticized the prosecutor general of Namibia, Hans Heyman and some of the police investigators. It must have been at least partly for this reason that Heyman stated that he did not agree with Levy and reopened the inquest. This inquest was held this week. But after five days Judge Nic Hannah found that he had not heard any new evidence to lead him to a different finding to that of Judge Levy. Again the CCB men were not there to give evidence. Heyman says he subpoenaed them and South Africa’s foreign affairs confirm that these documents were received from Namibia, but only one working day before they had to appear. What is more, the subpoenas as sent by the Namibians had absolutely no legal standing in South Africa and the CCB members simply ignored it. It is the second time the Namibians made this mistake. There has been much talk of the extradition of the suspects from South Africa to Namibia. | Full Transcript |
| 30:43 | We had fruitful discussions on the issue of the colonial debt, the issue of assets that were being claimed by the former South African government, including Walvis Bay. The repatriation of Namibian Koevoet and SWATF members from South Africa to Namibia and the extradition of Lubowski’s murder suspects. // There is the question of extradition of certain criminals whose task was to use the cover of state authority in order to plot and to assassinate individuals simply because they demanded freedom and liberation in their own countries. | Full Transcript and References |
| 31:37 | But there is still no extradition treaty between the two countries. However, there is a way out. According to the Extradition Act the president can declare the suspects liable for extradition. The normal legal processes would then follow as if there were an extradition treaty. But the Namibians nor anyone else for that matter have not asked President Mandela to make such a declaration. One should be forgiven for beginning to wonder if there is a political will in Windhoek or Pretoria to resolve this assassination. Perhaps there are still people in power who believe this great lie by former Defence Minister Magnus Malan recently repeated before the Truth Commission. | Full Transcript |
| 32:22 | [I reveal today that Mr. Lubowski was a paid agent of the Military Information and am sure he did good work for the South African Army. The head of Intelligence Gen Witkop Badenhorst would therefore not have approved any action against Mr. Lubowski.] | Full Transcript |
| 32:43 | It has been beyond doubt by statements coming from Military Intelligence officers and analyses of the forged documents produced by the military that Anton Lubowski was never a spy. There seems to be only one way we will ever get to the full truth about Anton Lubowski and have it sanctioned by a court of law. If the seven South African CCB members named by Judge Levy were charged with the crime of conspiracy to murder because all the evidence indicate the assassination plans were made in Johannesburg. There is at least one full account, that of Slang van Zyl, of the Rosebank meeting where the assassination was sanctioned. And regardless of who pulled the trigger, the large body of evidence gathered so far indicates that all the suspects either actively participated in the plans or knew about it and helped cover it up. This would mean they had a common purpose with the killer. In the interests of justice and the interests of Anton Labowski’s family and two young children we should ...more | Full Transcript |
