COETZEE, CS

What I think we find difficult to understand is how this could take place, how people could die, could be tortured, could be abducted, could be buried and many of them; and people like yourself and others just didn’t know, weren’t aware of that these people were acting unlawfully or illegally ...

I do believe in myself. I want to get truth, what happened in those days and in future, our children must know what happened in those days when our parents were still alive. All I remember is that in the morning the neighbours, I think the neighbours next door to me, came to the house and look me ...

Mxenge was observed by Almond Nofemela and Joe Mamasela. A few days before the murder they poisoned his dogs. // It was to leave the decision for the place of the actual murder in the hands of the operatives. You could either do it at work if the occasion was right, it was late enough, if it was ...

As we entered into Gaborone I left Paul van Dyk and David Tshikalanga with a bakkie about one and a half street blocks away under a tree from the target house whilst Koos Vermeulen and myself with Almond Nofemela and Joe Mamasela proceeded to the house on the corner, right next to the target house.

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 ...

I was forced to kill my own people, the people that I devoted my life into liberating. // We believed in what we were doing as killers, we were seeing it as a war situation. // Our job was to hunt cadres, whether PAC or ANC, and we kill them. If we think they are useless, we kill them, but if we ...

There Andy Taylor and Jerry Fourie interrogated him. They clouted him a few times. He kept on denying that he was still actively involved with the ANC in any way. They eventually decided then, Capt Andy Taylor, Jerry Fourie and the military intelligence, Major Callie Steyn to bring in an army ...

Well, I don’t know whether it was his first killing, but he was in a way forced into it, yes. Because, I mean, once the blacks were involved in the planning of an assassination and they would refuse to participate. It means that it’s a negative element who might spill the beans later, and would ...

It was ANC cadres that infiltrated the country on operations that were caught by the police, by the security police. Then they had the difficult option of facing court cases and long interrogation, third degree methods used, electrical shocks, smothering with a wet bag over the head or decide to ...

You have said that you would like one day to meet Mrs. Kondile and look her in the eye. // I would like to do that in future, yes sir. // Mrs. Kondile asked me to convey to you that that is an honour that she feels you do not deserve and that if you were really remorseful you would have not applied ...

A decision is taken so flippantly and a man’s life is put to an end. I am alarmed by that. // I can understand that Mr. Chairman, I think in those days a black man’s life meant absolutely nothing.

There’s one thing that I will have to live with till the day I day, it’s the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse, I can assure you a lot, a hell of a lot.

... is incredibly expressive of those two things: the frown on her brow, the hair in her hand, the anger, the pain that she’s carrying. // I went to Coetzee’s house in Pretoria and immediately I was struck by the phenomenal … that he’s actually incarcerated himself. It doesn’t matter what ...

The second Maseru is a different operation. It was a Vlakplaas operation; it was led by Eugene de Kock. The operatives were all Vlakplaas operatives, a number of whom have applied for amnesty. The second raid occurred at a time in December of 1985 when the South African government was extremely ...

These are some of the faces of South Africa’s political killers. They want the Truth Commission to grant them amnesty. But why should they be set free instead of going to jail? The answer lies in the political settlement that brought us our democracy in 1994.

You never authorized anyone, and if any person under your command purported to authorize someone to commit an unlawful act, that person would have been acting unlawfully. Is that correct? // That person must be asked. // That person would be acting unlawfully. // That person must be asked… // ...

Who gave you the instruction, to go and kill Mxenge? // Brigadier H. R. van der Hofen who was the then the regional commander of security, Port Natal, Durban. I was called in, or reported every morning at Brigadier Van der Hofen’s office and also in the afternoon for instructions, briefing and ...

One of Major Archie Flemington’s men, a sergeant or a warrant, a slender built tallish man, light hair took a makarov pistol with a silencer on and whilst he was lying, Mr. Kondile was lying on his back, shot him on top of the head. There was a short jerk and that was it. The four junior, ...

Here is the place which they then later built where the ministers and Basie Smit and them braaid, had their Chivas Regal whiskey, congratulated the guys where the ‘potjiekos’ was made, you can see big fireplaces. If you have all the liquor and the meat that was absorbed here you can open a ...

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.