COETZEE, DJ

I did not give any policeman any illegal instruction, unlawful instruction. Kill a person, assault a person, or do anything of that nature.

You concede that at the very least those words are ambiguous and capable of different interpretations. // Yes not only those words, sir all words are open to misconstruction. I cannot go into semantics about that sir. The dictionary meaning is quite clear, but I don’t think policemen or soldiers ...

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.

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 ...

They were trying to build up a case and just couldn’t get him in because he was sticking strictly according to the law and he was a thorn in the flesh and we have to get rid of him. That’s correct. // So they in fact told you that there was nothing against this man, he was acting according to ...

Of course there’s well known registered national and international attempts on my life, like the walkman bomb that was sent to me and killed Bheki Mlangeni, the contract murder that they tried in 1992 where they asked the freedom loyalist and terrorist in Northern Ireland and I am seen amongst ...

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.

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 ...

Can you give us a reason why your policemen did not act regarding the abduction of either the four youths from the manse or of the two youths Lolo Sono and Sibuniso Tshabalala timeously? Can you give us a reason? // In that case it is negligence on the side of the public who knew but wouldn’t ...

I asked for Joe Mamasela to come down to assist in the operation because he was the main operator I would say, with Almond Nofemela of course, but a sober guy. A non-smoker, a non-drinker, had the killer instinct, super fit.

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.

... 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 ...

Why did you kill Mxenge so brutally? // The intention was not to kill him brutally. It was to make the whole thing appear … it was to simulate robbery. But unfortunately in the scene of crime certain things develop that you don’t expect. Mxenge’s physical strength was undermined but when he ...

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.

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 ...

No plan, no envisaged plan, no joint venture of that nature was ever discussed with me at all. // I’m not aware of any case where the Defence Force and the police would have acted together internally and where people had been killed and had not been discussed with me. // I in my more than 35 ...

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 ...

He was officially released at Bloemfontein where his car and belongings were handed to him and then a big scene in front of the uniform branch personal I suppose and when he then left on the road, he was abducted again by Nick van Rensburg and his men.

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 ...