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COETZEE, JHAge Description Former Vlakplaas boss, Dirk Coetzee declared in 1989 already that he fetched poison from the head of the forensics laboratory Gen Lothar Neethling in 1981 and gave it to two activists Vusi Mavuso and Peter Dlamini. Neethling denied this and said he never developed poison, a statement later ... When he addressed the Committee, Dirk Coetzee stuck to his story that Sizwe Kondile had been killed because the Eastern Cape security police had not wanted another Steve Biko case on their hands. // Getting rid of him was because he sustained injuries while being tortured, dived through a window ... ... This week Joe Pillay was in Canada, but he sent the Truth Commission an affidavit detailing his treatment at the hands of the police. Dirk Coetzee made no attempt to refute it. // I mean he wasn’t given VIP treatment; that I can assure you and he would have been taunted. That’s the ... I don’t expect the Mxenge family to forgive me because I don’t know how I ever in my life would be able to forgive a man like Dirk Coetzee. ... squads in South Africa in a South African court with the South African laws. It was just impossible. And the way they dealt with people like Dirk Coetzee; they made you part of the atrocities then once they push you to the side you’re isolated. If you might stand up and speak out inside South ... During his amnesty hearing Dirk Coetzee hopes to tell his story for the last time. But he will not be able to bury it. // There’s one thing I will have to live till the day I die, is the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse I can assure ... Alright, thank you, let’s go to the first question, Adri. // Adri Coetzee from Beeld. Mr. Ntsebeza, to follow up on that, are we ever going to know what happened in neighbouring states? Is that being investigated? // Yes it is being investigated. In fact, I have been in discussions with high ... Human rights lawyer and United Democratic Front activist, Griffiths Mxenge was killed by three askaris: Almond Nofemela, David Tshikalanga and the late Brian Ngqulunga. Dirk Coetzee and David Tshikalanga were convicted for the killing. Both have been granted amnesty. Griffiths Mxenge was murdered by Dirk Coetzee’s hit squad in November 1981. In his amnesty application in November last year Coetzee claimed that he had not questioned the order to eliminate Mxenge because it had come from senior security branch officers. // They were trying to build up a case ... 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, ... 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 ... 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. I did not give any policeman any illegal instruction, unlawful instruction. Kill a person, assault a person, or do anything of that nature. 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 ... 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. 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 ... 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 ... 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 ... 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. |
