DU PLESSIS, ES

... Mhlauli left a UDF meeting in Port Elizabeth and set out to drive home to Cradock. They were never seen alive again. Their mutilated, charred corpses were discovered days later in three different places along the Eastern Cape coastline. Who killed the Cradock Four? The Special Report has been ...

... Louis Trichardt we decided that we were past the point of return. People had died. The police could be looking for us. We could not turn back. // During operations the next few days NSP members obtained weapons and ammunition. Jurgen Grobbelaar’s parents became worried when he didn’t ...

As far as I can remember Sgt Roy Otto took out his firearm, and I think it was his service pistol, and shot Kondile. Afterwards he was put on some wood which was already there and we also gathered some more wood and he was burnt to death.

It was, as I said, a very very unpleasant event in my life and I would not have been able to put them through unnecessary physical pain. // These people were high-profile people; they were learned people. They were politically active and they had no fear of the security branch, neither did they ...

... Truth Commission about the disappearance of her son, Sizwe in 1981. The first time Dirk Coetzee heard the name Sizwe Kondile was in London in 1989. During lengthy debriefing by the ANC it became clear that Kondile had been one of Coetzee’s nameless victims. This week Sizwe Kondile’s family ...

And do you believe that the murder of the Pebco Three was warranted. // At that stage yes.

The fact that he was in a wheelchair, did he attend meetings in his wheelchair and address the meetings from his wheelchair? // Yes that is correct. They transported him from one meeting to the next where he addressed these meetings and used as an example that whatever the system wished to do to ...

… Captain Hechter, Sergeant Van der Westhuyzen and Slang, his name was Danny Sihlale questioned him. We used a gas mask, assaulted him and executed electrical shocks on him to gain information. He was a great ANC activist. He had thrown several petrol bombs in Mamelodi and he was involved in ...

What was the content of this note? // It was to inform the ANC, it was directed to a person to inform the ANC that firstly he had been arrested and secondly that he pretended to be an informer, that at this stage he had provided no information which would harm any ANC member.

It sounds to me like a totally different incident Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mamasela was not there. // Was he one of the askaris? // I believe so, I am not a 100 percent sure, but I believe he was present. // I had no knowledge or information in that regard.

When you reported that death to Mr. Snyman you were speaking about something you do not have factual knowledge of, because you did not witness it - the death. // That’s correct. // I put it to you that the applicants accepted Mr. Koole and Mr. Mogoai and to a lesser extend Mr. Beeslaar did ...

... apartheid, combating the communist onslaught and fighting terrorism. They say the 1981 murder of Sizwe Kondile was executed as part of their duties as security policemen. One of them admitted that Kondile would have been killed even if he had begged for his ...

... instruction but he did say that he realized that there were no other options, that nothing else did work and that I had to proceed and do the best I could in the interest of the country. // And you interpreted that as instruction to go ahead and eliminate. Is that correct? // ...

‘I call the applicant Mr Hermanus Barend du Plessis as the first witness in these proceedings.’ // Captain Hermanus du Plessis, Gen Nic van Rensburg, Gen Gerrit Erasmus and Sgt Johannes Raath, who have all since retried are seeking amnesty for their part in Sizwe Kondile’s death. Former ...

... it that copies will be made for the Committee, but may I read out the relevant passage? Listen carefully Mr. Derby-Lewis what your colleague Mr. DP du Plessis said. Who is mister DP du Plessis? // He was the member of Parliament for Wonderboom. // It’s Wednesday the 21st of October 1992 at page ...

Snyman interpreted his conversation with Minister Le Grange as sanction to eliminate activists. Colonel Hermanus du Plessis came to him and said they’d run out of legal options to contain militants in the Port Elizabeth area. Du Plessis suggested that the only option was elimination. Snyman did ...

The fact that Col Du Plessis told me that he had discussed it with Col Snyman created the impression with me that if it came from Snyman then it most probably came from even higher authority.

... so your honour. // We placed them on the fire wood. We first put down a layer of fire wood and then we put the corpses on top of the fire wood. // During the course of the evening, on several occasions, you had to keep the fire going and put on more wood. And the next morning Captain Du Plessis ...

... Port Elizabeth. In May 1985, three leaders of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi were abducted from Port Elizabeth Airport. They were taken to Post Chalmers, a disused police station in Cradock and eliminated. Five Eastern Cape security ...

This week, almost a year later, the four policemen Nicolas Janse van Rensburg, Hermanus Barend De Plessis, Johannes Gottfried Raath and Gerhard Nicolas Erasmus came to ask for amnesty for the murder. They never spoke at the hearing. Their lawyers argued that Dirk Coetzee’s amnesty application ...