/ 29 May 2008

The spy who lost it

Apartheid killer Craig Williamson was declared bankrupt by the Johannesburg High Court last week, in the only form of legal justice he will probably ever face. His nemesis is the 26-year-old son of one of his victims, who as a toddler saw his mother and sister blown apart by a parcel bomb in their Angolan home in June 1984.

Apartheid killer Craig Williamson was declared bankrupt by the Johannesburg High Court last week, in the only form of legal justice he will probably ever face.

Williamson’s nemesis is the 26-year-old son of one of his victims, who as a toddler saw his mother and sister blown apart by a parcel bomb in their Angolan home in June 1984.

Fritz Schoon was two years old when he survived the bombing that killed his mother, Jeanette, and his six-year-old sister, Katryn. His father, Marius Schoon, came home to find their remains in the kitchen. The Schoons knew Williamson as a fellow activist in the National Union of South African Students (Nusas).

Williamson, who was a senior security force officer, was given amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for his role in ordering and organising the assassination.

He was also pardoned for his involvement in a string of other attempted and successful political murders, including the letter bomb that killed Ruth First and the bomb that blew off the forearm of Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs.

The amnesty meant that Williamson could not be prosecuted or sued for his crimes.

The Schoon family and Ruth First’s daughters took the amnesty ruling on review, arguing, among other things, that Williamson had a personal motive for the murders and had failed to make a full disclosure.

The former apartheid agent is offering a financial settlement in exchange for the families dropping moves to overturn the amnesty.

In a situation reminiscent of the OJ Simpson case in the United States, the Schoon family view Williamson’s bankruptcy as their only means of recourse.

Williamson had agreed to pay R100 000 towards legal costs and R325 000 to the families, to be paid at the rate of R50 000 a month, with a final payment of R25 000. He also agreed that if he defaulted, the debt would incur interest of 15,5% a year.

The deal was signed on September 17 2004 and, according to Fritz Schoon, included, at Williamson’s insistence, a confidentiality clause.

However, Williamson failed to honour the agreement. In August 2005, the high court ordered him to pay the outstanding amount plus interest. In August 2006, it ordered the sheriff to attach his property.

When the sheriff caught up with Williamson on January 22 last year, the former apartheid agent declared he had neither the means to honour the settlement nor assets to sell.

The implication was that his house, in the exclusive Beaulieu Estate in Kyalami, and the 4×4 vehicle with a personalised number plate, CMW001, did not belong to him.

He is also registered as the owner of four businesses. There have been persistent rumours that he has diamond interests in Angola.

In November last year, Schoon moved to sequestrate Williamson, arguing in his founding affidavit that he ”is evading the payment of his indebtedness — by either failing to disclose property and assets he owns or concealing such property and assets from me”.

The judge agreed. This week he ordered the sequestration of Williamson’s estate, clearing the way for a liquidator to probe his affairs.

Among the legal implications are that he cannot enter a contract, hold a credit card or serve as a company director.

Schoon said his lawyer, Karien Norval, of Cheadle, Thompson and Haysom, had discovered that Williamson was a director of Equistock Properties 143, the sole member of FFC Marketing CC and of Kial Investment Holdings CC, as well as an active director of Zamira Trading.

Williamson refused to comment when approached by the Mail & Guardian.

Interviewed this week Schoon explained that he had accepted the original monetary settlement because he feared that the court challenge to Willamson’s amnesty would fail — with the result that he would escape unscathed. ”The only way to get to a man like him is to pinch his pockets,” said Schoon.

”I was very sceptical about the review, as it would open the floodgates and risk eroding much of the TRC’s work. I was not confident that the state wouldn’t intervene to prevent the case being a success.”

Williamson has been married for many years to Ingrid Williamson, a psychiatrist, who practises under her maiden name in Johannesburg.

As the marriage is out of community of property the courts cannot attach any property in her name. But they can investigate how and why assets are transferred out of an insolvent estate and, in some circumstances, seize assets transferred to avoid payment of a debt.

Williamson lived a double life for years, first working as an apartheid agent in Nusas and then penetrating the ANC via the Swiss-based International University Exchange Fund, which funded the ANC underground in the front-line states.

After his cover was blown in 1980 he disappeared into the bowels of the security police, where he was involved in organising hits on anti-apartheid activists based outside the country.