Mail & Guardian reporter
A TEAM of prosecutors worked around the clock this week putting the final touches to the 40-odd-page indictment against former defence minister Magnus Malan and nine others.
Malan, former Military Intelligence chief General Tienie Groenewald and eight other former and serving officers are charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder and will be indicted today in Durban’s Supreme Court.
They will, for the first time, appear in court with six former KwaZulu policemen accused of carrying out the KwaMakhuta massacre in 1987.
Also in the dock will be Inkatha Freedom Party secretary general MZ Khumalo, a former security policeman Major Louis Botha, and former Military Intelligence operative Brigadier John More.
The indictment makes it clear the challenge for the state is to prove the State Security Council’s secret sub-committee gave orders in 1986 for about 200 men loyal to Inkatha to be trained in the Caprivi Strip by the then South African Defence
And then the state will have to prove a link between those trainees and the massacre of 13 civilians at KwaMakhuta a year later.
The indictment spells out that the state’s strategy will be to prove the link with a series of witnesses who were allegedly involved in the training programme. Some of them were from the the SADF. Other witnesses include men who allegedly took part in the training and subsequent violence
The state will seek to bolster its line-up of witnesses with a series of top-secret documents from the State Security Council.
The indictment names Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, although he is not, at this stage, set down to be called to testify about the origins of the Caprivi 200.
The investigation which has led to this epoch- making trial was headed up by legendary KwaZulu- Natal detective Colonel Frank Dutton and state advocate Carl Koenig.
The men worked together on the Goldstone Commission prior to the establishment of the elite Investigative Task Unit in KwaZulu-Natal.