Former defence minister Magnus Malan said the arrests yesterday of himself and 10 former military officials were the “biggest crisis for democracy in South Africa”.
Speaking to journalists after the 11 men appeared in court in connection with the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre, Malan shouted over dozens of black protesters outside the Durban Regional Court, who yelled “murderers” and sang in Zulu.
Earlier, inside the courtroom, dozens of former police and military heads, as well as former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and former police commissioner Johan van der Merwe, lined up to shake the hands of the stony-faced accused after bail conditions were set.
Most of the men were ordered to pay R10 000 bail, and all were instructed to report to various police stations weekly — some, ironically, to Pretoria’s Adriaan Vlok station — and to hand in their passports to ITU head Colonel Frank Dutton. The men are due to appear again with seven other suspects, for the 1987 KwaMakhutha murders on December 1, when an indictment will be served.
* The impending arrest of Malan and his co-accused was leaked last week by right-wing sources to the Afrikaans weekly, Rapport. Malan was originally due to have been arrested on Monday, but Malan’s lawyers asked for time and the AG agreed to delay their appearance until yesterday.
After the story broke in Rapport, Mufamadi’s office
was forced to hold a press conference about the arrests.