A notorious security policeman, retired Lieutenant General Sebastiaan ”Basie” Smit, might soon rue the day that he turned down an offer from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to join former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok in the dock last week.
Speculation about whether Smit will be prosecuted has been rife since Vlok and former police chief Johann van der Merwe and three security police officers — Chris Smith, Gert Otto and Manie van Staden — received suspended sentences as part of a plea bargain on charges of attempting to poison Frank Chikane, now the director general in the presidency, in 1989.
According to the plea bargain, Vlok and Van der Merwe ”have shown remorse for their deeds and have undertaken to act as state witnesses in the event of a prosecution being instituted against General Sebastiaan Smit”.
The Mail & Guardian understands that the NPA is planning to prosecute Smit not only for the Chikane murder attempt, but also to get closure on a number of other cases the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was unable to solve.
Charl Kruger, Smit’s lawyer and son-in-law, confirmed this week that Smit had been in negotiations with the NPA for a number of months, before Kruger advised him not to commit himself to any deal.
Kruger was not prepared to comment on why Smit and his team had turned down the NPA’s offer. But another legal adviser close to the case said the NPA lacked the necessary ammunition ”to take Smit down” and the former lieutenant general thought he could ride out the storm. But with the testimony of Vlok, Van der Merwe and the three security policemen this might change.
But the NPA is reluctant to commit itself on whether it will bring Wouter Basson, another conspirator in the Chikane plot, to trial again. Basson was implicated in last week’s proceedings, along with a key witness in the Basson trial and a former colleague of Basson, veterinarian André Immelman.
Immelman told the M&G that the NPA had not been in contact with him. ”I know nothing about this case,” he said. Basson said he was totally oblivious of the proceedings in the Vlok case.
After the trial NPA spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi emphasised that if the NPA brought Smit to court Vlok and his co-accused would have to testify as a condition of their plea bargain.
But at the press conference Vlok and Van der Merwe both said they were reluctant to testify against former colleagues.
ANC activists remember Smit as the commander who awarded a medal to convicted mass murderer and former security policeman Eugene de Kock.
Smit was head of the police’s narcotics bureau in Durban and later became the Northern Transvaal divisional commander of the security branch. After 1994 he had a short stint as deputy police commissioner and later appeared before the TRC.