These are photographs of suspected ANC guerrillas, found under a mattress in the home of former security policeman and death row prisoner Butana Almond Nofomela. He says he was ordered to kill the men. These pictures are part of the evidence that emerged this week to back Nofomela’s claims that he was part of a police death squad which assassinated human rights activist Griffiths Mxenge and at least eight other individuals linked to the African National Congress. The men in the pictures have either been assassinated or were targets for assassination before Nofomela’s arrest for murdering a white farmer in 1986.
Weekly Mail has not been able to identify the three. Also discovered in Nofomela’s home this week by members of Lawyers for Human Rights were a cache of 9mm bullets, false passports and foreign currency. One of the passports bears a Swaziland border control stamp; Nofomela claims he used it on an assassination mission in the neighbouring state. And further evidence of the existence of a secret ”anti-terrorist” hit squad based in security police headquarters in Pretoria – including the names of policemen implicated by Nofomela – has emerged in two separate inquests in Natal. In both this week’s inquests, involving incidents in Piet Retief and Chesterville, a Major Eugene Alexander de Kock appears as a senior officer commanding the operation.
In the Piet Relief case, he personally headed an ambush in which four suspected ANC guerrillas were killed. De Kock’s name also appears in Nofomela’s affidavit as a senior link in the chain of command. In the Chesterville case, the court is investigating the deaths in June 1986 of four youths shot dead and two others injured when police opened fire on a hut in the township. The six youths had allegedly been lured into the hut by three security police operatives posing as ”comrades”.
The Piet Retief case involves parallel investigations: in two separate incidents in June last year, groups of four youths crossing the border from Swaziland were shot and killed by police. In one of the incidents – the only one to have been investigated so far – a member of the Pretoria security police squad, claiming to be an ANC contact, met the four youths on the Swaziland border and led them into a police trap. In an affidavit sworn for the Chesterville inquest, De Kock, who describes himself as ”unit commander concerned with investigating terrorism”, says: ”Since 1983 I have been connected with investigating terrorism countrywide … These operations (covert operations like that in Chesterville) are only carried out in exceptional circumstances where It is believed that groups from the ANC are operating.”
Beneath De Kock in the Chesterville chain of command was field officer Lieutenant Paul Jacobus van Dyk, who said in an affidavit put before the court that the unit he headed had been together for three years at the time of the Chesterville killings. He told the court that, travelling down from headquarters in Pretoria, he set up an operational base at CR Swart Police Station in Durban, and the unit came to see me thereâ€. This modus operandi agrees in detail with Nofomela’s allegations of how this unit operated.
In the case of Mxenge – killed at Umlazi Sports Stadium eight years ago – Nofomela says after the final briefing at headquarters in Pretoria, he and his fellow assassins ”travelled to Durban in one car … where we met (field officer Johannes Dirk) Coetzee at CR Swart police station. Coetzee had travelled to Durban separately.” Having killed Mxenge, Nofomela claims, he and his fellow assassins ”returned to CR Swart where we were barracked for the remainder of our stay in Durban”.
The information emerging from the three incidents under scrutiny in these inquests shows a sinister pattern – which matches Nofomela’ tale in many respects:
- In each case the target was a person or group of people believed by the police to be ANC members or to have links with the ANC. Nofomela said all his assassination targets were suspected of having ANC links.
- In nearly all cases, police initially blamed internal ANC rivalries or robberies for the killings. In some, the fact that ANC – associated weapons like AK47s or Makarov 9mm pistols were used gave initial credence to this interpretation. Nofomela claims that he and his co-assassins had orders to make the crime look like a robbery, and to this end Mxenge’s watch and money were removed from the body. Also a tape deck and radio were taken out of the ear, and allegedly later installed in the service vehicle of a Brigadier Schoon.
- Families of the victims have complained about the police investigations. Private prosecutions have been mooted if the state does not prosecute those involved. Mxenge’s family has also complained about a ”slapdash” investigation.
eon each occasion the police set a trap for their victims. Nofomela said his unit had staged a breakdown to stop Mxenge on his way home, and kidnap him.
- Each of the three incidents Involved one or more ”turned” ANC operatives. In each case, this person (or persons) has been used as a secret witness in subsequent trials of former ANC comrades; as such their identities are protected by law and we are unable to publish details. Similiarly, one of the fellow-assassins named by Nofomela gave evidence as a ”Mr X” in a recent Port Elizabeth security case and told the court he was a former ANC member. – Ivor Powell and Carmel Rickard
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail
