Stefaans Brummer
A HIGH-RANKING Pretoria police officer may have helped former security police captain Michael Bellingan, implicated in apartheid-era “dirty tricks” and the murder of his wife, to gain residency in New Zealand.
Sources close to the international investigation into Bellingan — who emigrated to New Zealand three weeks after a May 6 inquest verdict pronounced him prima facie responsible for the death of his wife — this week said it had been established that Bellingan’s visa application contained inaccuracies.
Janine Bellingan (35) was found bludgeoned to death in the couple’s Johannesburg home in September 1991 after she had threatened to reveal details of Bellingan’s covert activities as a security policeman, including an alleged scam to defraud the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa).
The sources said Bellingan’s visa application had been accompanied by a testimonial, apparently written by a Pretoria-based police colonel, which falsely stated he had left the SAP in 1990, a year before the murder.
But the South African Police Service has confirmed that Bellingan was in fact discharged from the police on August 31 last year on “medical grounds”.
The sources said other testimonials accompanying the visa application were from companies for which Bellingan claimed he had “worked” after 1990. These companies are suspected of being police fronts.
The investigation into Bellingan’s visa application started after South African authorities liaised with New Zealand immigration authorities when it was discovered that Bellingan, who is expected to be charged soon with the murder of his wife, had emigrated.
The New Zealand Immigration Service last week announced it was reviewing Bellingan’s immigration file. A representative this week said results of the review were expected in about a week.
Bellingan could be expelled if it was found he had not made appropriate disclosures on his visa application, she said.
Speaking from his new home in Auckland this week, Bellingan refused to say whether he was aware of inaccuracies on his visa application. But he said: “One way to flush somebody out is to pass some disinformation along the line.”
He said people “trying to make life uncomfortable for me” would not succeed. “I’ve survived so far in my life by staying one step ahead of the darker forces.”
Bellingan said he would be visiting South Africa next month, and claimed he had nothing to fear from judicial authorities.