Weekly Mail Reporter
THE Weekly Mail & Guardian hired a private investigator to “bug” the offices of former Civil Co-Operation Bureau chief Staal Burger in 1992 after receiving evidence from a number of sources about secret meetings at his Hillbrow hotel, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court was told this week.
The intention, senior staffer Eddie Koch said, was to find out what was happening at meetings that Burger was holding with a covert group known as the Badger Unit.
Among those alleged to have attended the meetings were Eugene de Kock, former Vlakplaas commander now on trial for murder, former CCB member Eugene Reilly, former CCB member and convicted murderer Ferdi Barnard and another CCB member, Chappy Kloppers.
Koch was giving evidence in the trial of co-editor Anton Harber and private investigator Jan Kleinhans. They are charged with crimen injuria.
Koch said he headed a team at the newspaper charged with exposing the causes of the violence that was rocking the country and threatening political negotiations. He believed the activities of a “third force” — disgruntled members or former members of the security forces who were opposed to the government’s talks with the ANC — contributed to the violence.
He outlined a series of WM&G articles pointing to the Department of Military Intelligence’s (DMI) involvement in the “third force” and suspicions that Burger was still a member of DMI.
He told how a number of sources had then come forward to tell of the meetings Burger was holding with individuals linked to covert activity.
Koch said the newspaper had exhausted all other ways of finding out what was happening in those meetings when it was decided, after discussing the ethics involved, to hire an investigator to put Burger’s offices under surveillance.
Koch said the action was “unconventional” but was considered justified in terms of journalists’ ethics because there was overwhelming public interest in identifying those involved in violence.
The newspaper was not interested in Burger himself, his private conversations or allegations of his involvement in other dubious activities, but in the Badger Unit meetings, he said.
The case, being heard by Magistrate F Roets, was postponed.