Former police commander Eugene de Kock’s trial next week promises a taste of things to come, reports Stefaans Brummer
TOP police officers and politicians will be watching closely when Eugene Alexander de Kock goes on trial in Pretoria on Monday. A number of them have been implicated in the “Third Force” misdeeds for which the former police commander has to answer.
Should the trial go ahead as planned — Transvaal attorney general Jan D’Oliveira is ready to prosecute, but whether the defence will ask for another postponement was not clear this week — South Africans can prepare themselves for a preview of the kind of disclosures that are to be expected from the Truth Commission.
De Kock (45) faces 121 counts ranging from murder, attempted murder and kidnapping to the illegal possession of huge arsenals of war materiel. Analyse the indictment against him and a picture emerges of a charismatic security operative, commander of the police elite anti-terrorist unit at Vlakplaas since 1985 — but also of a ruthless crook who allegedly conspired in multiple murder for a few thousand rands.
The De Kock trial is to be the first judicial test of “Third Force” disclosures originally made by the Goldstone Commission before last year’s elections. The investigating team under D’Oliveira, formed to pursue further Goldstone’s information, is probing allegations against many others, but it is understood they first want to complete the De Kock prosecution before launching others.
Men in high places who may find themselves dragged down with De Kock include kwaZulu/Natal MEC for Safety and Security Celani Mtetwa, who has been implicated in helping De Kock’s group run arms to the Inkatha Freedom Party, and Lieutenant-General Johan le Roux, outgoing head of the police Crime Combating and Investigation Service.
Le Roux, said in an affidavit to have had no objections to the murder of Japie Maponya, the innocent brother of a suspected Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadre, announced his early retirement last week. He said it was clear his security police background would impede his police career.
Le Roux and Mtetwa are among those implicated by evidence gathered against De Kock, but should De Kock co-operate, the names of those who gave orders or had knowledge of misdeeds may well emerge.
One high-ranker already tarred with the De Kock brush is Adriaan Vlok, former minister of law and order. An affidavit leaked to the media late last year alleged that Vlok had congratulated police on the bombing of Khotso House, the South African headquarters of the World Council of Churches, in 1988.
De Kock and other senior policemen, including Brigadier Alf Oosthuizen, chief of police intelligence, and Major George Hammond, commander of the police bomb disposal unit, were implicated in the affidavit.
Two affidavits implicate Mtetwa and other IFP politicians, including Themba Khoza, Victor Ndlovu, James Ndlovu and Humphrey Ndlovu, in De Kock’s alleged provision of arms to IFP members after 1990. During this period Khoza and the Ndlovus were allegedly registered as police informers under false names, receiving R800 to R1 000 a month from the police.
Among the charges De Kock faces are:
* Five charges of murder. De Kock and his men at Vlakplaas allegedly ambushed a minibus on March 26 1992. Arms were allegedly planted to suggest the occupants had fired on police before they were killed. De Kock allegedly claimed R20 000 from the police as “reward” for a fictitious informant. It is not clear if, and how, the money was distributed between the policemen who participated in the ambush.
* Kidnapping and conspiring to murder Brian Ngcalunga in July 1990. Ngcalunga, one of the men De Kock commanded, gave false evidence to the Harms Commission of Inquiry to protect police, but “the higher hierarchy” of police were allegedly concerned he might tell the truth about the death of Durban lawyer Griffiths Mxenge.
* Conspiracy to murder Maponya in mid-1986. Vlakplaas men were allegedly called in by the Krugersdorp security branch to get information from Maponya on his brother. When Maponya refused to talk even after a severe assault, he was taken to Swaziland and killed.
* The murder of Goodwill Sikhakhane, an ANC cadre turned police informer, in January 1991. Sikhakhanehad had allegedly learnt that police had killed members of the ANC’s Operation Vula, and De Kock allegedly ordered his underlings to kill him.
* The attempted murder of former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, who made public disclosures of police hit squads in 1989, and the murder of lawyer Bheki Mlangeni. De Kock allegedly ordered Coetzee to be killed. A portable tape recorder and earphones with explosives were sent to Coetzee, who refused to accept the parcel and it was returned to sender, falsely indicated as Mlangeni, who was killed.
* A number of charges relating to the illegal possession of large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives in October 1993. De Kock allegedly received the war materiel from armaments manufacturer Mechem. It is not clear whether the weapons were ever retrieved, and what their purpose was.
* A host of charges of fraud or theft. De Kock and his men allegedly received tens of thousands of rands from police headquarters, allegedly under the pretence of compensating informers — who were fictitious.