Assassinated Namibian advocate Anton Lubowski may have been set up as a Military Intelligence informer, reports Louise Flanagan
Documentary evidence which points to South African Military Intelligence (MI) having framed assassinated Windhoek advocate Anton Lubowski as a military source in an apparent attempt to cover up for his killers has now come to light after a lengthy investigation.
Some of the evidence was given to Judge Louis Harms’ inquiry into hit squads in 1990 but he chose to ignore this and it was never made public. Judge Harms has declined to comment on his inquiry.
Lubowski, a prominent Swapo member, was gunned down in Windhoek on September 12 1989. An inquest, which has now been reopened in Namibia, pointed towards members of the South African military’s notorious and now-disbanded Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) as the assassins.
At the Harms Inquiry the Defence Force produced a series of documents to back up a dramatic claim by then-Defence Minister General Magnus Malan that Lubowski had been recruited and paid as an MI source three months before his assassination. Malan had claimed that, as Lubowski worked for the military, he would not have been murdered by the CCB.
This was accepted by Judge Harms, despite the fact that the military’s documentary “proof” that Lubowski was a paid informer appears to have been fabricated.
Further evidence obtained by the Weekly Mail & Guardian highlights flimsy efforts to protect top Pretoria lawyer Ernst Johan Victor Penzhorn, who has a history of involvement in government dirty tricks operations.
It was Penzhorn’s close corporation, Global Capital Investments, that was used as an MI front to launder three payments totalling R100 000 to Lubowski in June 1989.
The military claimed that Penzhorn did not know his close corporation was being used as an MI front, and Penzhorn claimed he had sold Global long before Lubowski was paid anyway. The evidence now available shows otherwise.
Two weeks ago the Defence Force finally authorised the release of the once-restricted close corporation file on Global to the WM&G. The records clearly show that Penzhorn was the sole member (owner) of Global from 1985 until well after Lubowski’s death.
The records also show a crude attempt to backdate ownership of Global. The file contains a letter to the Registrar of Companies from a Rika Marie Roux, dated March 26 1990, stating that she had taken over Global from Penzhorn in 1986.
Penzhorn, it appears, sold the company to a non-existent person. Rika Marie Roux is not listed in the population register and her identity number supplied in the documents is false.
Close corporation law states that changes of ownership are only valid from the date they are entered at the Registry and may not be backdated. The Registrar himself notes the date of Penzhorn’s resignation as March 1990 – – after Lubowski’s assassination.
Despite the alleged change of ownership, Penzhorn continued to sign changes to the Global records in May 1989. Even after the March 1990 handover to Roux, the Global accountants continued to use Penzhorn’s postal address.
Even last year, Penzhorn appears to have still been linked to Global. Although Global deregistered in June 1990, a private investigator’s report indicates that the Global bank account used to pay Lubowski continued to operate with Penzhorn as the sole signatory until May 5 1994 — after the elections.
Judge Harms stated in his 1990 findings that he had been shown various documents relating to the payments to Lubowski. He listed these as the SADF requisitions for payments, Treasury cheques drawn on the SADF account and payable to Global as an intermediary, Global cheques to Lubowski and Paradiso Trust which he controlled, and various bank deposit slips.
There is no indication from Judge Harms’ findings that he was ever shown either the original Defence Force motivation for recruiting Lubowski, or any proof of work which Lubowski did. The Defence Force has flatly refused to provide any such documents to the WM&G.
The WM&G managed to view the financial documents shown to Judge Harms.
After lengthy discussions, the Defence Force finally allowed the WM&G to view but not copy the original Global cheques which were used to pay Lubowski. Each of these three cheques is signed by two people, one person who signed all three and two other signatories.
None of the signatures bears any resemblance to Penzhorn’s own signature but the Defence Force would not give any details on the signatories.
The Defence Force has claimed that Penzhorn was unaware of MI’s use of either Global or the Global account. However, it is impossible for anyone else to have legally signed on the Global account unless they had been authorised to do so by Penzhorn himself.
In his findings Judge Harms agreed that Penzhorn was unaware of the transactions. “The Commission also obtained evidence that the person or persons in control of the intermediary or intermediaries was or were unaware of the transactions through the account(s),” stated Judge Harms.
Standard Bank has refused to divulge any details about the transaction but it appears that no legal action was ever taken against either the Defence Force or its members for the fraudulent transfer of R100 000 through the Global bank account.
In his findings on the Lubowski matter, Harms explained that he agreed to the Defence Force’s request for secrecy on the matter because “existing information systems would be jeopardised (and) existing agents’ freedom or lives could be exposed to danger”.
Another remarkable feature of the Lubowski payments is the Treasury cheques paid to Global, to fund the laundered payments from Global to Lubowski. Although the Treasury cheques are dated in sequential order and all the dates correspond with those on the Global payments, the Treasury cheque numbers show a curious disparity.
The first Treasury cheque, for a payment of R40 000, is numbered 466 cheques later than the last payment, pointing to an attempt to backdate at least one payment.
Only one of the three payments, for an amount of R40 000 and apparently deposited on June 17 1989, was paid to Lubowski directly. The other two payments, of R40 000 on June 8 and R20 000 on June 28, were paid to the Paradiso Trust which was controlled by Lubowski.
Although the Defence Force claimed the payments were made to Lubowski in advance to ease his personal financial crisis, Lubowski does not appear to have tried to move the money out of the Paradiso account into his own account as would have been expected.
Although Judge Harms referred to all three of the MI forms presented to him as “requisition forms which led to the cheques being issued”, one is clearly not a requisition but rather a reconciliation for an amount already paid out.
A further anomaly is that, in complete breach of security, the MI requisitions/reconciliation forms, which are designed to protect the source’s identity even within the Defence Force, were filled out in such a way as to deliberately implicate the slain advocate as an informer.
One of the requisition forms refers to a “final amount” for payment. How did MI officers know they would never need to use Lubowski again, especially if Lubowski did the good work the military claimed he did? Did MI know Lubowski was going to die?
Judge Harms found that the CCB could have killed Lubowski — by mistake, not knowing he was a source. But Colonel Gerrie Hugo, formerly a senior member of MI, says this was impossible.
“A source must be registered in the central register. This is done so the source can’t draw money from the police, MI and (former) National Intelligence Service,” said Hugo.
“If sources aren’t kept there, they are being handled illegally. If the CCB were the killers, before they registered a target they would have approached the central register through their contacts in MI to check if he was a source.
“The CCB were former Special Forces and Intelligence personnel. They knew the system.”
Over a week ago the Defence Force was asked to comment further on some of these issues but a response has still not been received. Requests to Penzhorn for response a week ago have also been ignored.