Eddie Koch
Dirk Coetzee, the police hitman who first exposed the existence of death squads in the police, will not receive legal assistance from the government when he is arrested on Friday this week for the 1981 murder of human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge.
The decision not to pay Coetzee’s legal costs, even though he has cooperated fully with the African National Congress and the government to expose third force operations in the apartheid era, is in stark contrast to the treatment of other other dirty tricks operatives currently on murder charges.
Police are paying the full costs for Colonel Eugene de Kock, former commander of one of the most active death squads in the country, now facing more than 100 murder and fraud charges. The expenses of 19 murder suspects in the Magnus Malan trial are being paid by the South African National Defence Force. The combined costs of these two cases so far amounts to about R10-million.
Coetzee told the Mail & Guardian he and another former hitman, Spyker Tshikalanga, would hand themselves to police on Friday. Both men expect to be freed on R1 000 bail.
The decision not to pay the legal fees and expenses incurred by Coetzee and other policemen involved in the forthcoming Mxenge murder trial was made in terms of a state regulation that officials who admit to criminal activities do not qualify for legal aid.
“We have been informed by the state attorney that we will have to pay all of our own costs including travel to and from Durban and lodging,” said Coetzee. “This shows that it is better for all those people who carried out human rights atrocities to deny this instead of coming clean. Despite all this talk of truth and reconciliation, the system rewards those who lie.”
The truth commission is known to be worried about the impact of Coetzee’s recent comments on perpetrators who are considering whether or not to apply for amnesty, in return for full confessions about their involvement in human rights abuse during the apartheid era.
The police captain has stated publicly that he feels like a “used condom” and that it is not worth it for “all those Dirk Coetzee’s out there” to reveal their past.
Coetzee also says he has been “abandoned” by the African National Congress. The renegade policeman says the organisation promised support in exchange for his early and valuable information about hit- squad operations in the police during the 1980s.
The policeman first revealed details about the notorious Vlakplaas unit to reporters from the Vrye Weekblad in 1989. “An intermediary, Andre Zaaiman, went to Lusaka to the ANC looking for a deal for Dirk. He came back to Vrye Weekblad and told us the ANC would look after Dirk in return for a full confession,” says former Weekblad reporter Jacques Paauw.
`They never gave him an undertaking that he wouldn’t be charged, because they couldn’t. But they did agree to look after him. The ANC did do this until he got back from exile in London. And they also got him a job in the National Intelligence Agency.”
However, Coetzee is also bitter because the ANC allegedly failed to include him on the list of people who were indemnified against criminal prosecution before they came back into the country from exile.
Jacob Zuma, deputy head of ANC intelligence and Coetzee’s handler in exile, was not available at the time of going to press to answer queries about whether his organisation would assist its members now being charged for crimes they helped expose.
Coetzee has applied for amnesty from the truth commission, but this had not been processed by the time an order for his arrest had been issued by the KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally.
His trial could be postponed to allow his amnesty application to be heard only if the judge, AG and amnesty committee of the truth commission agree to do this.