Ann Eveleth
The Investigation Task Unit (ITU) probing hit-squads in KwaZulu-Natal is to lose another key member: state prosecutor Carl Koenig will leave his post next week.
Koenig will follow supercop Frank Dutton to take up a post with the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
His departure will be a blow to the ITU as well as the legal team prosecuting former defence minister Magnus Malan and 16 others.
Koenig played a pivotal role in bringing the case to trial and assists attorney general Tim McNally and prosecutor Bennie Schonfeldt in court.
He was expected to be called on to lead evidence, as his role in the investigation had equipped him with intimate knowledge of the case. But relations between him and McNally soured last year after McNally suspended him on the day the trial’s first suspects were to appear in court.
Koenig was already seconded to the ITU, which answers to Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi, at the time, and McNally argued that “recent events have brought into sharper focus for me the fact that [Koenig is] no longer accountable [to him]”.
McNally said Koenig had been attached to the Goldstone Commission before his secondment to the ITU and had not been prosecuting for some time. He lifted Koenig’s suspension after a confrontation with the ITU, agreeing that Koenig could report to him and Mufamadi.