Rehana Rossouw
A MAJOR breakthrough was made by the truth commission at its Cape Town hearing this week when policemen began confessing their involvement in the killing of the “Guguletu Seven”.
Superintendent William Liebenberg, former head of Cape Town’s terrorism detection unit, admitted Vlakplaas operatives had been central in a security police operation in 1986 against the Seven.
Liebenberg, reading from a prepared statement, said the Western Cape had been “under attack” from “terrorists”, and he requested assistance from security police headquarters in Pretoria to root them out.
He insisted he did not know they were sent by Vlakplaas, although he knew they reported to its commander, Eugene de Kock. This is the first time a Vlakplaas operation has been exposed in the Cape.
A Sergeant Bellingham and Constable Mbelo had been sent from Pretoria, as well as two men who infiltrated a group of “terrorists” based in the Cape Town squatter camp KTC.
The men reported on March 3 that the group was planning to ambush a police bus in Guguletu, Liebenberg said. The security police then planned to confront them at an intersection near the police station, shoot their tyres to stop the vehicle they were to use, and arrest them.
But when the vehicle reached the intersection, no arrests were made and seven men were killed instead. Liebenberg said he had already left the scene and had not fired a single shot.