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Safety and Security Minister Mufamadi has been landed in another potentially embarrassing legal situation, reports Mungo Soggot
T HE lawyer who defended Eastern Cape killer policeman Gideon Niewoudt has been hired by Sydney Mufamadi’s Safety and Security Department to fight a civil claim lodged by the three widows of Niewoudt’s victims.
The widows, Doreen Mgoduka, Pearl Faku and Stombiwe Mapipa, are suing Mufamadi for loss of support. Their husbands were policemen whom Niewoudt and his accomplices blew up at Motherwell in Port Elizabeth in 1989 for fear they would expose police involvement in the murder of anti-apartheid activist Matthew Goniwe and the “Pebco 3”.
The advocate whom Mgoduka’s and Faku’s team will be up against is PJ de Bruyn, SC, of the Port Elizabeth Bar, who has represented the state in other cases involving security police.
Senior officials in Mufamadi’s department could not be contacted this week to comment on the irony of the choice of the lawyer the civil claim, which is unlikely to have been made with the direct knowledge of the minister.
What is even more startling about the department’s handling of the case is that Mufamadi is understood to have indicated to the widows that he would consider making them ex-gratia payments.
Earlier this year, Mufamadi was put in the embarrassing position of having an appeal againsta R180000 damages award to a victim of police torture fought in his name.
The first Mufamadi knew of the matter was when the Mail & Guardian published the story. Once alerted, he withdrew the case.
Commenting at the time on the friction between old-guard civil servants and their new political masters, Safety and Security Secretary Azar Cachalia lashed out in May at the state attorney’s office for its handling of police legal matters, homing in on their “knee-jerk” habit of defending claims.
He also said the choice of advocates for police matters would have to change.
Counsel in the torture case argued that the victim, Umkhonto weSizwe cadre Japie Maphalala, should have been accustomed to such abuse because he was a soldier.
The liability of Mufamadi and the police in the Niewoudt case will hinge to an extent on whether the court decides Niewoudt was acting in the course of his police work when he murdered his colleagues.
Niewoudt was sentenced to 15 years’ jail in June and Mufamadi’s department is currently trying to saddle him with the legal bill for the trial.
Mufamadi’s team is arguing that the plaintiffs’ husbands were killed in the line of duty and that they cannot claim compensation in addition to what they are currently receiving from the Workmen’s Compensation Scheme.
They are also arguing that the widows’ claims have fallen away, as more than three years have elapsed since the commission of inquiry into the car bomb.