Peta Thornycroft
THE Transvaal attorney general’s office is putting the finishing touches to the case against several police generals who will be arrested and charged in the middle of next month.
General “Krappies” Engelbrecht is finally going to be brought to court three years after he was forced to leave the police service, following Judge Richard Goldstone’s allegations of massive security force involvement in South Africa’s low grade civil war.
Engelbrecht is a close friend of convicted mass murderer Eugene de Kock, who was forced to admit in court last year how Engelbrecht became the “sweeper” for atrocities committed by the secret police death squad at Vlakplaas.
Strangely, Engelbrecht has not applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty.
Charges against Engelbrecht will include conspiracy to murder, obstruction of justice and fraud. He will be accused of co-ordinating false affidavits for the policemen accused of killing four men in Nelspruit in March 1992.
Another general, former Eastern Cape security chief Nick van Rensburg, is also going to be charged with a long list of murders. And General Johan le Roux will be accused of playing a role in the murder of a bank employee, Japie Maponya.
There may well be others enjoined in the indictment.
The case has been delayed over the years by the bulk of information emerging from various trials.
In addition, the understaffed attorney general’s office is unable to cope with the growing number of key investigations as more and more security force operatives seek to become state witnesses in return for indemnity from prosecution.
Another general named by Judge Goldstone in 1994, Basie Smit, has now begun to prepare a submission for the truth commission.
Smit, a popular policemen in the early part of his career, went on to head up the security police and has always loudly denied any knowledge of, or complicity in, dirty tricks.
It is clear from information submitted in amnesty applications so far that few if any senior police officers will willingly tell the whole story.
Most of them are being advised to confirm to the truth commission only what is known from various trials or what has been exposed by other operatives.