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Stefaans Brmmer
AN independent pathologist is to probe the possibility of foul play in this week’s car accident death of Leonard Radu – the police assistant commissioner who was touted to succeed National Commissioner George Fivaz.
Radu, the most senior former African National Congress cadre in the South African Police Service (SAPS), died early on Wednesday when his car allegedly veered out of control and struck an oncoming vehicle. He died at the scene.
Radu, who headed SAPS Internal Security – the successor to the old Security Branch – was on his way to Johannesburg International Airport, from where he would have flown to Durban for a ”very high- powered meeting”.
A family acquaintance said sensitive documents had been recovered from his car and were being checked to ensure the set was complete. The nature of the meeting could not be ascertained, but a representative of Fivaz confirmed Radu would have attended to ”official business” in KwaZulu-Natal.
Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi, also on his way to the airport to fly to Cape Town, passed the scene of the accident shortly after the crash. Mufamadi, who had a close working relationship with Radu, later told the Mail & Guardian he had known Radu was on his way to the airport, but was unaware the accident had involved Radu.
At the airport, Mufamadi was alerted by phone. He returned to the scene, where he found Radu’s body at the roadside. His car had already been removed.
A number of police sources have told the M&G that Radu had been regarded as the likely next national commissioner of police. Mufamadi commented: ”If he had been advised to assume any major task … he would put the interest of the country first.”
Mufamadi said Radu had been successful as head of Internal Security, a post he assumed in June 1995. ”I think that within a relatively short space of time one was feeling he was making a visible impact on our ability to fight crime.”
He said he was not ”making any assumptions” about the accident, but that it would be probed. ”This is not a natural death. Like all other deaths that are not natural, it will be investigated. Steps are already in place.” Police confirmed Bushy Engelbrecht, director of the police’s national special investigations team, would head the probe.
Colleagues and acquaintances this week described Radu as ”down-to-earth”, open and easygoing, but said that by virtue of his position he also had enemies. As head of Internal Security he may, for example, have had access to information pinpointing liberation movement impimpis who had spied for the old Security Branch.
Radu, then still with the ANC Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS), also played a key role in events when ANC security personnel killed a number of Zulu marchers in the Shell House shooting before the 1994 elections. He could have been an important witness at the judicial inquest ordered by the Witwatersrand attorney general.
An acquaintance of the Radu family this week said an independent pathologist would act on behalf of the family, while Radu’s car would also be examined by ”people who were his [ANC] comrades”. Acquaintances and colleagues said the accident appeared genuine, but that they were not excluding any possibilities. Said a senior police colleague, also from an ANC background: ”[Radu] was certainly a key individual. Obviously a lot of people who think like me wonder if there isn’t something more to it.”
The ANC said in a statement mourning Radu’s death that he became an underground member of the movement in 1976 and went into exile in 1985. He received military intelligence training in Angola, the Soviet Union and Cuba, and was employed at the ANC’s military intelligence section in Lusaka. After his return from exile in 1991 he was appointed head of security in the DIS.