Mail & Guardian Reporter
THE three men who blew the whistle on police death squads have been convicted of the murder of Durban lawyer Griffiths Mxenge while their two colleagues, whom they say were also involved, have been acquitted.
Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, and his operatives Almond Nofemela and David Tshikilange, were found guilty but the former chief of the security police in Natal, Johan van der Hoven, and former security policeman Andy Taylor were acquitted. Willem Schoon, who was head of Section C at security branch in Pretoria which oversaw Vlakplaas operations, has applied for amnesty for his role in giving the orders for Mxenge’s murder.
Investigators in the Transvaal attorney general’s office who had extensively briefed the main witness in this trial, former askari Joe Mamesela, advised KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General Tim McNally he would fail in his prosecution of Van der Hoven and Taylor unless he used Coetzee as a state witness in addition to Mamesela.
McNally, who was tasked by former president FW de Klerk to investigate police hit squads after Coetzee told his story to Vrye Weekblad, concluded Coetzee had been lying.
Nofemela had first told of hit squads in 1989 just before he was due to be executed. David Tshikilange, like Coetzee, left South Africa and gave the ANC valuable information. The three convicted men have all repeatedly confessed to their part in Mxenge’s assassination. They also named Schoon, van der Hoven and Taylor as co- conspirators.
The three convicted men were the first to apply to the truth commission for amnesty. McNally’s prosecuting team in KwaZulu-Natal suffered an even more humiliating defeat last year when all accused in the KwaMakhuta massacre trial were acquitted.