murder
Peta Thornycroft
The shotgun allegedly used to kill David Webster was thrown into a Nylstroom dam by former policeman Ferdi Barnard.
This information will be used against Barnard when he goes on trial charged with a clutch of crimes, including the 1989 murder of Webster, an activist and anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Barnard was arrested this week after a long and difficult investigation in which he had become the prime suspect after he began bragging about shooting Webster outside the academic’s Johannesburg home.
The information about the gun will be presented to court by his former girlfriend, Amor Badenhorst, who lived with Barnard and had a child by him. She made a statement to the police while she was in a witness-protection programme in the Western Cape.
She claims Barnard told her he had disposed of the murder weapon by throwing it in a dam on a Nylstroom farm. Subsequent investigations confirmed a shotgun had been recovered from a dam in the area and handed to the police.
The police have several other witnesses, among them at least one who will claim Barnard had confessed to him about killing Webster.
Once a drug-buster for the police, Barnard acquired a heavy cocaine habit himself, and allegedly became involved in several diamond deals which went wrong. At the same time he also became increasingly loose- tongued.
The court is going to hear that when Barnard allegedly shot Webster, he was accompanied by “Calla” Botha, a friend and former policeman who had, like Barnard, been briefly employed on a short-term contract by the Civilian Co-operation Bureau (CCB).
Neither Barnard nor Botha has applied for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Barnard has vowed he will never apply, saying he will take his chances with the courts. CCB officials, in particular its “managing director” Joe Verster, have long maintained Webster was not a target for assassination.
Earlier this year, investigators suffered a setback when Badenhorst slipped out of the witness-protection programme and disappeared. The police and investigators at the office of the Transvaal attorney general feared she may have been lured into going back to Barnard. A few weeks ago she returned to the programme.
Barnard has already been convicted of murder twice and is presently on bail in connection with a R10-million diamond case.
The present case against Barnard includes two murder charges, three for attempted murder, six for fraud, seven for illegal possession of arms and ammunition and others including housebreaking, robbery and arson. And the attorney general’s office has not yet completed its investigations.