MONDAY, 8.30AM
WITH the Truth Commission’s much-extended final deadline for amnesty looming 24 hours away, possible last-minute applicants include Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader Eugene Terre’Blanche, former SADF chief general Jannie Geldenhuys and former military intelligence agent Johann Verster, linked to the 1988 murder of ANC Paris office chief Dulcie September.
Far-right leader Terre’Blanche said yesterday that his amnesty application was intended to clear his name over the tarring and feathering of historian Floors van Jaarseveldt in 1979, and an attack on a Ventersdorp National Party gathering addressed by former president FW De Klerk, in which three people died.
Geldenhuys is believed to have decided to apply for amnesty after learning that senior colleagues have named him in their own applications. Major general joep Joubert, for example, has named Geldenhuys in an application that takes responsibility for the murder of activist doctor Fabian Ribeiro and his wife, of KwaNdebele cabinet minister Piet Ntuli, and of twelve youths who were drugged, put into a van, and blown up.
Verster, recently found guilty of drug smuggling in Britain, has been linked to a number of third force activities, possibly including the murders of whie anti-apartheid activists David Webster and Anton Lubowski.
MONDAY, 5.00PM
Geldenhouys’s lawyer Bernard van der Hoven on Monday said his client has given him no indication that he wishes to submit a last-minute amnesty application. ”I have received no instructions from my client to submit any documentation before the final cut-off for amnesty applications,” Van der Hoven said.