TUESDAY, 4.30PM
The truth commission hearing into the 1989 Motherwell bombing on Tuesday saw two former state assassins pitted against one another in their bid for amnesty for their part in in the car bombing that killed three policemen and an informer.
De Kock’s lawyer Schalk Hugo challenged Nieuwoudt’s testimony to the commission’s amnesty committee, saying his client will dispute the policeman’s recollection of events leading up to the bombing. De Kock and Nieuwoudt are among nine former security policemen seeking amnesty for the December 14, 1989 bomb blast.
Nieuwoudt has testified that he briefed De Kock and his commanding officer General Nic van Rensburg on the security risk posed by the four, who were suspected of spying for the African National Congress. Nieuwoudt said a decision was taken by Brigadier Fanie Gilbert, then the divisional commander of the security police in the Eastern Cape, to eliminate the four.
Van Rensburg testified on Monday that Nieuwoudt also warned that the policemen could divulge details of security police involvement in the murders of Matthew Goniwe and three other United Democratic Front activists in 1985.
However, Hugo said De Kock will testify that Nieuwoudt had given a different reason for plotting the murders. Nieuwoudt had told De Kock several of the policemen had intercepted trade union cheques and altered them for their own gain. “De Kock is going to say … that this was the reason given for elimination,” Hugo said.
Hugo said De Kock had been unhappy about the decision to eliminate colleagues purely because of their involvement in fraud and had sought a second meeting with Van Rensburg. “De Kock is going to state that the Goniwe matter was brought to his attention for the first time when he returned to Van Rensburg,” Hugo said. Nieuwoudt denied this but admitted Gilbert had told him of the fraud allegations during an earlier meeting. “However, that had nothing to do with our decision to eliminate them,” he insisted.