/ 6 October 1997

Row over Hani ‘hotel’ report

MONDAY, 9.30AM

The conservative Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport raised a political storm yesterday with a front-page report claiming that ANC martyr Chris Hani spent his last night in a hotel with a Transkei air hostess, then returned home without his bodyguards, where he was shot dead.

The air hostess, Cookie Ndungane, admits to staying at the hotel, and to knowing Hani as a regular air passenger, but denies spending the night with him.

The ANC and SA Communist Party — of which Hani was general secretary — have both conducted their own investigations into the April 1993 murder, and deny the allegations, saying that the newspaper was undermining the reputation of a man who was unable to defend himself. They have also demanded that the newspaper produce witnesses.