Vito Palazzolo has been linked to a deposit into slain Swapo activist Anton Lubowskis bank account. He will give evidence to the truth commission, write Andy Duffy and Marion Edmunds
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has turned to controversial Sicilian businessmen Vito Palazzolo to help its investigation into the unsolved murder of South West Africa Peoples Organisation (Swapo) activist Anton Lubowski.
In a rare interview this week, Palazzolo also told the Mail & Guardian that the Swiss bank he headed in the early 1980s had donated funds to the African National Congress while it was in exile.
Cape Town-based Palazzolo says he met Lubowski in Switzerland, and facilitated a successful fund-raising drive Lubowski undertook for Swapos election campaign among European business people.
Lubowski, a Windhoek advocate and prominent Swapo member, was shot dead in September 1989. A Namibian inquest found that members of the Civil Co-operation Bureau were involved.
But the then defence minister, General Magnus Malan, insisted that Lubowski had been an apartheid spy a claim he repeated earlier this year before the truth commission.
The basis for the claim is that R100 000 appeared in Lubowskis bank account three months before his death. Palazzolo has been linked to the deposit of the money as a front for military intelligence. He denies this.
The commissions Cape Town office approached Palazzolo in June. The commission was represented by commissioner Cornelius Kooijmans, a senior policeman seconded from the Dutch government.
In an affidavit to the commission, Palazzolo denied he had deposited the R100 000, or knew who was responsible for the killing.
Palazzolo says he met Lubowski months before the murder through his Cape Town lawyer, Cyril Prisman, to discuss the prospect of a Swapo government seizing the game farm he owns in Namibia.
Palazzolos father-in-law paid Lubowski 5000 Swiss francs to fly out to Switzerland, where the two talked further.
He was a freedom fighter looking to raise funds for the election. I was looking to secure my farm, Palazzolo told the M&G. He never gave me any reason to believe he was an agent.
Palazzolo said he and Lubowski suspected they were being shadowed in Switzerland, and that Lubowksi told Palazzolo he was used to being watched. Palazzolo later introduced Lubowski to various German business people, who provided money for Swapo.
Palazzolo says he later learnt of Lubowskis killing while he was watching TV with his wife and son in a Swiss hotel. For me it was a tragedy, Palazzolo says. I was hoping he was going to become minister of justice or Windhoek attorney general, so I could have moved to Namibia. My hope was gone.
Commission representative John Allen says he is unaware of Palazzolos co-operation. Other investigators were unavailable for comment as the M&G went to press.
Palazzolos claims to have donated money to the ANC sit oddly with the warm relations he enjoyed with National Party politicians when he arrived in South Africa in 1986. Various Eastern Cape Nats smoothed Palazzolos stay, in a scandal which later cost NP East London MP Peet de Pontes his political career.
Palazzolo is unable to say how much his bank, Consult Fin SA, gave the ANC, but says such donations were common among Swiss banks. He says he was a staunch opponent of apartheid. I was sympathetic to these people [the ANC].
ANC treasurer, Arnold Stofile, said it was impossible to confirm the donation before the M&G went to press.
Palazzolo says he also first met Andre Lincoln, a former member of the ANCs department of intelligence and security and bodyguard to Nelson Mandela, in Switzerland.
Lincoln now heads an undercover police unit reporting to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, which is investigating corruption among high-ranking police officers. Police Commissioner George Fivaz recently ordered an investigation into the units activities, following allegations that its members are too close to crime syndicate bosses.
Palazzolo has been mired in controversy since he arrived in South Africa, after spending a year in jail for his banks complicity in money-laundering. He now lives on a farm in Franschoek.
He denies he is involved in organised crime, has any links to the Mafia, or enjoys close relations with politicians in the government. I am just a poor farmer.
He adds that he did not abscond from the Swiss jail to come to South Africa, but that one year of his two-year jail sentence had been suspended.
Prisman believes Palazzolo is victim of a smear campaign, orchestrated by elements in the Italian and South African police. Palazzolo believes he is being set up for extortion. Prisman says he plans to appeal to the public protector and has asked for a meeting with Mbeki.
The Mail & Guardian established this week that the Department of Justice in June 1995 rejected an extradition request for Palazzolo from the Italian government. It is understood department officials are expecting a revised extradition request.