OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday 3.00PM.
THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard on Wednesday how police faked a bomb at a showing of the film Cry Freedom.
One of the generals who arranged the elaborate charade, Johan le Roux, told the hearing that when the Publications Appeal Board in 1988 allowed the Weekly Mail Film Festival to show special screenings of the film, about the life and death of Steve Biko, he ordered an explosives expert to plant an imitation bomb in the Roodepoort cinema where the film was to have been shown.
A bomb threat was then made, which the police said had been made by a right-wing group. A police bomb-disposal squad then removed the fake bomb and detonated a thunderflash under a pile of sand to give the impression they had disarmed a bomb.
Another former police general, Johannes Albertus Steyn, also admitted arranging a “controlled explosion” at the Metro cinema complex in Durban in July 1988. He said the film was not screened as a result of the blast.
Both generals admitted they had never seen the film.