OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday 7.00pm.
A SQUAD of South African security policemen were stopped in a roadblock en route to plant a bomb in the African National Congress headquarters in London in 1982.
This came to light during the testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty hearing where eight policemen are applying for amnesty for the bombing. Roger “Jerry” Raven told the TRC that while he and Peter Casselton were driving with the bomb on the back seat of a hired vehicle, they were stopped at a police roadblock. He said a policewoman asked Casselton to state the car registration number. “Fortunately for us he was able to do that and she waved us on,” Raven said.
He said he had used four 250g blocks of explosives, and detonated the bomb with a timing device made from an alarm clock.
Earlier in the day Raven gave a graphic demonstration of how he constructed the devices that exploded to kill Ruth First and Jeanette Schoon and her eight year old daughter Katryn. In the First incident, he said Craig Williamson gave him an official envelope containing a letter which had been intercepted en route from Lesotho. He said he inserted layers of sheet explosives that had the appearance of blotting paper and an electrical circuit into the envelope.
Raven denied that he knew for whom the bombs were intended and only found out later when Williamson congratulated him for successfully detonating the bombs.