OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 12noon
SENIOR Inkatha Freedom Party official Philip Powell is under investigation for treason.
The probe follows Powell’s exposure last month of a huge cache of explosives and ammunition in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Powell led police to seven tons of heavy weaponry and ammunition near the IFP stronghold of Ulundi. The arsenal was part of a massive consignment delivered to the IFP months before the 1994 first democratic election by convicted apartheid state assassin Eugene de Kock.
Powell at the time claimed he had negotiated indemnity from prosecution, but the office of the national director of prosecutions has denied this, saying only a court can grant indemnity, after the witness has given adequate testimony.
Also under investigation for treason is another IFP leader, Chief Calaakubo Khawula, associated with another arms cache found on the south coast. The treason trials, should they go ahead, would be the first since the apartheid era — and an embarrassment to IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Buthelezi shortly after the cache was revealed hit out at the African National Congress government, accusing them of trying to “drag [him] into the affair”. “It is obvious that the acquisition of those weapons was not authorised by the IFP leadership,” Buthelezi said.