bombings
Ivor Powell
New evidence of police involvement in Cape bombings has come to light in the questioning of police informer Deon Mostert by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD).
Top police sources told the Mail & Guardian that Mostert has identified a Cape policeman, who he alleges was involved in planting bombs, as part of a police-linked bombing network. The name of the reservist as well as the police station to which he is attached are known to the M&G.
Mostert claims the alleged police bomber was personally involved in the commission of three blasts that rocked the Cape late last year – at the Greenpoint gay hang-out, the Blah Bar on November 9; at the St Elmo’s Pizzeria in Camps Bay on November 28; and in the Christmas Eve bombing outside a Greenpoint restaurant in which three police officers were injured.
ICD regional director Riaz Salojee declined to confirm M&G information that arrests were imminent. However, he said that the unit was taking Mostert’s evidence seriously.
Mostert was earlier branded a “chronic liar” by outgoing police commissioner George Fivas. Police sources also told the M&G that Mostert told his ICD interrogators beforehand that a bomb would explode on December 24, though he was not able to say where.
Earlier, as the M&G reported, Mostert also predicted the St Elmo’s bombing. At the time he was involved in investigations into alleged police corruption under the auspices of the police anti-corruption unit.
Among the policemen implicated by Mostert in corrupt practices is Director Leonard Knipe, controversially promoted at the end of the year by Fivas to head up the police’s national serious violent crimes unit – despite being the subject of investigations by the anti- corruption unit. Knipe was formerly top man in the Western Cape violent crimes outfit. Before that he employed Mostert as an informer and agent while chief of the murder and robbery unit.
Since entering protective custody at Goodwood prison, Mostert claims to have passed two lie-detector tests – in addition to a test administered by police counter- intelligence.