OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday
CONVICTED killer Ferdi Barnard has confessed to murdering anti-apartheid lawyer David Webster outside his Johannesburg home in 1989 on orders from the shadowy Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB).
Barnard told a Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty hearing that he conducted the assassination with the help of colleague Calla Botha on the orders of former CCB Colonel Joe Verster.
“He stood with his back to us. I called him by his name, he turned around and I fired one shot intended to hit him in the heart. He fell over and we drove off,” Barnard told the hearing.
Barnard has until now denied all involvement in Webster’s murder, for which he is serving a life sentence in Pretoria’s C-Max prison.
His orders had been to kill Webster and then trade unionist Jay Naidoo, the former CCB operative said.
He claimed that he received a R15 000 bonus for the Webster killing.
“I am not here to make anyone happy,” Barnard told the TRC hearing. “I am doing what I want to do. I am willing to take a polygraph (lie detector) test before the cameras.”
Verster was quoted as describing Barnard’s claims as “another bunch of lies and a complete fabrication”.
Barnard was sentenced to two life terms in June 1998 for Webster’s murder.
He was also sentenced for attempting to murder Transport Minister Dullah Omar in 1989, and for attempting to murder Bophuthatswana businessman Daniel Mocumi in 1991.
In the 1980s Barnard served three years of a six-year jail sentence for murdering two drug addicts, then assassinated Webster while out on parole.