OWN CORRESPONDENT, Wellington | Wednesday
TWO apartheid-era security force members, now on parole in New Zealand where they were convicted for ecstasy smuggling, have told a New Zealand court how they were ordered to attack a New Zealander while he was on a drug-buying trip in South Africa.
Albertus van Schalkwyk and John Goldsmith, who are directors of a security company in New Zealand and guarded the owner of a Wellington strip club, Brian le Gros, on a visit to South Africa, told the Wellington High Court they had been ordered to attack New Zealander Terri King by their client.
They were testifying under cross-examination in the murder trial of William Haanstra, who has pleaded not guilty to luring King into New Zealand’s Tararua mountains last year.
Van Schalkwyk told the court that Le Gros had been furious to hear that King was in South Africa at the same time as himself and asked him: “Can you f him up?”, to which Van Schalkwyk answered “how bad?”
“I don’t give a f, just f him up… Either f him up or lock him up,” Van Schalkwyk quoted Le Gros as saying.
Van Schalkwyk said he had telephoned Goldsmith in South Africa, but denied asking him to kill King. King had already left South Africa, he said. He denied hatching further plans to have King killed.
The two South Africans befriended Haanstra in jail. Goldsmith claimed Haanstra had told him he had been party to luring King into the mountains with the promise of 600 ecstasy tablets, to give him a hiding because he owed people money.
He testified that Haanstra had said that two Russians had leapt out of the bushes and shot King in the head. Haanstra had said the two killers had warned him not to tell anyone about the incident.