The Bond van Boerekrygsgevangenes (League of Boer Prisoners of War) on Thursday said it would complain to the International Committee of the Red Cross about the conditions under which a 1994 bomb planter was being held.
Dries Kriel, a leader of the Christiana, North West Province-based organisation, said Cliffie Barnard, jailed for life in 1997 in connection with a series of bomb blasts before and after the first democratic elections in April 1994, was regularly tortured and assaulted by warders.
Barnard was recently transferred from the Pretoria local prison to the super-maximum security C-Max prison within the Pretoria Central prison complex.
In a copy of a letter addressed to the ICRC, received in Johannesburg, Kriel alleged that it was ”well known that white prisoners in phase 1 of C-Max prison are locked up in darkness and solitude for 24 hours a day and are starving by lack of food
(sic).”
He added that it was not known why Barnard had been moved and that the Department of Correctional Services was refusing to explain.
The department could not immediately comment on the allegations. Spokesperson Luzuko Jacobs undertook to respond on Friday.
Afrikanerweerstandsbeweging leader Eugene Terre’Blanche was earlier this month convicted on five counts of terrorism related to some of the bombings carried out by Barnard and Abraham ”Koper” Myburgh. Myburgh is also serving a life sentence.
Kriel could not be reached at either of the numbers provided to clarify when the letter was sent to the ICRC or how many ”Boer prisoners of war” he believed were in South African jails.
His organisation believes Barnard and others who opposed South Africa’s transition to democracy were entitled to prisoner of war (POW) status. The ICRC normally intercedes on behalf of POWs captured and held by warring states.
Kriel’s organisation has in the past been associated with the SA League of Former Police, Soldiers and Officials, and the Wit Wolwe, led by pardoned mass-murderer Barend Strydom.
Kriel last November claimed his group was part of the Boeremag. Twenty-two Boeremag members are currently on trial before the Pretoria High Court for plotting a rightwing coup d’etat.
They face 42 charges ranging from murder and attempted murder to treason, terrorism, sabotage, and arms and explosives violations. All are being held at C-Max. – Sapa