De Klerk faces a Vlokking

Former president FW de Klerk told the truth commission that he knew nothing of apartheid-era police crimes. That claim will be put to the test when former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and former police chief Johan van der Merwe appear in court next month, say sources close to the investigation.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced this week that Van der Merwe, Vlok and three security policemen, Chris Smith, Gert Otto and Manie van Staden, would be tried on August 17 on charges of attempting to poison Frank Chikane, director general in the presidency in 1989.

A reliable source said that in their testimony Vlok and Van der Merwe would disclose what was said in security briefings of apartheid-era leaders and that this would contradict what De Klerk told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Dave Steward, executive director of the FW de Klerk Foundation, insisted this week it was very unlikely De Klerk would be implicated.

‘It’s simply not true,” he said. ‘De Klerk spent a great deal of his presidency investigating these very allegations through commissions such as the Goldstone Commission.”

Stewart said the TRC had access to all the Cabinet and security council briefings of the old regime and, despite being intent ‘on nailing FW”, they were not able to do so.

‘We do not have the slightest concern when this goes to trial next month,” he said.

De Klerk had been the state president for two months when the assassination attempt on Chikane took place. He apologised for apartheid to the TRC, but insisted top leaders were unaware of the criminal activities of security policemen such as Eugene de Kock and Gideon Niewoudt.

The Mail & Guardian understands that in terms of a plea bargain neither Van der Merwe nor Vlok will serve prison terms, and that in return they have agreed to cooperate fully with the NPA in its investigations of apartheid crimes.

However, the sources said there was no finality on whether the three lower-ranking policemen would be covered by the agreement — meaning that if convicted they might do time.

At least three other cases are under investigation: the murder of the Pebco Three, whose remains appear to have been unearthed this week on a farm near Port Elizabeth; the 1993 Highgate killings, blamed on the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, but allegedly carried out by security force members; and a high-profile killing on June 16 1976.

Last month a Stellenbosch academic and former mediator between the ANC and the apartheid government, Willie Esterhuyse, was reported saying that a plea bargain had been negotiated between the five men’s legal team and the NPA.

According to Esterhuyse, in the negotiations as a mediator, the men would receive a 10-year suspended sentence and would be barred from travelling abroad for a decade.

It also came to light this week that Van der Merwe and Vlok themselves approached the NPA when it became apparent that Smith, Otto and Van Staden faced prosecution. Sources said the two men did not want to let the ‘foot soldiers” face the rap alone. It is also understood that the NPA has limited evidence tying Van der Merwe and Vlok to the attempted murder of Chikane.

De Kock also volunteered to testify this week in the Vlok trial, but officials said they doubted his testimony would be used.

The NPA’s spokesperson, Panyaza Lesufi, refused to comment on the plea bargain, saying the prosecution’s case would be clarified when the trial opens.

The M&G has established that former government chemical weapons expert Wouter Basson is implicated in the Vlok indictment.

Basson was cleared by Judge Willie Hartzenberg in April 2002 on 61 charges including murder, attempted murder, fraud and drug dealing. The Vlok charge sheet again implicates Basson in Chikane’s poisoning.

Anton Ackerman, the head of the NPA’s priority crimes litigation unit, who spearheaded the Basson prosecution, will steer the Vlok trial.

During the Basson hearing, veterinary toxicologist André Immelman testified that a deadly new poison, paraoxen, had been manufactured at the Roodeplaat Research Laboratory near Pretoria. He told the court the poison was later delivered to security police and he suspected it was dripped onto Chikane’s underwear.

The involvement of Smith, Otto and Van Staden first came to light in Immelman’s testimony, but only under the codenames ‘Chris”, ‘Manie” and ‘Gert”.

Hartzenberg found that although it was ‘entirely likely” that Chikane’s clothes were contaminated, the state had failed to prove the substance was paraoxon or that ‘Chris”, ‘Gert” and ‘Manie” were responsible for smearing it on Chikane’s clothes.

Cross-examining Immelman, defence counsel Jaap Cilliers produced an FBI report stating that tests on the clothes proved negative for the presence of paraoxon, as did blood tests. Hartzenberg accepted the report.

However, the Vlok charge sheet again relates how Immelman and Basson manufactured the poison, saying he had ‘clandestine meetings with members of the different security forces” at which ‘the needs of the different departments were discussed and the substances were later handed over to them”.

The charge sheet says that to keep track, Immelman listed the names of the substances used in particular cases, when they were delivered and how much was administered. The list will be used to show that on April 4 1989 Immelman handed paraoxon to Smith, Otto and Van Staden.

On April 23 1989 Chikane left for Windhoek. The state alleges Otto and Van Staden asked a ‘Mr Zeelie” — understood to be security force member Charles Zeelie, indemnified in the Basson trial — to gain access to his suitcase to contaminate his underwear.

On April 24 Chikane became sick and was rushed back to hospital in South Africa.

He later left with the same luggage for the United States, where he was twice hospitalised before his condition was diagnosed.

Basson was away on leave and was not available for comment. Vlok referred questions to his attorney, Jan Wagner, who would not comment.