Two of the three apartheid police officers convicted last week of an attempt on Frank Chikane’s life 18 years ago visited him on Monday to ask him personally for forgiveness.
Apartheid-era police head Johan van der Merwe, who with his former government minister Adriaan Vlok received a suspended sentence of 10 years in jail, confirmed the meeting.
He said Chris Smith and Gert Otto had not yet had the opportunity to apologise to Chikane, who at the time was an anti-apartheid activist wearing the hats of deputy president of the United Democratic Front and secretary general of the South African Council of Churches.
The two who apologised on Monday, along with another, Manie van Staden, were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years, in the Pretoria High Court last week.
”We also spoke about the way forward,” said Van der Merwe. ”It was a constructive meeting.”
He said they discussed the importance of achieving the truth in the most sensible way possible.
Chikane, now Director General in the Presidency, ”unreservedly accepted their apology”, according to a statement from his office.
It added that the parties agreed that the manner in which the case was concluded ”sets an important example for South Africans in similar situations to volunteer information in order to heal the nation, advance reconciliation and deepen social cohesion”.
The five former police officers pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Chikane in a plea bargain, which includes their being required to give evidence in future cases relating to state-sponsored atrocities during apartheid.
Their appearance in court resulted from their not having given full disclosures to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Van der Merwe reiterated that they had never intended to lie.
After Friday’s court proceedings, the five said in statement that they were only in possession of limited information. ”As the South African Defence Force emphatically refused to take part in the process, there was no conceivable way in which we were able to reveal all the facts.”
An application for amnesty would therefore have been unsuccessful, they said. — Sapa