COETZEE, DJ

During his amnesty hearing Dirk Coetzee hopes to tell his story for the last time. But he will not be able to bury it. // There’s one thing I will have to live till the day I die, is the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse I can assure ...

They weren’t the best behaved guys we had. They all smoked and all drank heavily. And everyone that smoked also smoked dagga. // You were not smoking at that stage? // No, I was not smoking, but drinking a lot. // Pillay was delivered into the hands of Dirk Coetzee at Vlakplaas.

Alright, thank you, let’s go to the first question, Adri. // Adri Coetzee from Beeld. Mr. Ntsebeza, to follow up on that, are we ever going to know what happened in neighbouring states? Is that being investigated? // Yes it is being investigated. In fact, I have been in discussions with high ...

... This week Joe Pillay was in Canada, but he sent the Truth Commission an affidavit detailing his treatment at the hands of the police. Dirk Coetzee made no attempt to refute it. // I mean he wasn’t given VIP treatment; that I can assure you and he would have been taunted. That’s the ...

... squads in South Africa in a South African court with the South African laws. It was just impossible. And the way they dealt with people like Dirk Coetzee; they made you part of the atrocities then once they push you to the side you’re isolated. If you might stand up and speak out inside South ...

Grim and gory details of Vlakplaas murders, abductions and cross border operations emerged again this week. Dirk Coetzee, Almond Nofemela and David Tshikalanga who are applying for amnesty for a range of atrocities continue to spill the sordid tales of South Africa’s secret death farm.

Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee was supposed to testify this week, but he was prevented by legal technicalities. This is what he would have told the Commission. // Nick van Rensburg and his men poisoned him upon release, poisoned him and apparently he did not add enough poison according to ...

I don’t expect the Mxenge family to forgive me because I don’t know how I ever in my life would be able to forgive a man like Dirk Coetzee.

... commander of the police anti-terrorist unit at Vlakplaas lifted the lid on police death squads. ‘I murdered Mxenge’, confessed Captain Dirk Coetzee. ...

Back to the amnesty process now. Four Eastern Cape Security Policemen this week told the amnesty committee that Port Elizabeth activist Sizwe Kondile had to be eliminated because he was a trained ANC terrorist who knew too much about their intelligence network. The men all claim that they were ...

The second Maseru is a different operation. It was a Vlakplaas operation; it was led by Eugene de Kock. The operatives were all Vlakplaas operatives, a number of whom have applied for amnesty. The second raid occurred at a time in December of 1985 when the South African government was extremely ...

You never authorized anyone, and if any person under your command purported to authorize someone to commit an unlawful act, that person would have been acting unlawfully. Is that correct? // That person must be asked. // That person would be acting unlawfully. // That person must be asked… // ...

Who gave you the instruction, to go and kill Mxenge? // Brigadier H. R. van der Hofen who was the then the regional commander of security, Port Natal, Durban. I was called in, or reported every morning at Brigadier Van der Hofen’s office and also in the afternoon for instructions, briefing and ...

There Andy Taylor and Jerry Fourie interrogated him. They clouted him a few times. He kept on denying that he was still actively involved with the ANC in any way. They eventually decided then, Capt Andy Taylor, Jerry Fourie and the military intelligence, Major Callie Steyn to bring in an army ...

Boipatong, Vlakplaas job. I can assure you that Brig van Heerden and Snor Vermeulen, two of the Vlakplaas guys involved, blackened with these things that they use in plays and balaclavas, orchestrated … Boipatong, Vlakplaas job.

The amnesty applications of Blessing Ninela’s killers will only be heard late this year. This week the killers of ANC lawyer Griffiths Mxenge were granted amnesty by the Truth Commission.

Vlakplaas and the askaris did become the main instrument in the killings in the 1980s and early 1990s, yes. The Mxenge killing, I mean I couldn’t walk as a white man into a black township and I would stand out like a sore finger. So you need black guys to cooperate and do the job for you and act ...

There’s one thing that I will have to live with till the day I die, it’s the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse, I can assure you a lot, a hell of a lot.

I went and looked at just a school dictionary, initially about the word ‘elimineer.’ Then I went to a more authoritative dictionary sir, the HAT as we call it in Afrikaans and there on page 194 it says ‘elimineer’ means ‘uitskakel’ or ‘verwyder’ and it gives an example there of a ...

These are some of the faces of South Africa’s political killers. They want the Truth Commission to grant them amnesty. But why should they be set free instead of going to jail? The answer lies in the political settlement that brought us our democracy in 1994.