COETZEE, DJ

The Harms Commission did not believe his story. // If a judge goes to the extreme where he says in public, and I quote ‘how must I believe this crap you’re talking?’ I mean what chance did I have in South Africa against honourable generals, all church going generals, elderly in the church, ...

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.

No plan, no envisaged plan, no joint venture of that nature was ever discussed with me at all. // I’m not aware of any case where the Defence Force and the police would have acted together internally and where people had been killed and had not been discussed with me. // I in my more than 35 ...

He was officially released at Bloemfontein where his car and belongings were handed to him and then a big scene in front of the uniform branch personal I suppose and when he then left on the road, he was abducted again by Nick van Rensburg and his men.

There’s one thing that I will have to live with till the day I day, 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.

What I think we find difficult to understand is how this could take place, how people could die, could be tortured, could be abducted, could be buried and many of them; and people like yourself and others just didn’t know, weren’t aware of that these people were acting unlawfully or illegally ...

One of Major Archie Flemington’s men, a sergeant or a warrant, a slender built tallish man, light hair took a makarov pistol with a silencer on and whilst he was lying, Mr. Kondile was lying on his back, shot him on top of the head. There was a short jerk and that was it. The four junior, ...

... is incredibly expressive of those two things: the frown on her brow, the hair in her hand, the anger, the pain that she’s carrying. // I went to Coetzee’s house in Pretoria and immediately I was struck by the phenomenal … that he’s actually incarcerated himself. It doesn’t matter what ...

Why did you kill Mxenge so brutally? // The intention was not to kill him brutally. It was to make the whole thing appear … it was to simulate robbery. But unfortunately in the scene of crime certain things develop that you don’t expect. Mxenge’s physical strength was undermined but when he ...

Here is the place which they then later built where the ministers and Basie Smit and them braaid, had their Chivas Regal whiskey, congratulated the guys where the ‘potjiekos’ was made, you can see big fireplaces. If you have all the liquor and the meat that was absorbed here you can open a ...

As we still discussing of how next do we break the door down now, two women entered the kitchen with a lit candle and opened the back door. Joe grabbed one of the women and closed her mouth and shot at her at point blank. I heard someone drop to the cement like a bag of bones and the other woman ...

I did not give any policeman any illegal instruction, unlawful instruction. Kill a person, assault a person, or do anything of that nature.

Mxenge was observed by Almond Nofemela and Joe Mamasela. A few days before the murder they poisoned his dogs. // It was to leave the decision for the place of the actual murder in the hands of the operatives. You could either do it at work if the occasion was right, it was late enough, if it was ...

You concede that at the very least those words are ambiguous and capable of different interpretations. // Yes not only those words, sir all words are open to misconstruction. I cannot go into semantics about that sir. The dictionary meaning is quite clear, but I don’t think policemen or soldiers ...

Of course there’s well known registered national and international attempts on my life, like the walkman bomb that was sent to me and killed Bheki Mlangeni, the contract murder that they tried in 1992 where they asked the freedom loyalist and terrorist in Northern Ireland and I am seen amongst ...

I do believe in myself. I want to get truth, what happened in those days and in future, our children must know what happened in those days when our parents were still alive. All I remember is that in the morning the neighbours, I think the neighbours next door to me, came to the house and look me ...

They were trying to build up a case and just couldn’t get him in because he was sticking strictly according to the law and he was a thorn in the flesh and we have to get rid of him. That’s correct. // So they in fact told you that there was nothing against this man, he was acting according to ...

I was forced to kill my own people, the people that I devoted my life into liberating. // We believed in what we were doing as killers, we were seeing it as a war situation. // Our job was to hunt cadres, whether PAC or ANC, and we kill them. If we think they are useless, we kill them, but if we ...

We were instructed to make it look like a robbery. // Who instructed you? // Brigadier van der Hofen. A hunting knife was brought down from Vlakplaas, I can’t recall whether we bought the other okapi knives in Durban or whether that also came from Vlakplaas. I got a report back from him that ...

A decision is taken so flippantly and a man’s life is put to an end. I am alarmed by that. // I can understand that Mr. Chairman, I think in those days a black man’s life meant absolutely nothing.