MITCHELL, L

I’d just like to thank the community for allowing me to come here today and for gathering together in this fashion. Without your goodwill to allow me to come here none of this could have taken place. I have come here because I know it’s the right thing to do. I cannot financially help my family ...

Just as many young black men from South Africa fled during the 1976 period and who were eventually trained as ANC terrorists, as I and many others then saw it, so my life took on a parallel whereby I was trained in counterinsurgency tactics and counterrevolutionary measures to stop the eventual ...

It was an operation that was done by myself entirely in cooperation with the riots unit. There were two operations. There was the cleanup operation before four in the morning and then that evening it was four special constables and myself. // Who gave you the instruction to kill? Was that Major ...

... the Investigations task unit got involved. Dutton nailed seven policemen including none other than the new police station commander, Captain Brian Mitchell. In 1992 Justice Andrew Wilson was the man who sentenced Mitchell to death. This week it was Judge Wilson’s task to consider setting him ...

The killers mistook a night vigil at an Inkatha household for the UDF gathering they were supposed to attack. Relatives of the dead wept as Mitchell told how he dropped the armed men off, waited while they executed the attack and finally how he gave the instructions for the burning of another UDF ...

Mitchell arrived in Pietermaritzburg in 1987. He was evidently good at his job because before long he was promoted to station commander at New Hanover. Here, Mitchell served on the local Joint Management Committee. This was a structure of the total strategy, PW Botha’s brainchild to counter the ...

He might not be forgiven but Trust Feed killer Brian Mitchell was granted amnesty and set free in December. It was not a popular decision. He had served less than five years of his 30 year sentence for the killing of 11 people in the Natal Midlands. It was a tragic mistake as the four policemen ...

Eleven people died in the Trust Feed massacre. Captain Brian Mitchell is serving a 30 year sentence for this crime. Four special policemen who were also convicted have since received indemnity.

The Amnesty Committee must be feeling some pressure to decide the Mitchell case soon, either way the decision will send an important signal about truth and reconciliation to anyone considering an amnesty application.

But the real test of remorse is what perpetrators do to show they are sorry. In 1996 police captain Brian Mitchell was granted amnesty for the killing of eleven Inkatha supporters attending a night vigil in Trust Feed, Kwazulu-Natal. Last year he went back a free man to face the survivors of a ...

... rather than victims. And we’re going to have a good dose of it. Apart from the secretive six policemen convicted, Trust Feed killer Brian Mitchell will tell his story and name names in two weeks’ time. The week after that the military generals will appear before the Truth Commission ...

Later on when the case was tried at the Supreme Court Captain Mitchell said it was a mistake. Now I want to state here, categorically, it was never a mistake, because the murder was planned with the logistics and everything, special constables brought there, put in strategic areas and they knew ...

Captain Deon Terreblanche was commander of the riot unit at Hammarsdale. Along with Mitchell and the Joint Management Committee he used these special constables to drive a lethal wedge between UDF and Inkatha supporters in Trust Feed.

... at Marawa House in Edendale where Major Eugene Terreblance, he was the head of the Riots Unit at Oribi – he’s now dead – and Captain Brian Mitchell, the station commander - the then station commander of New Hanover, Jerome Gabela and Johan Nxumalo, local Inkatha representatives and Nethi ...

Although we were not allowed to film an interview I did manage to talk to Brian Mitchell and during a conversation that lasted almost an hour I felt that I had glimpsed a sincerely changed human being behind the face of this mass killer, a man who eight years ago had little or no regard for life ...

... I want to build my house because I am living in the mountains. I have nowhere to stay. I stay in a small house. I have no children anymore. Brian Mitchell wiped out all my children. I forgive him. Even though the Lord is watching some days I would sleep without eating because I could not eat. ...

Brian Mitchell is currently serving the fifth year of a thirty year jail sentence. The only way out for him is amnesty. When he submitted his application in Pietermaritzburg this week he didn’t deny his guilt, instead he explained how the eleven murders he was convicted for were committed with a ...

The Human Rights Violations Committee visits Paarl in the Boland this coming week and the Amnesty Committee will hear the application of the killer of Trust Feed, Captain Brian Mitchell, in Pietermaritzburg. That means, don’t miss our programme next Sunday. Good night.

The community of Trust Feed has also requested me to advise the Amnesty Committee that they will try to forgive Mr. Brian Mitchell if he becomes actively involved in the reconstruction of the community that he was responsible for destroying.

Towards the end of 1988 Mitchell and Terreblanche attended a meeting with Inkatha leaders including David Ntombela where it was decided to launch an operation that would clear and hold the Trust Feed area for Inkatha.