The commission, whose terms of reference will be announced in August, is likely to offer indemnity on the condition that perpetrators disclose fully their crimes in support of apartheid.
de Klerk and opposed by police commissioner Johann van der Merwe as a threat to "national reconciliation". The decision by Dullah Omar to establish what has been dubbed a "Truth Commission" to deal with the crimes against human rights committed during the apartheid era has been questioned by deputy president F.W. On June 17 Eastern Cape attorney-general Les Roberts announced that nobody would be prosecuted for murders because "the available evidence is not strong enough for a reasonable chance of a successful prosecution against any individual or individuals".Ĭlearly, there are many rather smelly skeletons waiting to be discovered in the cupboards of the former apartheid rulers and their security forces. Lawyers for Human Rights, deputy minister for environment Bantu Holomisa and the family of Matthew Goniwe called for van der Westhuizen and other security officers to be charged with murder. He said he "was unable to find prima facie that an offence has been committed by any specific person". Incredibly, despite Zietsman's findings that the security forces killed the activists and that the signal proposed murder, he could find no "direct link" between the recommendation and the brutal killing of Goniwe and his comrades 20 days later. The SSC was composed of senior security officers and government leaders, including then president P.W. The deaths followed a military signal from the SADF commander in the Eastern Cape, Brigadier Joffel van der Westhuizen, to the State Security Council proposing that Goniwe be "permanently removed from society". The latest finding comes just a month after Eastern Cape judge Neville Zietsman found that Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sielo Mhlauli were murdered by "members of the security forces" in June 1985. South African justice minister Dullah Omar has met Lubowski's family and indicated Pretoria will treat such a request favourably.
FERDI BARNARD PHOTOS TRIAL
The Namibian government is likely to ask the South African government to extradite the nine CCB members to stand trial for murder. The Namibian court found these claims groundless. The South African government later attempted to blame Lubowski's murder on SWAPO when then defence minister Magnus Malan suggested in parliament that Lubowski was an SADF spy. Barnard is suspected of murdering ANC activist David Webster in May 1989. Widely described in the media as an "Irish mercenary" nicknamed "the cleaner" and clearly an unstable and seedy character, Acheson was recruited to the CCB by agent and convicted murderer Ferdi Barnard after being arrested for shoplifting. Judge Levy described Heyman's action as "the height of incompetence" considering "the strong prima facie evidence". A senior Namibian police officer, Willem Terrblanche, was named an accessory for not reporting information received before and after the killing.Īcheson was arrested soon after the murder but was released eight months later after prosecutor-general Hans Heyman decided there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Levy said the hit had been made by CCB operative Donald Acheson and named nine accomplices, who included CCB managing director Joe Verster. Lubowski was murdered outside his home in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, in September 1989, shot nine times at close range with an AK-47. Lubowski had just been appointed deputy director of SWAPO's election campaign. Inquest court Judge Harold Levy said on June 25 that the SADF's innocuously named Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) arranged the hit on the leading member of the Namibian liberation movement. The verdict confirms the suspicions of many South Africans and comes just a month after an Eastern Cape court found that the SADF ordered the murder of activist Matthew Goniwe and three colleagues in 1985. JOHANNESBURG - A Namibian court has found that the 1989 assassination of SWAPO activist Anton Lubowski was the work of a South African Defence Force death squad.
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