Thursday, December 4, 1997

JOHANNESBURG -- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ordered the killing of young activists Lolo Sono and Tony Tshabalala who were "slaughtered like goats" and whose bodies were buried near a mine dump in Soweto in December 1988, former Mandela United Football Club "coach" Jerry Richardson testified yesterday.

Richardson was giving evidence on the eighth day of thehearing into the alleged reign of terror conducted by President Nelson Mandela's former wife, Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and the now disbanded Mandela United Football Club in Soweto during the late 1980s.

Describing events leading up to the death of the two activists, Richardson, who was convicted for the 1989 killing of teenager Stompie Seipei, said he "worked with the police".

His handler, the hearing heard, was a Sergeant Stefanus Pretorius.

Sgt Pretorius was killed along with two MK soldiers in a shootout at Richardson's home which the MK members were using as refuge on November 9 1988.

Richardson said that after this incident he came under suspicion from other Mandela United Football Club members of being a police spy. As a consequence he feared for his life.

However, suspicion then focused on Sono and Tshabalala who visited Richardson's home just before the shootout, said Richardson.

The two youths were apprehended several days later and taken to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's Diepkloof, Soweto, home. Here they were severely beaten, with Richardson taking part.

Richardson said a decision was taken to kill the youths and dump their bodies near Mzimhlope in Soweto.

He said the young men were driven to the mine dump. Football club members Guyboy Kubheke and another called Ninja took the youths, who were bound by their hands and feet, into the veld.

Richardson said he and Shakes Tau followed with spades and shovels.

"When we got there Guyboy was busy killing them, slaughtering them like a goat," said Richardson.

"As soon as we finished slaughtering them, we went to Madikizela-Mandela's house to give a report back."

Richardson also claimed that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela ordered that a young woman, Ms Kuki Zwane, should be killed for disobedience.

Ms Zwane apparently had been ordered to terminate her relationship with football club member Sizwe Sithole, otherwise known as Butile, who was the boyfriend of Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's daughter, Zinzi.

Richardson described how he killed Ms Zwane and dumped her body near the Orlando railway station.

"I stabbed her, slit her throat and dumped her body," he said. -- Sapa

I SWEAR...: Mandela United Football Club "coach" and convicted killer Jerry Richardson takes the oath before testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation hearing in Johannesburg. Richardson is serving a life sentence for the murder of teenage activist Stompie Seipei. (AP)

'Coach was told to kill Seipei'

JOHANNESBURG -- Stompie Seipei was killed on Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's instructions to prevent the Mandela "crisis committee" discovering how badly the Mandela United Football Club had assaulted four youths they had abducted from the Soweto Methodist manse, the commission heard yesterday.

Former club "coach" Jerry Richardson testified that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela decided to kill Stompie to cover up what had happened.

The Mandela crisis committee, made up of church, community and ANC leaders, was formed to secure the release of four boys, including Stompie, who were abducted from Methodist minister Paul Verryn's manse in late December 1988.

"I slaughtered him (Stompie) like a goat," Richardson said, as Stompie's mother, Joyce, left the hall in tears.

Richardson said he abducted Stompie on Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's instructions after Mr Verryn was falsely accused of sodomising the boys.

Richardson said: "I killed Stompie under instructions of Mami (Mrs Madikizela-Mandela)."

He said he and another football club member, "Slash", went to look for a place where they could kill Stompie.

They decided on a rocky patch of ground near a railway line in Noordgesig, Soweto.

Richardson said the plan to kill Stompie, several days after the abduction and assault, had to be postponed because a lot of visitors, including the crisis committee, kept coming to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's house.

Richardson said the visitors included former South African Council of Churches' secretary-general Frank Chikane.

Richardson said Mrs Madikizela-Mandela hid him (Richardson) so the visitors could not speak to him.

"Mami was concerned the crisis committee would discover the presence of the youth in her yard."

He said Stompie was more severely beaten than the other three youths because Mrs Madikizela-Mandela accused him of being an impimpi (police informer).

He said Mrs Madikizela-Mandela had participated in the beating, punching the youths with her fist.

Richardson said the football club had tortured youths in "horrible, brutal ways ... in the manner used to torture freedom fighters (by the police)".

A few days later, Richardson and Slash took Stompie to the site in Noordgesig they had chosen. Richardson said he had to help Stompie walk because "he was very sick and very weak".

When they reached the site, Richardson said he made Stompie lie on his back and separated a pair of garden shears.

He said he stabbed Stompie in the neck.

Senior state pathologist Dr Patricia Klepp said that during her autopsy of Stompie's body, she found two stab marks behind his right ear and a larger stab mark on the left side of his neck. -- DDC

Winnie's car in bomb threat

JOHANNESBURG -- Security has been stepped up for Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's appearance before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission today, after a bomb threat yesterday.

TRC commissioner Fazel Randera said two men were caught looking for Ms Madikizela-Mandela's car yesterday.

When they were questioned, they said they wanted to blow up her car. When she left the venue in the car shortly after 8pm, she was escorted by heavily armed personal bodyguards as well as two police vehicles.

The four-car convoy sped off with sirens blaring and blue lights flashing. -- DDC

NP to talk to Tutu
about ANC amnesty

DURBAN -- National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk yesterday said he would meet Truth and Reconciliation Commission chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu next week to discuss the granting of amnesty to a number of African National Congress leaders.

The TRC announced last week that 37 ANC applicants, including cabinet ministers, had been granted amnesty on the basis that they had accepted collective responsibility for actions outlined in the party's submission to the TRC.

After a public meeting in Durban, Mr Van Schalkwyk said the granting of blanket amnesty was illegal, but he would meet Archbishop Tutu first before deciding what steps, if any, would be taken.

He reiterated that the decision was in contravention of the commission's founding act. He added that the ANC leaders involved were now in a precarious position because members of the public who felt that they had suffered gross human rights violations under any of the relevant ANC leaders could take the matter to court.

Mr Van Schalkwyk questioned the TRC's stance that it would not respond to the issue in public.

Earlier this week, the Democratic Party questioned the committee's refusal to explain how it had arrived at its decision on the ANC applications. ''In our view, the collective amnesties will now inevitably be taken on review to a court of law by a party which has locus standi, namely an interest in the decision,'' said Dene Smuts, the DP's spokeswoman on the TRC.

''A person cannot be indemnified for nothing in particular and everything in general unless the law allows for general amnesty, which it does not.'' -- Sapa

Evidence on CCB to be heard

CAPE TOWN -- Former defence minister Magnus Malan and South Africa's one-time spy chief, Dr Niel Barnard, are to be quizzed about cross-border raids and the activities of the notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau when they testify today at a special hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

General Dr Malan and Barnard, former head of the National Intelligence Service, have been subpoenaed to give evidence at the second round of the TRC's public inquiry into the activities of the now-defunct state security council.

Former state president PW Botha, who chaired the SSC during the state's crackdown on political opponents, is scheduled to testify tomorrow. However, Mr Botha has already made it clear that he does not intend obeying the subpoena. -- Sapa

CP accepts blame for Hani's assassination

PRETORIA -- The CP accepted that the killers of SACP leader Chris Hani had acted on its behalf, party leader Ferdi Hartzenberg said yesterday.

He said it could be argued that Mr Hani's murder had served the CP's cause.

Dr Hartzenberg was testifying in the amnesty hearing of former CP MP Clive Derby-Lewis and Polish immigrant Janusz Walus.

They were convicted of the April 1993 slaying of Mr Hani outside his Boksburg home. Both are serving life sentences. They are seeking amnesty for the crime on the grounds that it was politically motivated.

Dr Hartzenberg told the amnesty committee that the CP had never distanced itself from Derby-Lewis, even after his conviction for murder. Instead, it started a fund to pay for his legal costs.

He said the killers could have interpreted militant talk by party leaders at the time as a sanction to use violence to promote the CP's aims.

"I said some strong things myself which could have been interpreted as an instruction to do something."

The CP viewed Derby-Lewis's act in the same way as the ANC reacted to the planting of a bomb by a cadre in a Durban restaurant a few years ago. The explosion claimed the lives of nine people.

Dr Hartzenberg quoted former ANC president Oliver Tambo's statement on the incident which read in part: "If I had been approached by an ANC unit and asked whether they should go and plant a bomb, I would have said 'of course not'."

Mr Tambo continued: "But when our units are faced with what is happening all around them, it is understandable that some of them would say: 'I am going to do this'."

The CP approached the Hani killing in the same way, Dr Hartzenberg said. The country was plagued by violence at the time, and political murders were commonplace.

In March 1993, the CP launched a mobilisation campaign on 18 fronts to explore ways to counter what it regarded as the threat against Afrikaners.

"We wanted to avoid living in such a dispensation, and realised we will have to walk our own road of freedom. We were living in a violent society and knew we would have to defend ourselves."

Articles in 1992 in the CP newspaper Patriot, which spoke of the taking up of arms and other militant actions, were a reflection of party policy.

"I think these contributed to their (Derby-lewis and Walus) actions. We were living in a time of high tension, and people could have argued it was the right time to act."

Dr Hartzenberg said he believed Derby-Lewis and Walus were convinced they were acting on behalf of the CP.

"Hani was enemy number one of the Afrikaner," Dr Hartzenberg said. "It was known that Hani earlier campaigned for the maiming of whites, and the killing of the judiciary and members of Parliament."

In 1992 former CP MP Schalk Pienaar revealed that Mr Hani was setting up a force of 10000 cadres from the ANC and the PAC to intervene should constitutional talks not go the ANC's way. -- Sapa

Transcript, video pose problem

PRETORIA -- Mrs Gaye Derby-Lewis was yesterday exempted from suggestions that she had tampered with video evidence about her role in the killing of SACP leader Chris Hani.

Allegations against her surfaced in the amnesty application of her husband Clive, a former CP MP, and his co-accused, Polish immigrant Janusz Walus for Mr Hani's murder on April 10, 1993.

At the start of the hearing yesterday, Mr George Bizos, SC, for the Hani family, claimed vital sections had been deleted from a video tape which was made while Mrs Derby-Lewis was interrogated by police on April 21, 1993.

He said police legal representative Johan Brand discovered these omissions on Tuesday night.

The video concerned was one of two tapes which were in the possession of Mrs Derby-Lewis's legal team last week.

Mr Bizos said the deleted parts contained what he described as damaging admissions by Mrs Derby-Lewis about discussions between her and her husband shortly after Mr Hani's murder.

She rejected these admissions earlier in the hearing.

Mr Bizos suggested she had the most to benefit from the deletions, but Mrs Derby-Lewis denied any responsibility.

She repeated her denial when Mr Brand questioned her about the matter.

Mr Harry Prinsloo, for Mrs Derby-Lewis, contended there had been no deletions.

He said it was merely that certain statements contained in a transcription of the tape were not numbered in the same chronological order that they were made on the video.

Mr Bizos and Mr Prinsloo studied the tape during an adjournment in a bid to clear up the matter.

The outcome prompted Mr Bizos to apologise to Mrs Derby-Lewis.

"My suggestion that you may have interfered with the tape is unfounded," he said.

Mr Brand also offered his apologies. -- Sapa

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