Vlakplaas man 'told to leave hospital to help kill colleague'

PRETORIA -- A former Vlakplaas operative yesterday told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission here that he was instructed to discharge himself from hospital in order to assist with the elimination of a colleague.

Simon Radebe, an ex-security policeman, was giving evidence in support of amnesty applications regarding the 1990 abduction and killing of Brian Ngqulunga.

He told the committee that when Ngqulunga's killing was being planned by other Vlakplaas operatives, he was being treated in hospital for diabetes and high blood pressure.

He indicated that a day before Ngqulunga's murder, Willie Nortje and Douw Willemse visited him in hospital and said he would have to discharge himself.

Radebe had previously been instructed to befriend Ngqulunga so that he would be in a position to lure him. Once out of hospital Radebe was ordered to take Ngqulunga to a dirt road 10km outside Vlakplaas where other operatives would wait for them.

Vlakplaas, a farm outside Pretoria, was a security police base during apartheid.

Radebe said when they reached the appointed place, Riaan Bellingan, Piet Botha and Wouter Mentz went to the passenger side of his vehicle and dragged Ngqulunga out of the car.

Radebe said he only heard the following day on the radio that Ngqulunga had been shot dead in the vicinity of Brits.

The TRC earlier heard from former Vlakplaas commander Eugene De Kock that Ngqulunga was killed after he had become emotionally unstable and made contact with the African National Congress.

Willie Nortje corroborated that evidence when he testified that Ngqulunga's nerves were on the brink of collapse and that he was about to spill the beans about Vlakplaas.

However, Catherine Ngqulunga dismissed the suggestions that her husband had gone back to the ANC and added that "he discussed everything that he did with me".

She said she was made to believe that her husband was killed by the ANC. She expressed relief at the opportunity of knowing who the real killers of her husband were. The hearing continues. -- Sapa