A retired policeman, Gen Nic van Rensburg, yesterday told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how he killed an antiapartheid political activist with a single shot behind the ear after interrogating him and then offering him coffee laced with sleeping tablets.
The activist, Mr Siphiwo Mtimkulu, disappeared without trace in April 1982 shortly after issuing a civil suit for 150,000 rand against the police for assaulting and poisoning him while he was in detention. Mr Mtimkulu, who disappeared with his comrade, Mr Topsy Madaka, became seriously ill within days of his release from detention.
He was unable to walk, his hair started to fall out, he vomited frequently and lost a great deal of weight.
Medical tests showed that he had been poisoned with thallium, a rare colourless, tasteless and odourless poison. Earlier, another retired policeman, Gen Gerrit Erasmus, told the TRC he had given the order to execute the two activists.
He denied his decision was influenced by Mr Mtimkulu's civil action but admitted under cross-examination by counsel for the dead men that he thought that leaders of the then government were aware of extra-judicial executions of "troublesome revolutionaries" by the security police.
Accompanying the two generals were two police colonels, one of whom, Col Gideon Nieuwoudt, was involved in the "scuffle" which led to the death in detention of the Black Consciousness leader, Mr Steve Biko.
Meanwhile, lawyers acting for Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela have been told by the TRC that they will have argue in public for a postponement of an investigative inquiry into allegations against her.
Ms Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of President Mandela and president of the ANC Women's League, has been implicated anew by allegations she strongly denies linking her to several murders which took place in the late 1980s, including those of Stompie Moeketsi-Sepei (14) and the Soweto-based doctor, Abubaker Asvat.