Col Eugene de Kock, the former police officer whose skills as an assassin of anti-apartheid activists earned him the nickname "Prime Evil", yesterday told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how he cold-bloodedly shot a potential witness against Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela twice through the heart.
His victim, Johannes Mabotha, a trained guerrilla in the ANC army, was then placed on a prepared pile of plastic explosives and blown up into fragments by Col de Kock's subordinates.
De Kock, who was sentenced to two life sentences in 1996 after being convicted on multiple charges of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and fraud, said in a matter-of-fact tone: "I walked away because blowing up people was not in my line."
De Kock had earlier declared that he had shot Mabotha in October 1988 on his release from detention at the request of the chief investigating officer of the security police in Soweto at time, Col Jan Potgieter. He detailed a conversation in which Col Potgieter reportedly advised him that Mabotha would be freed and that he, De Kock, would have to "make a plan".
The son of a domineering Afrikaner magistrate, De Kock (49) told the TRC that he had served with Col Potgieter in Namibia during the war there and that he knew that he had been asked to kill Mabotha. During his 19951996 trial De Kock explained that terms like "make a plan" and "neutralise" were euphemisms for assassinate.
The two-day Truth Commission hearing which ended yesterday was a continuation of the twoweek hearing into the allegations that Ms Madikizela-Mandela presided over a reign of terror in Soweto, in which people suspected of being informers or even sexual rivals, were murdered on her orders.
One of the purposes of the renewed hearing was to determine whether the police deliberately refrained from prosecuting Ms Madikizela-Mandela and, if so, why. According to a statement Mabotha made to the police after he was arrested and in De Kock's phrase, seriously assaulted, he was a witness to the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the 13year-old boy, Stompie MoeketsiSepei.
But instead of safeguarding Mabotha as a potential witness, Col Potgieter handed him over to De Kock, then the commander of a dreaded "terrorist detection" unit. Col Potgieter repeatedly insisted yesterday that he had built up a friendly relationship with Mabotha while interrogating him and that he was concerned for his safety.
Lawyers acting for various interested parties, including De Kock, subjected Col Potgieter to critical cross-examination. One of the central questions was why, if he really valued Mabotha as a potential witness, did he surrender him to a man who was known even to police colleagues as an accomplished and merciless assassin.
One conjectured reason was that Col Potgieter, like many of his fellow security officers, was anxious to protect rather than prosecute Ms Madikizela-Mandela. De Kock, however, quoted Col Potgieter as offering a different motive: to prevent Mabotha from rejoining Ms Madikizela-Mandela and resuming "the shooting dead of policemen".
De Kock's testimony did not offer serious competition for media attention in South Africa to the admission by former president, Mr F. W. de Klerk that he had "fallen in love" with a woman other than his wife, named by the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld as Ms Elita Georgiades, wife of a London-based shipping magnate with business interests in South Africa. Mr De Klerk (61), acknowledged in a statement earlier this week that his marriage of 39 years was in crisis.