A FORMER officer in South Africa's military intelligence has told the Malan trial in Durban that he was "horrified" to learn that a hit squad under his command had massacred women and children.
Major Johan Opperman was giving evidence on the third day of the trial of the former defence minister, Gen Magnus Malan, and 19 others, including 12 retired police and army officers, a senior official of the Inkatha Freedom Party and six alleged hit squad members.
All 20 defendants are accused of complicity in the 1987 massacre of 13 people, including five children under the age of 10, in a machine gun attack on a black household in KwaMakutha, near Durban. The state is alleging that the attack was part of a broader conspiracy by Pretoria's security operatives to murder supporters of the African National Congress and members of the anti apartheid movement in general.
One of the state's key witnesses, Major Opperman told Durban Supreme Court that in 1986 he was involved in the formation and training of a 206 strong squad of Inkatha supporters at a secret South African army base in Namibia's Caprivi Strip.
While some of the men were trained to act as bodyguards for the IFP leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, two other groups were trained by military intelligence to identify and assassinate people suspected of supporting the rival African National Congress.
The KwaMakutha house had been selected because it was the home of Mr Victor Ntuli, an activist with the pro ANC United Democratic Front.
Mr Ntuli was not at home when the house was attacked in the small hours of the morning, however. Major Opperman said he was horrified to learn that the victims of the massacre had mostly been women and children who had attended a prayer service at the house.
"If we knew . . . If the intelligence had shown there were women and children in that place the operation would never have taken place," he said.
He said that after the attack another of the accused, the former chief director of military intelligence operations, Gen, Cornelius van Tonder, had congratulated him on its execution and planning.
Major Opperman told Judge Jan Hugo and his two assessor judges that in late 1986 the IFP deputy secretary general, Mr Zakhele "M.Z." Khumalo also on trial - had approached him on behalf of the Caprivi trainees and asked him to allow them to carry out an operation. The Ntuli household was identified as the target and the operation was approved by another of the accused, a former intelligence officer, Brigadier John More.
Ten AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition were supplied from an army depot by a former military intelligence officer, Mr Gerrit Griesel, also among the accused. Major Opperman said he had briefed another of the accused, former security policeman Major Louis Botha, so that he could divert police patrols from the area around Mr Ntuli's house at the time of the attack and remove any evidence afterwards.