DE KOCK TRIAL TO CONCLUDE ON WEDNESDAY

The 19-month trial of former Vlakplaas security police base commander Colonel Eugene de Kock will draw to a conclusion on Wednesday when sentence will finally be passed. De Kock has been convicted on 89 charges, including six of murder, two of conspiracy to commit murder and several of fraud and the illegal possession of arms and ammunition

The murder charges relate to the deaths of five would-be robbers in an ambush outside Nelspruit in 1992 and the murder of askari Goodwill Sikhakhane, who was killed near Greytown in 1991 on de Kock's orders to prevent him from revealing police involvement in the disappearance of ANC members who were part of Operation Vula.

De Kock was also convicted of conspiring to murder Vlakplaas colleague Brian Ngqulunga and Krugersdorp security guard Japie Maponya, as well as attempting to murder self-confessed police hitsquad leader Dirk Coetzee and the culpable homicide of ANC attorney Bheki Mhlangeni, who was killed by a parcel bomb meant for Coetzee.

De Kock, who has said he will ask the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty after the conclusion of his trial, in mitigating evidence named several high-ranking politicians and policemen as the men who gave him orders to kill. He also said police spy Craig Williamson was involved in the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, and that former president P W Botha knew about the bombing of Cosatu House as well as 1985 cross-border raids into Lesotho and Botswana.

The State asked Mr Justice Willie van der Merwe to send de Kock to jail for longer than 100 years, saying he had no remorse and that even if he suffered from post traumatic stress, it played no role whatsoever in his crimes. The State also argued that politics had nothing to do with the trial, which it said was all about common criminal deeds.

De Kock's defence attempted to place his actions against a background of an all-out fight against what he believed were his enemies, namely the SACP, ANC and PAC. It was argued that the impression could easily be created that de Kock was being used as an example, and that the State was making a scapegoat of him while other former security policemen, "who were just as guilty as him", were going free, and were even being given high posts with huge salaries within the police service.

Source: SAPA