SOUTH AFRICA: TRIAL OF FORMER POLICE COLONEL EUGENE DE KOCK

(26 Aug 1996) Natural Sound
Some of the crimes from South Africa's apartheid have been punished.
A former police colonel has been convicted of five murders.
Verdicts are still awaited on over 100 other serious charges against Eugene de Kock.
He was commander of a notorious police unit based at a farm outside Pretoria.
Pretoria's Supreme Court convicted a former police colonel accused of multiple murders and other apartheid-era crimes on Monday.
Eugene de Kock was commander of a notorious police unit accused of murdering and attacking many anti-apartheid figures.
De Kock was charged with eight murders and -- among a list of other charges -- attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping, fraud and the possession of illegal firearms.
Judge Willie van der Merwe began reading the verdict Monday and only got through the first five charges before stopping for the day.
De Kock is the highest ranked police officer to be convicted of apartheid-era crimes against opponents of the former white government.
He applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which can recommend amnesty for people who admit their apartheid-era crimes.
But legislation creating the panel prohibits amnesty for those guilty of heinous violations of human rights, such as murder and torture.
Judge Van der Merwe ruled de Kock was guilty in the killings of five men who were ambushed by police outside Nelspruit in eastern South Africa on March 26 1992.
According to trial evidence, de Kock told his men the five were bank robbers who were acting on instructions of Winnie Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela.
Prosecutors said anti-apartheid agents were brought to de Kock's isolated headquarters on a farm outside Pretoria to be tortured and killed.
Judge van der Merwe will resume reading the verdict on Tuesday.
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