Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-10-24

CHAIRPERSON: * Frans Steenkamp, then a senior officer in the security apparatus, who is now retired;  and

CHAIRPERSON: * Basie Smit, who was then a junior officer in Durban.

CHAIRPERSON: Those people watched my dad for five years.  There is no way that they didn't sit in a bar or at a braaivleis after his murder and talk about who killed him, and if it was one of them, one of them knows.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like you to talk to the police, to the murder and robbery investigators who looked into my father's murder, in particular Chris Earl, who was the warrant-officer from Durban Murder and Robbery in charge of the murder file in 1978.  Interestingly enough he went onto Brixton Murder and Robbery, which is a place that seems to have spawned some interesting activity in the 80s.  He is now a brigadier in Krugersdorp Murder and Robbery.   I met him in '95 and he was adamant that my father's murder was not politically motivated and he told me that he had investigated the killing according to that assumption.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like you to question the other Durban Murder and Robbery officers who took statements relating to the murder and who might be able to tell us more about the docket, which is a bundle of red herrings.

CHAIRPERSON: There is an incident I would like to describe that was described to me by a man called Ashley Wills, who was an attache at the United States Durban Consulate.   He now works at US AID and was based in Brussels when I spoke to him in 1993.

CHAIRPERSON: Ashley Wills told me that after my father's death he was at a meeting where Herman Stadler and Frans Steenkamp were present.   He enquired about my father's case and the possibility of BOSS or security police involvement.   Apparently Stadler and Steenkamp reported to him that the assassination had been an error on the part of an over-zealous civilian who worked with BOSS.   They told him that an internal investigation had produced a report showing that there was no evidence of direct BOSS or security police involvement in the murder.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like to see copies of those reports, the reports that were made after internal investigations in BOSS and the security police were conducted after my father's murder.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like Herman Stadler and Frans Steenkamp to answer questions and if they refuse to answer questions to be subpoenaed to do so, about that conversation with Ashley Wills and about the internal investigations made into my father's murder.

CHAIRPERSON: In 1993, I telephoned Andy Taylor.   I asked to meet him, but he said he didn't have time.  I reminded him that we had met in the early 70s when he was a junior police officer, who used to come to our house almost weekly.  I asked him if he had ever heard anything about who killed my father.   He said he and his colleagues had discussed the murder and still wondered who was responsible, but they had never heard a thing.   He said it was a great mystery and one he told me he would love to know the outcome of, because it had long puzzled him.  I said it seemed unlikely that he had never heard even the slightest rumour about who the killer might be.   Taylor then insisted that his brief was black terrorists.   He only dealt with blacks he said, which was patently untrue since he had dealt with my father.

CHAIRPERSON: I pressed him further and he said finally that, "It might have been one of our guys", I quote, but they kept their noses out of each other's business and so he had no idea who it was.   He said he was very sorry but he couldn't help me.

CHAIRPERSON: Ex-security policeman Paul Erasmus, who served on Stratcom with Andy Taylor and others, told Fatima Meer last year that he knew who had killed my father.   I telephoned Erasmus and he said that he had heard that a security policeman called Andy Taylor killed Ric Turner.  He had heard that Taylor had not done it on specific orders, but knowing that he would be eliminating an irritating problem, he had carried out the hit unilaterally in order to make his mark in the security police.

CHAIRPERSON: I asked Erasmus where he had heard this and he couldn't remember specifically, but he was adamant that his hearsay had been discussed more than once at police braais and in bars with colleagues.   According to Paul Erasmus and to others like Dirk Coetzee, this was often how information was transmitted within the culture of the security police.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like Paul Erasmus to answer questions put to him by you about this reported hearsay.

CHAIRPERSON: I spoke recently with Dirk Coetzee, who told me that he is convinced the security police in Durban killed my father.   I probably don't need to remind you that Dirk Coetzee and Any Taylor are both charged with the murder of Griffins Mxenge, who was killed just years after dad.

CHAIRPERSON: Dirk Coetzee emphasized with no prompting or questioning from me that if one Andy Taylor was in the security police in Durban at the time, then he would certainly have been involved in the operation.   It isn't surprising that my father's murder would have been discussed at social events, amongst the community of people who had spent so many years watching his every move, but why is it that the name Andy Taylor has been repeated by several people in several different conversations completely unrelated.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like Andy Taylor to explain and answer questions about his activities in Durban during my father's banning and around the time of his murder.

CHAIRPERSON: I would also like to know why Uri Prinsloo, a warrant-officer on Durban Murder and Robbery in charge of my father's murder file in 1993, followed a strange lead all the way to Portugal, and on the basis of no evidence wrote to tell me that he felt satisfied that my father was killed by one Roland Sluggit(?) of Durban, now deceased.  Sluggit apparently confessed to a Mrs Nicholson that he had killed my father in revenge for damage done to a lathe in his garage, while my father was renting Sluggit's property in the early 70s.   So far none of us know that my father knew or even unwittingly visited Sluggit's house, or even Sluggit not in house.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did Uri Prinsloo decide to believe this story?  Is it a coincidence that Durban Murder and Robbery repeatedly come up with explanations based on no evidence which point away from a political motive for my father's murder?

CHAIRPERSON: I would like Uri Prinsloo and others from Durban Murder and Robbery to answer questions about their investigation.

CHAIRPERSON: Up to now all investigations have led us to the wall of silence surrounding BOSS and the security police.  The truth and reconciliation commission offers the first hope and probably the last that my father's assassination will be given a full official investigation.   I want to know who killed my father and why.  I don't expect you to come up with the killer, but I do expect you to try and investigate his murder.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for hearing me.

CHAIRPERSON: /CHAIRMAN

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Jan.   Before I make my own comments, I am going to ask colleagues if they have any questions for clarification.   So, without any further ado let me test that.   Dr Mgojo?

KHOZA MGOJO: I had some questions, but I think Jan just covered most of the things I wanted to know, you know.  She had done such a lot of homework, which is going to make things easier for the commission, identifying certain people and telling us where they are, what position they are holding, because those were the questions I was going to ask.