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Policemen tell of killings

From Terence Sibiya, SAPA
17 November 1998

DURBAN - Guns fitted with silencers were used by the Security Branch to kill two African National Congress activists in Durban in 1988, the truth commission heard yesterday.

The commission's amnesty committee is hearing amnesty applications from policemen who killed, or were involved in killing, ANC activists in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Gen Johan Steyn testified that he ordered the killing of KwaZulu-Natal Umkhonto we Sizwe commander, Portia Ndwandwe. Ndwandwe had earlier been abducted from Swaziland where she had been lured by Security Branch informers.

Steyn, 59, who took command of the Durban Security Branch in 1987, said Ndwandwe was interrogated to see if she would turn informer and when it became apparent that she would not betray her colleagues, he ordered the late Col Andy Taylor "to see to it that she's eliminated".

He said he then left the farm and was later informed that she had been killed.

Steyn said Ndwandwe was knocked unconscious and stripped of her clothes.

She was taken to a grave about 60m from the farmhouse and shot and killed by Laurie Wasserman.

Her body was covered in white limestone to prevent animals from smelling the body and digging up the grave.

He said Umkhonto we Sizwe cell leader Phumeza Nxiweni was murdered in a similar way.

He said Nxiweni, who was taken to a farm in Verulam, also refused to betray his colleagues.

He was blindfolded and taken to a grave, dug by Taylor, where he was shot by Sam du Preez.

- Sapa.