Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
7 August 1996
Monday 12 to Thursday 15 August
NAMES AND DETAILS OF APPLICANTS FOR AMNESTY
The Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which will sit in KwaZulu-Natal for the very first time next week, is scheduled to hear amnesty applications from three members of the AWB and the Orde Boerevolk who killed seven passengers in an early morning attack on a bus traveling near KwaMashu in October 1990.
The Amnesty Committee's four day sitting, from Monday 12 August to Thursday 15 August, will be at the Recreational Hall at the Westville Prison. The hall is easily accessible to members of the public and the four-day amnesty hearings are fully and freely open to all.
Apart from the three AWB members, the committee will listen to an unrelated fourth application from a former officer of the murder and robbery unit in Empangeni and alleged member of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Hendrik Jacobus Steyn (34), who killed and injured suspects he had detained and attempted to kill another. He now claims both men were his political opponents.
Steyn is currently serving an 18-year prison term for the crimes he committed in the KwaMbonambi district in August 1992.
The three AWB members are David Petrus Botha (51) formerly the Richards Bay commandant of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and a cell leader of the Orde Boerevolk (OB) and two of his cell members Adriaan Smuts (44) and Eugene Steyn (33).
The three men were sentenced to death in December 1992 for the bus attack. They subsequently had their sentences commuted. Botha is serving a 30-year sentence and Smuts and Marais 25-year sentences.
The men attacked the bus on October 9 1990. The trial court was told at the time that they were avenging an attack upon pedestrians who had been attacked and some stabbed the previous day in the Durban city centre by a group of youths wearing Pan Africanist Congress T-shirts
The three were convicted of seven murders and 27 counts of attempted murder.
MEDIA ACCREDITATION
All members of the media who will be covering amnesty hearings need to be properly accredited and would therefore have to notify the TRC in time so that we know the numbers we need to cater for.
Applications for accreditation, on a letterhead, stating name and title of applicant should be forwarded as soon as possible.
For more information please contact me.
From: MDU LEMBEDE (TRC MEDIA SPOKESMAN)
PHONE 031- 307-6745 FAX 031- 307-6742 CELLULAR 082- 458-8464