Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
12 MARCH 1997
FORMER POLICEMEN LEAD TRC TO SECRETLY BURIED BODIES
A number of former security policemen from Durban and Pietermaritzburg have led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's investigators to five (5) sites throughout KwaZulu/Natal where they murdered and then disposed of the bodies of ten (10) former political activists.
The six security policemen have applied for amnesty and their applications contain details of the identities of people they allegedly murdered.
TRC investigators, working with a team of body exhumation specialists, pathologists and South African Police Services video unit have thus far uncovered two bodies on a farm previously occupied by members of the security branch.
The team is currently involved in the exhumation of a further two bodies. The amnesty applicants took TRC investigators to a site on the banks of the Tugela River and confirmed that two people were shot and their bodies were weighted down with rocks and thrown into the river. They then led the TRC investigators to other sites at Bulwer and at Phoenix near Durban.
The applicants also confirmed that four more people were blown up in such a way that very little remained of their bodies
The TRC is in a process of confirming the identities of the deceased and notifying the next of kin and a press conference would follow in due course once the information has been confirmed.
For more information contact MDU LEMBEDE on (031) 307 6745 or cellphone 082 4588464