Issued by: TRC
JULY 1 1999
From July 12 to 16, the Amnesty Committee of the TRC will hear amnesty applications of ten former security policemen for their role in the killing of Japie Maponya in Ma, 1985.
The Maponya matter forms part of the De Kock 2 Cluster of four amnesty applications to be heard in Pretoria and Durban between July and August.
Maponya was employed as a security guard by the United Bank in Krugersdorp at the time of his murder.
The police, who initially abudcted him, had hoped that he would lead them to his brother, Oderile Maponya. Oderile was an MK operative who the police claimed, was responsible for "acts" of terror on the Reef in the mid-eighties.
The applicants, Eugene De Kock, Almond Butana Nofomela, Willie Nortjie, Eugene Fourie, and Askari Chris Mosiane, David Jacobus Van Der Walt, an Askari Johannes Mbelo, Johan Le Roux, Simon Radebe and Eric Sefadi abducted and killed Maponya after he failed to lead them to Oderile.
The applicants claim that it was at the request of the Krugersdorp Special Branch that Vlakpaa;s help was sought.
The first plan was for Askari, Chris Mosiane to try and indirectly obtain information from Maponya. When that failed, other Askaris, Johannes Mbelo and Almond Nofomela grabbed and forced Maponya into a car and drove to Vlakplaas where he was assaulted and tortured.
At an isolated spot at the Nerston Border post near Swaziland, they unloaded Maponya, shot and killed him. He was subsequently buried in a shallow grave.
For more information: Mbulelo Sompeta - 083 462 7870.