Cape Town -The influence of an exclusive, white, Afrikaans club of high-ranking apartheid police came under the spotlight at the Western Cape High Court this week where Major-General Andre Lincoln was cross-examined in his R15 million lawsuit against the Minister of Safety and Security.
The claim was initially against the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development as the first defendant and the Minister of Safety and Security as the second, but the court heard this week that only the Minister of Safety and Security, now the Minister of Police, was being sued.
Lincoln is claiming damages for what he calls malicious prosecution when he was charged with fraud, theft and drunk driving when he was commander of a presidential investigations task unit appointed by Nelson Mandela in 1996. Of the 47 charges brought against him, 30 were dismissed by the regional court. On appeal to the high court, the remaining 17 on which he was convicted and sentenced to nine years, were also dismissed.
He said the lawsuit was an attempt to remove him from the unit. It was the second week of the matter that saw apartheid intelligence activities revealed in shocking evidence presented by Lincoln and tested by the minister’s legal team. He testified that Club 35, a group of 35 high-ranking policemen, had played a role in the investigations against him and in his prosecution.
He said Superintendent Peter Rossouw, who was the chairman of Club 35, influenced witnesses to testify in a manner incriminating to him. He said Rossouw and then police director Leonard Knipe “put pressure on witnesses” to make false statements against him.
Advocate Craig Webster, for the minister, argued that the club was a social club and was not influential.
Also revealed this week was the coming to South Africa of infamous Italian mafia boss, Vito Palazzolo, whom Lincoln testified had been brought to the country by the National Party. Part of the work of the presidential investigation task unit was to investigate links between the police in the Western Cape and foreign criminal fugitives such as Palazzolo and Jurgen Harksen.
Lincoln was further questioned on the basis of an Italian court judgment which found a former member of the unit, Abraham Smith, a reliable witness. Lincoln dismissed the finding, saying Smith had never been cross-examined and was the same witness who could not substantiate his (Smith’s) statement that the ANC benefited from drug sales in the Western Cape.