Boeremag witness denies agenda

INLSA

Judge Eben Jordaan reads his judgement during the Boeremag treason trial at the Pretoria High Court. File picture: Masi Losi

Pretoria -A former crime intelligence officer insisted he had no secret agenda after being repeatedly accused of lying in the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday.

Retired Captain Deon Loots said, during a second day of questioning by prosecutor Dries van Rensburg, that he only wanted the truth to be revealed.

Loots rejected suggestions that he was making up stories and could not prove his claims that Crime Intelligence had encouraged rightwingers to become more militant.

Loots testified in support of an application by the 20 accused for a special entry on the record, which could be used on appeal in a bid to overturn their convictions on a charge of high treason.

He told the court he had received information about one of the accused, Adriaan van Wyk, before he left the police in 2000.

Earlier, he claimed evidence had been fabricated against Van Wyk when he refused to become a police informer.

Loots testified that he had also received information about some of the other accused when he worked for the police, but could not recall any of their names.

He attributed this to a memory problem caused by a serious accident in 2004.

Loots conceded that apart from Van Wyk's name, the names of the other accused did not appear anywhere in his handler file for police spy JC Smit, who infiltrated the Boeremag and later became one of the State's star witnesses in the treason trial.

Loots also conceded that the handler file did not contain a single copy of the so-called coup planning document, Document 12, or copies of changed versions of the document.

He earlier testified that he had received instructions to change the document to make the self-defence plan of rightwingers more militant. However, he could not give an example of how the document could be changed to make the plan more violent.

Loots said more than 10 handlers, from across the country, were given the same instructions and were told to discuss changes to the document with their informers. The informers would then introduce the changed version in rightwing meetings.

He insisted the handler file that was shown to him had been “terribly edited”, with documents removed or added and others changed, so that it did not reflect the true facts.

Van Rensburg put it to Loots that he was telling lies because he never thought Crime Intelligence would release the file and now realised his version was not supported in the file.

“I have no secret agenda or anything. I just came here to tell the truth to the court,” Loots replied.

The trial continues. - Sapa