Call to reopen murder case of ‘Billy Holiday’

Cape Town - Norman Pietersen

Cape Town - Norman Pietersen

Published Jul 29, 2016

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Cape Town - On the eve of the reburial of slain Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) guerrilla, Norman “Billy Holiday” Pietersen at Heroes’ Acre in Paarl, a group of his former comrades is hoping to reopen his 29-year-old murder case after his body was discovered in an unmarked grave at the Groenheuwel Cemetery earlier this year.

MK military veterans, who recruited Pietersen in 1982 at the age of 15 into the the ANC’s armed wing, believe he was betrayed by a close member of his unit who tipped off security police to his whereabouts in a safe house in Crossroads.

The tip-off would ultimately lead to his death on March 11, 1987.

It is hoped that recently uncovered evidence would prove Pietersen was murdered by security police who acted on information they received from an ANC “informant” who knew where the exiled MK soldier had been living when he returned from Angola on completion of his military training.

Only three people knew where Pietersen was - his handler and the owner of the Crossroads home, Mildred Gladile, her neighbour and ANC veteran, Winnie Nkosi, and his unit commander, Patrick Ricketts, who had been in exile at the time.

The ANC’s provincial secretary, Faiez Jacobs, said there were members in the ANC branches who had been tortured by apartheid police to get information on the whereabouts of MK soldiers. Some people were paid off, others willingly sold out, while some were threatened into becoming apartheid spies, he said.

Ricketts told the Cape Argus the apartheid government would pay as much as R25 000 for information that would lead to the arrest of who they deemed terrorists.

As part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha will officiate the handover and reburial of Pietersen’s remains on Saturday.

On Friday evening, a memorial service will be held in Nyanga at the same house in which he was murdered.

The Cape Argus spoke to Gladile, 74, at the ANC’s headquarters on Thursday, who said she felt “betrayed” by the comrade who gave Pietersen up to security police.

“Before Mama Nkosi died, she said to me: I am very sorry because I was the one who did it’. I asked why she was sorry, and she said she was sorry about Billy. I said to her I don’t care because you did it’.”

Pietersen was murdered in Gladile’s home in the same year Ashley Kriel was gunned down in Athlone.

Incident reports filed by security police detail how sergeant Wilfred Gunther Geiger, who delivered the fatal shot, led 10 other officers under his command to the house in Nyanga where a “known terrorist” had been hiding with weapons.

At around 8am, two officers entered through the back door - which had been left unlocked - and opened the front door for the rest of the unit to enter.

In his own words, Geiger said in his incident report: “Ek het afgespreek dat die betrokke groep wie se deur sou oop wees, vir die ander groep sou oopmaak om sodoende binne die huis as * span verder te werk.” (I was informed that the group concerned would have a door left open and would open the other door in order to gain access to the house and work together as a team.)

“This clearly means that the security police were informed that the door would have been left open.

“That is why they entered through the back to let the other unit members inside,” said Ricketts.

Gladile and her three daughters had been in the house at the time and were held back while Gieger investigated a closed bedroom door that attracted his attention because it was “locked from the inside”.

After breaking through the door, Geiger claimed Pietersen reached for his AK-47 which was under his bed and began shooting erratically at the security police who had allegedly discovered a red bag containing “dangerous weapons”.

Geiger explained how he reached for his shotgun to defend himself and fired a single buckshot at close range into Pietersen’s back that exploded into 15 individual pellets, killing the 22-year-old instantly.

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