De Kock can be forgiven - victim’s family

Eugene de Kock. Photo: KENDRIDGE MATHABATHE

Eugene de Kock. Photo: KENDRIDGE MATHABATHE

Published Jul 11, 2014

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Johannesburg - Apartheid-era assassin Eugene de Kock can be forgiven and paroled if he shows remorse, the family of one of his victims told the Sowetan newspaper.

“If he was to speak to us and connect with us on a human level, and really show he knows what he did was a horrible thing, then we would forgive him,” Catherine Mlangeni, the mother of slain ANC lawyer Bheki Mlangeni, was quoted as saying in Friday's report.

She said her family was willing to forgive him if he asked for forgiveness, but so far he had not shown remorse.

“I still see the same man that killed my son. He does not seem to have changed. I think this attitude is wrong.”

On Thursday, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha announced that De Kock would have to wait another year before his application for parole was reconsidered Ä in order to allow the families of his victims to be consulted.

He said the 65-year-old's parole application had been denied because not all the families of his victims had been consulted.

De Kock was in charge of a police death squad at Vlakplaas, outside Pretoria, which arranged and carried out the deaths of anti-apartheid activists. He arrested in 1994.

He was convicted and sentenced in 1996 to two terms of life imprisonment for six murders and to a further 212 years' imprisonment on charges including conspiracy to commit murder, culpable homicide, kidnapping, assault, and fraud.

Many of his former colleagues who committed murder under his command testified in return for indemnity from prosecution.

De Kock, nicknamed “Prime Evil”, has spent almost two decades in prison. - Sapa

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