Family won’t forgive ‘Prime Evil’

Eugene de Kock, during an amnesty hearing of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission in Pretoria Monday May 24 1999. De Kock, nicknamed Prime Evil, is serving two life terms plus 212 years in prison for many of the crimes committed during the apartheid era. (AP Photo / Themba Hadebe)

Eugene de Kock, during an amnesty hearing of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission in Pretoria Monday May 24 1999. De Kock, nicknamed Prime Evil, is serving two life terms plus 212 years in prison for many of the crimes committed during the apartheid era. (AP Photo / Themba Hadebe)

Published Jan 27, 2012

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Twenty years after their son, Tiisetso Leballo, was shot dead and his lifeless body blown to pieces by apartheid police hit squad leader Eugene de Kock, the pain just won’t go away.

Tiisetso’s elder brother, Kutlwano Leballo, said there was no reason even to talk about forgiveness as De Kock had not approached the family to ask for forgiveness.

“The death of my brother brought us so much pain that we do not even want to discuss it. It will be 20 years in March since he was brutally killed, but for us it’s like it happened yesterday. It has caused us so much grief,” said Leballo.

Aggravating the family’s situation is that the health of their mother, Joyce Nobelungu, deteriorated after she heard that De Kock was eligible to apply for parole.

Tiisetso, who was a driver and bodyguard to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and four others were killed near Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, when the car in which they were travelling was ambushed. Tiisetso was not in the vehicle but was reportedly picked up by Vlakplaas members soon afterwards and killed.

Former Vlakplaas operatives Jacobus “Duiwel” Brits testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Tiisetso was killed the day after four of his comrades were killed in a hail of bullets.

The TRC amnesty committee heard that the police set up an ambush after receiving information that the five activists were smuggling weapons into the country to use in robberies to bolster the ANC’s coffers.

During his testimony, Brits said he was involved in the interrogation of Tiisetso at the Penge mine.

“Throughout the interrogation, Tiisetso was very co-operative. We were sitting with him and drinking. In fact, he drank three beers before we could kill him and destroy his body with explosives,” recalled Brits.

He said that after the interrogation, Tiisetso was taken down the open mine and two shots were fired into his heart.

“Thereafter his clothes were removed and more than 25kg of military and commercial explosives were stacked on his body.”

After the body was blown up, the operatives left the mine and returned the following day. “We gathered all the remains of bones and tissue and exploded them again,” Brits said.

All the applicants said they were acting under instructions from Vlakplaas commander De Kock. The four others killed were Khona Khabela, Masilo Mama, Mxolisi Ntshaota and Lawrence Nyalende.

De Kock and the others were denied amnesty for the murders, for which he was sentenced to 121 years in prison and two life sentences.

In earlier reports, Tiisetso’s mother spoke of an agonising two-year search that took her as far as Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique to uncover the fate of her son.

She recalled having stumbled on an article on De Kock in a newspaper, which described how her son had been blown to pieces in a minibus. She said she could not forgive De Kock for such an act.

Dr Piet Croucamp, a go-between for De Kock, said he had spoken to the man dubbed “Prime Evil” on Tuesday, and De Kock had told him that he himself would find it difficult to forgive someone who killed his relative in the manner in which he had. - The Star

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