Former Durban security branch police officer Casper van der Westhuizen on Tuesday described how two top African National Congress members were killed in July 1990 and their bodies thrown into the Tugela River.
Van der Westhuizen made this disclosure at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Pinetown on Tuesday. He is applying for amnesty for his role in the murder.
He is the last of five security police officers to make an amnesty application for involvement in the murders of Mbuso Shabalala and Charles Ndaba.
Van der Westhuizen applied for indemnity for the charges which include murder, unlawful detention, malicious damage to property, defeating the ends of justice and any lesser crimes or civil liability arising from his actions.
His former colleagues, Hendrik Botha, Salmon du Preez, Lawrence Wasserman and Johannes Steyn, made their applications in Durban last year.
The commission heard that Ndaba was believed to be a police informant at the time.
Van der Westhuizen said Ndaba led the police to Shabalala and both men were arrested and unlawfully detained and assaulted.
"They were taken to a safe house in Verulam where they were questioned about ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe operations."
He said Ndaba was co-operative, but Shabalala was not.
A decision was taken by Botha and Du Preez to eliminate both Ndaba and Shabalala.
Botha said during his application last year that Ndaba had been an informer for the security branch and if he were to convey information to the ANC/South African Communist Party alliance it would undoubtedly have endangered the intelligence network and the lives of the informants and collaborators in it.
"There was a great possibility that Ndaba had realised that there were other police informers in Operation Vula, which was, indeed, the position. If he had conveyed these suspicions to the ANC, the ANC would have started a witch hunt and the informers' lives would mean nothing."
He said if Shabalala had been released, it would have been an embarrassment to the National Party and he would have told the ANC about his unlawful abduction and detention.
Van Der Westhuizen said the men were taken to the Tugela River mouth where they were shot dead.
At Tuesday's hearing the family of the victims asked that the applicant point out were the killings took place.
A decision on this is likely to be made on Wednesday when the hearing continues.