'Hunter' held

2003-07-27 22:40

Erika Gibson

Pretoria - A Frenchman with a South African passport, who was linked to the murder of an ANC representative in France in the eighties, was arrested at Johannesburg Airport over the weekend for his alleged involvement in mercenary activities in the Ivory Coast.

He will become the first person to be charged under the Foreign Military Assistance Act since the act was promulgated in 1998.

The man is suspected of having been one of the leaders of South African mercenaries in the Ivory Coast, said deputy director of the National Prosecuting Authority, Dr Torie Pretorius.

The government has instructed Pretorius, Neels de Lange, a senior special investigating officer of the Scorpions, the Secret Service, the National Intelligence Agency and the police to investigate South Africans acting as mercenaries abroad.

The suspect was apparently one of at least 11 South Africans who were operational in the West African country between November last year and January this year. Most of them are former members of the South African security forces or pilots.

The South Africans' involvement in this country caused a stir and became such an embarrassment for the South African government that it ordered a high-level investigation.

As a "big-game hunter", the man regularly arranged hunting trips in Africa, apparently as a "front" for his alleged mercenary activities.

On his website, the suspect writes that he graduated from the French Military Academy and then served in the French defence force - in Africa amongst other places. He became a South African citizen in 1999.

TRC

Reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission indicated that he was the leader of a group of French mercenaries in 1987 to 1998 suspected of spying on behalf of the former South African government on ANC activists in Europe.

At the time, French police suspected that the group was involved in an attack on Godfrey Motsepe, a former ANC representative in Brussels, as well as in the murder of Dulcie September, ANC representative in France.

No evidence could be found to link the suspect or any other members of the group to these attacks. He was allegedly also involved in Colonel Bob Denard's coup in the Comores in the late seventies.

The man was arrested on Saturday evening when he arrived in Johannesburg on a flight from Harare. On Sunday, the investigating team was searching premises from where he worked in Langebaan in the Western Cape and in the Johannesburg area.

He is expected to appear briefly in the Langebaan court on Monday, after which the case will be transferred to Pretoria.

Mercenaries in the Ivory Coast apparently earn up to R100 000 per month.

The identities of several of the witnesses in the case will be protected, Pretorius said.

- Beeld