US jet part of Boeremag plan

2003-11-03 18:10

Pretoria - Boeremag members allegedly made plans at a strip club two years ago to shoot down a US passenger jet over a black township near Cape Town, a court was told on Monday.

Police informer and former right-winger Johannes Coenraad Smit told Pretoria High Court, where 22 members of the white right-wing Boeremag (Boer Force) organisation are facing treason charges, that the men planned the attack while sipping drinks at the Teazers strip club, in November 2001.

Smit said the attack was planned by the alleged leader of the group, Mike du Toit, his brother Andre and a third unnamed right-winger.

"Mike du Toit said there was a plan to blow up an American Boeing at Cape Town International Airport," Smit told the court.

"He (Du Toit) said the airplane flew low over Khayelitsha on take-off and that he could get a (surface-to-air) SAM 7-missile from someone," he said.

The men are facing 42 charges, ranging from terrorism to murder, related to a series of bombings committed in the predominantly black Johannesburg township of Soweto last year and a plan to unseat the ANC-led government.

Details of the coup plot were contained in a document which Smit claimed to have received from Du Toit in June 2001.

Smit told the court last week he had infiltrated the organisation and took the stand on Wednesday after being given indemnity from prosecution.

Dubbed "Document 12," the paper outlines different phases in the planned coup, starting with identifying and recruiting members, and followed by the elimination of enemies, including former president Nelson Mandela, leading up to the formation of a new government.

The right-wingers were also planning to chase 35 million black people over the border to Zimbabwe, Smit told the court last week.

- AFP