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'Prime Evil' takes on FW
27/07/2007 09:22 - (SA)
Cape Town - Former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock says he's prepared to testify in court against former president FW de Klerk saying his hands are soaked in blood.
De Kock told CapeTalk radio on Friday morning from his Pretoria prison cell he can list exact instances where De Klerk gave the order for killings.
De Klerk on Thursday denied ever condoning apartheid era murders or other gross violations of human rights.
"I have not only a clear conscience, I am not guilty of any crime whatsoever," he told a media briefing in Cape Town.
He was responding to newspaper reports that former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok, who faces prosecution over the 1989 poisoning of Reverend Frank Chikane, intends to spill the beans on him.
"The stories have done my reputation immense harm," he said.
"They tried to make it difficult for me to continue to play a constructive role nationally and internationally, and they have the very real potential of seriously and negatively affecting my material interests".
He had made it very clear to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he and those who governed with him in the apartheid years accepted overall responsibility for the policies of the past, and a reasonable interpretation of those policies.
Gross violations of human right
"I have never myself approved murder or the random killing of anybody, or gross violations of human rights," he said.
De Klerk, who was head of state from August 1989 to the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in 1994, said he had asked his attorneys to demand either corrections or right-of-reply space from the Mail and Guardian and the Sunday Times, which carried the reports.
The M&G had said it would carry his reply next week.
Former security police chief Johann van der Merwe, who was also supposed to be intending to incriminate De Klerk, had denied the reports in the two newspapers, and the lawyer acting for both men had distanced himself from the reports.
Former Vlakplaas commander de Kock - known as Prime Evil - is serving two life sentences and 212 years in prison at Pretoria's C-Max prison after being found guilty in 1996 on 89 charges - mostly of human-rights abuses. - Additional reporting Sapa
- News24
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