Nieuwoudt to face Hefer star
2004-03-30 08:44
Port Elizabeth - Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt on Tuesday faces interrogation by advocate Kessie Naidu, the man who had South Africans glued to their television screens as leader of evidence in the recent Hefer Commission hearings.
Naidu was appointed at short notice to replace advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza as legal representative of the families of three of the victims of the 1989 Motherwell car-bomb killing.
Ntsebeza withdrew last week after counsel for Nieuwoudt and fellow-applicant Wal du Toit claimed he had conflict of interest because he had had a discussion with Du Toit on the Motherwell when he headed the investigative unit of the now-defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Nieuwoudt gave his evidence-in-chief on Monday in the Port Elizabeth High Court before the amnesty panel which is re-hearing the Motherwell application.
He, Du Toit and the third applicant, Marthinus Ras, were refused amnesty after the first round of hearings in 1997, but the Cape High Court ordered in 2001 that they get a fresh hearing.
They have admitted to killing three black security police colleagues and an informer who they believed were leaking information to the African National Congress.
- SAPA