Boeremag: Top cops 'orchestrated plot'
2013-02-25 21:42
Pretoria - Top officials in the police's crime
intelligence unit "orchestrated" a rightwing coup plot and supplied
the explosives used to train Boeremag members, a retired police spy told the North
Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Former crime intelligence officer Captains Deon Loot on
Monday testified that he had resigned out of protest against his superiors
changing what was initially a self-defence plan to a coup.
Loots was testifying in an application for a special
entry on the court record, which could eventually be used on appeal in an
application to set aside the treason convictions of the 20 Boeremag members.
The convictions stem from a rightwing plot to overthrow
the ANC-led government.
Loots retired from the police on medical pension in 2001
after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome.
His now-estranged wife, Colonel Miranda Loots, is still a
member of crime intelligence.
He testified that he had kept on acting as handler for
police spy J C Smit, even after deciding to leave the police in 2000, and that
his wife had kept him informed of developments in the trial until 2010.
Loots was transferred to crime intelligence's covert unit
after reporting about rightwing meetings at which plans (contained in the
so-called Document 12) were discussed of how the commandos and defence force
could restore order in the country if chaos broke out.
"The information was at that stage not of such a
nature that it created a problem or danger for the country... Later it was
decided that Document 12 had to be extended and made more offensive.
"Each handler had to expand on points in the
document and then hand it to their informers so that they could take it back to
the meetings.
"The first time the orders were given on a high
level was at a meeting at the Bloemhof dam, where crime intelligence members
from all over the country gathered.
"Director [now General] Roos called a small group of
us aside and said we had to rewrite Document 12 so that it became more
offensive... It had to be done over a few months so that people at the meetings
did not become suspicious that something was being planted.
"You gave your informer instructions to go to a
meeting and then make statements that would make the meetings more offensive
and dangerous... Most of the time the informer would take the 'loaded' Document
12 with him.
"I personally made changes to Document 12 about
three or four times," he said.
Loots said he had ways of checking Smit's information
through other informers, and by using the police's technical support unit to
bug places where meetings were held.
They had bugged Smit's lounge, which he let a right-winger
use, so they could listen in on meetings. They also bugged Smit's car so they
could monitor him.
The trial continues.
- SAPA
