A self-confessed police agent in the entourage of Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of President Mandela, yesterday described how he took part in the murder of several young people who had been branded as informers.
Jerry Richardson, former coach of the Mandela United Football Club, was testifying on the eighth day of the special hearing by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into alleged abuse of human rights by Ms Madikizela-Mandela in the late 1980s.
Richardson (50) told the TRC: "My hands are full of blood." But, he added, in murdering those accused of being informers he had acted on the instructions of Ms Madikizela-Mandela, to whom he was once devoted and whom he still described as "mummy."
Referring to the death of Stompie Sepei-Moeketsi, a teenage boy who was kidnapped from the Methodist Manse in Soweto, brought to Ms Madikizela-Mandela's house, beaten up and then "dumped", Richardson said: "I killed Stompie under the instructions of mummy."
The former football coach and unmasked police informer added: "Mummy did not kill anyone. But she used us to kill of lot of people." He did not specify what he meant by "us". From the context of his testimony, however, it was clear that he was referring to selected members of the Mandela United Football Club, which an earlier witness described as Ms Madikizela-Mandela's personal vigilante force.
Aside from Stompie, Richardson confessed to involvement in the murder of two young men accused of being police spies, Lolo Sono and Siboniso Tshabalala, and a young woman, Kuki Zwane, branded with the same mark.
Sono and Tshabalala were suspected of being responsible for the betrayal of two ANC guerrillas, known as Sipho and Tebogo, who were living at Richardson's house. They were killed during a police raid on the house on November 9th, 1988. However, it emerged during cross-examination, that Richardson had betrayed the guerrillas to his police handler, Sgt Stephanus Pretorius, in return for promises of a car and new clothes. Richardson told the TRC that his house had been raided by enough policemen to fill a nearby stadium.
In the ensuing shoot-out, both guerrillas were killed but so was his police handler, Richardson said. He agreed under cross-examination that Sgt Pretorius - who was found dead in Richardson's kitchen - had been "deliberately killed" and that a plan to eliminate him had been hatched at police headquarters in Pretoria.
Richardson was convicted of murdering Stompie Sepei-Moeketsi in 1990 and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.