Prosecutors face De Kock claim over apartheid command evidence

Eugene de Kock told the Khampepe Commission on Oct. 26 that prosecutors never approached him during 20 years in C-Max to name apartheid-era superiors, Daily Maverick reported in a news article.

The testimony matters because the Khampepe Commission is examining delayed post-TRC prosecutions before a scheduled Dec. 18 wrap-up; De Kock received two life terms plus 212 years in 1996.

De Kock, the former commander of Vlakplaas, said he could help map the security structure above the unit that carried out apartheid-era violence. He told the panel that prosecuting senior officers would have “exposed the chain of command and those who gave instructions,” according to Daily Maverick.

“I can explain command structures, operational relationships, requests for assistance, the movement of instructions and covert liaison arrangements,” De Kock said. “I can identify where the intelligence or target selection originated outside Vlakpaas. I can explain which senior people approached me and which structures possessed direct knowledge.”

He also told the inquiry that among those involved in enforcing apartheid through violence, “none served a day in a South African prison – except me.” De Kock’s appearance followed testimony by former president Thabo Mbeki the previous week, Daily Maverick reported.

The Khampepe Commission is looking into why prosecutions linked to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were delayed. De Kock’s evidence goes to one of the central questions in that process: whether investigators and prosecutors failed to pursue evidence that could have led beyond direct perpetrators to commanders and political decision-makers.

In an 18-page affidavit, De Kock described himself as the central “operations figure” at Vlakplaas, a farm outside Pretoria that served as the secret headquarters for Section C1, also referred to as C10, of the security police. He said the unit’s public counter-insurgency role concealed what he described as a “death squad” involved in killings, kidnappings, interrogations and bombings.

De Kock said he was arrested in 1994 and charged with 89 counts, including six murder counts, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, assault and kidnapping. He said advocate Anton Ackermann, appointed by presidential proclamation in 2003 to head the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit for post-TRC cases, initially indicated De Kock would be used “to move upward through the chain of command.”

That did not happen, De Kock told the inquiry. “I have never been reluctant to provide information to prosecuting authorities, however, they simply never approached me,” he said, according to Daily Maverick.

De Kock also referred to Attorney-General advocate Jan d’Oliveira, saying there was little effort by Ackermann or d’Oliveira to interview him about his knowledge of apartheid-era crimes. The article supplied for this story did not include a response from Ackermann, d’Oliveira or prosecutorial authorities.

Daily Maverick reported that De Kock said he had disclosed his crimes openly, filed a TRC amnesty application running to more than 1,000 pages and testified for the prosecution in the Motherwell bombing trial. The Khampepe Commission is scheduled to conclude its work on Dec. 18.

Source: News article, Daily Maverick, Oct. 26, 2026.