De Klerk denies condoning apartheid-era murders

‘I have not only a clear conscience, I am not guilty of any crime whatsoever,’ he said yesterday, according to a report on the Mail & Guardian Online site. 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. He said the reports did not contain a grain of truth. 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. However, he refused to accept responsibility for deeds performed in conflict with those policies. ‘I have never myself approved murder or the random killing of anybody, or gross violations of human rights,’ he said. Full Mail & Guardian Online report