Police led Boeremag into coup bid - testimony

Former Crime Intelligence Officer Captain Deon Loots testified that the right-wingers had initially planned only to protect themselves against crime, says a report on the News24 site. However, the police's Crime Intelligence headquarters had been intent on nudging their actions towards a plan to overthrow the government. 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 convictions of the 20 accused of high treason. The convictions arise from a right-wing coup plot to violently overthrow the government. Full report on the News24 site

Loots recruited JC Smit, one of the chief witnesses in the treason trial, as a police informer in 1994 and acted as his handler until the middle of 2000, when he decided to leave the police. Smit was a member of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging's Ystergarde and was, at that stage, an accused in a criminal trial in the South Gauteng High Court, notes a report on the IoL site. He was one of the men accused of planting car bombs in Johannesburg and at the international airport in Johannesburg in 1994, but was acquitted on all charges in 1996. He was offered 'considerable compensation' for spying on the AWB during the trial and was later tasked with becoming close to certain right-wingers to gather information. Loots said he finally decided he was done with the police after a confrontation with his commander at the right-wing reactionary desk in 2000. He told Smit he was no longer with the police and that Smit would be transferred to another handler, but advised him 'to get out of the whole story because huge trouble was coming'. 'I came in conflict with my commander and the commanders at headquarters,' Loots testified. 'They understood that I did not agree with the whole process how the investigation (against the Boeremag) was driven. I said it in my reports and I told them many times that according to my information it was a crime self-protection plan and not a coup.' Judge Eben Jordaan postponed the trial to 25 February, when Loots will resume his evidence. Full report on the IoL site