ANC links intelligence services to killing of Hani

AFRICAN National Congress officials said yesterday they had new evidence that far-right elements in the South African intelligence services were involved in a plot to assassinate the ANC leader Chris Hani.

Discounting the notion that the man charged with the murder, Janusz Walus, was a right-wing lunatic working alone, the Independent learnt yesterday that a hit-list found in his possession - contained the plans of the house of the ANC President, Nelson Mandela, and detailed information on his security arrangements.

The list included, among others, the names of Pik Botha, the Foreign Minister, and the Communist Party Chairman Joe Slovo, as well as Hani. In each case details such as addresses were provided, dossier-fashion, on each intended target.

One source close to the ANC leadership who knows the contents of the politically explosive dossier said that such information could have been obtained only by the intelligence services.

It also emerged yesterday that Mr Walus was involved with right-wing groups previously linked to South African Military Intelligence and the security police.

A sinister group calling itself the World Apartheid Movement said on Monday that it would pay Mr Walus's legal costs.

Its leader, Koos Vermeulen, was associated with Adriaan Maritz and Henry Martin, who were charged at the end of 1991 with the murder of a white ANC supporter in a booby-trap explosion in Durban in October 1990.

The two, who said later they had been working as Military Intelligence operatives, jumped bail and flew to Britain with false passports.

No effort has been made since by the South African government to obtain their extradition.

There is another British connection. A British army deserter interviewed by the Independent and BBC in February last year told how he had met Mr Maritz and Mr Martin after he was recruited by Mr Vermeulen to provide training for right-wing paramilitaries.

The deserter, who asked not to be named in print, said that he had worked with Eugene Terreblanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement, of which Mr Walus is a member.

He also became involved, through Mr Vermeulen's shadowy networks, with members of the Boer Resistance Movement (BWB), which yesterday also claimed Mr Walus as one of its own. The BWB said in a statement to the media that Mr Walus was 'a first-class fighter against Communism', 'a soldier for freedom'.

Criminal negligence is the charge the ANC is now expected to lay at the door of the government. Those elements in the intelligence services loyal to President F W de Klerk were not unaware of the murky connections between the far-right and like-minded members of the security forces.

The British soldier - who named Mr Maritz, Mr Martin and Warrant Officer Steyl Abrie of the security police as those guilty of the Durban bombing - was arrested and held in custody for most of 1991.

He said he gave the police detailed information on the Durban murder and on the far-right networks.

'They gave me a cold blank stare. Basically I had to shut my mouth and keep quiet.'

Mandela warns of disaster, page 10