Eugene de Kock TWO decades into South Africa’s democracy, several of its most notorious apartheid-era killers are bidding for freedom. As The Economist went to press, Michael Masutha, the country’s justice and correctional services minister, was due to announce whether to grant parole to several notable white convicts.One is Ferdi Barnard, who was sentenced in 1998 to two life terms and a further 63 years in jail for the murder of David Webster, an anti-apartheid campaigner whom he shot dead at close range.Another is Clive Derby-Lewis, a right-wing politician whose lawyers say he suffers from terminal lung cancer. He was convicted of assisting in the 1993 murder of Chris Hani, a popular leader of the South African Communist Party and rising star of the liberation movement.By far the biggest name on the list is Eugene de Kock, who is also known as “Prime Evil”. Mr de Kock was the commander of a notorious death squad in the 1980s known as C10. He and his team kidnapped, tortured and killed black anti-apartheid activists from a secret base on Vlakplaas, a farm near Pretoria. The bodies of his victims were burned...
From The Economist: Middle East and Africa
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