Neil Aggett’s torturer paid millions by SARS
Former security cop who gave activist 62 hours of shock therapy is now a ‘security provider’
LIEUTENANT Steve Whitehead, the man held responsible for the torture that led to anti-apartheid activist Neil Aggett’s death, has earned millions doing intelligence work for the South African Revenue Service.
Documents reveal Whitehead started getting government work in 2006, the year the SARS rogue unit was being conceptualised. His services included offering SARS electronic eavesdropping courses and providing it with spy cameras.
He continued to work for SARS until the middle of 2014 despite concerns raised by the rogue unit two years earlier about how the former apartheid operative had come to be hired.
Whitehead was previously investigated for culpable homicide for his role in Aggett’s death.
Now the Khulumani support group, which represents 85 000 victims of gross human rights abuses committed during apartheid, has approached top detective Frank Dutton to find evidence to reopen Aggett’s inquest and lay a murder charge against Whitehead.
APARTHEID security cop Lieutenant Steve Whitehead, who was found responsible for struggle activist Neil Aggett’s death and now faces a possible murder rap, has scored millions of rands doing intelligence work for the South African Revenue Service.
This is revealed in secret documents of the SARS rogue spy unit and a payment schedule obtained by the Sunday Times.
They show that Whitehead received 194 payments totalling R4-million from government entities between 2007 and 2014. More than half of the payments came from SARS.
Despite facing a criminal probe into his unsavoury past, Whitehead’s company, Corporate Business Insight and Awareness, continued to score government work, including from SARS.
Whitehead is a regular speaker at local and international corporate intelligence events and an adviser to the US-based Espionage Research Institute International, along with former FBI and US army counterintelligence agents.
The documents reveal that Whitehead started working for SARS in 2006, when its rogue spy unit was being conceptualised. The unit was established in February 2007, headed by another apartheid spy, Andries “Skollie” Janse van Rensburg.
Whitehead’s services to SARS included a “basic course in electronic eavesdropping” and “tech surveillance”. He also provided “security equipment”, including spy cameras and signal jammers.
SARS evidently became concerned at the possible political fallout of hiring a torturer of prominent anti-apartheid activists, the documents show.
An operational report from the SARS rogue spy unit in 2012 reveals that former deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay was concerned at how “former apartheid operative Steve Whitehead” came to be hired as “a service provider to SARS”.
The outcome of a probe Pillay ordered — dubbed Project Wonderboy — is unclear.
However, payments to Whitehead continued for almost two years. The payment schedule re- veals that Whitehead received another 14 disbursements worth R1.4-million in 2013 and continued to be employed by SARS until July last year.
SARS would neither confirm nor deny that Whitehead had earned millions working for it.
“Issues of procurement are and remain internal matters,” spokesman Luther Lubelo said.
Asked what he felt about facing a possible murder charge for Aggett’s death and to explain his work for SARS, Whitehead said: “I am not prepared to comment.”
Aggett, a 28-year-old medical doctor and unionist, was found hanging in his cell at John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg in 1982 after Whitehead and his commander, Major Arthur Cronwright, tortured him with electric shocks for 62 hours.
An inquest held at the time found no one was to blame.
But a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report handed to Nelson Mandela in 1998 found that Whitehead and Cronwright were directly responsible for Aggett’s death. Neither applied for amnesty or disputed the TRC findings.
Cronwright has since died, but in 2013 the Hawks investigated a case of culpable homicide against Whitehead.
Brian Sandberg, the former co-ordinator of the Neil Aggett Support Group, described in a statement how Aggett “was interrogated daily by Lt Whitehead and was required to make written additions to his confessional statement under torture including physical and verbal assault, long periods of standing, sleep deprivation and other forms of duress”.
The Khulumani Support Group has approached former Scorpions head and crack international detective Frank Dutton to dig up new evidence that could result in a murder charge being laid against Whitehead.
Khulumani represents about 85 000 victims of apartheid-era gross human rights violations.
“I believe there is a very good possibility of finding the evidence,” Dutton said this week. “Findings of the TRC and evidence before the TRC showed the security police had no qualms about presenting false evidence.”
Khulumani hopes Dutton’s investigation will uncover enough evidence to reopen the inquest and convert his culpable homicide case to a murder charge.
Cosatu and its affiliate, the Food and Allied Workers Union, have for many years been campaigning for the prosecution of Whitehead and other former apartheid policemen blamed for Aggett’s death.
In 2013, Fawu members marched to Pretoria Central police station demanding that former police minister Nathi Mthethwa expedite investigations into the anti-apartheid activist’s death.
Cosatu spokesman Norman Mampane yesterday reiterated the labour federation’s call for Whitehead to “face the music”.
“All who were involved in the killing of the Fawu leader must be brought to book. If indeed Whitehead was one of them, he must face the music,” he said.
Investigator to dig up new evidence that could result in a murder charge being laid against Whitehead