FW: probe claims of paedophile ministers
FORMER president FW de Klerk has called for an investigation into the allegations of a paedophile ring involving National Party (NP) cabinet ministers, contained in an explosive book, The Lost Boys of Bird Island.
De Klerk said he would have insisted on a “thorough” investigation had he known of the activities alleged in the book.
“I have been shocked by recent media reports regarding allegations in the book. I was not aware of any such allegations while I served in the cabinet.
“Had I known of such activities I would certainly have insisted on a thorough investigation and criminal prosecution if it transpired that there was any basis to the allegations,” De Klerk said.
However, he said the reports, thus far, were allegations which must still be properly investigated.
“I would urge the authorities to investigate thoroughly and speedily these allegations and to take whatever action might be required in terms of the law.”
He rejected charges that such “aberrations, if they did occur” were condoned by or reflections on the previous NP cabinets.
“My colleagues were decent people wrestling with the existential historic challenges of the time.
“The alleged behaviour would have been as repugnant to them as it is to me,” he said.
The book’s co-author and former police officer Mark Minnie was found dead on a smallholding outside of Port Elizabeth this week.
Police said his body was found by a friend “lying near a bush with a gunshot wound to his head”.
“A firearm was also found lying next to him.”
Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidoo said yesterday there was no new information on the inquest and they opened a case against the owner of the firearm, identified as Minnie’s friend.
However, he has not been arrested yet. Minnie’s death a week after the book he co-authored with investigative journalist, Chris Steyn, was published has shocked many.
It details chilling accounts of alleged sexual abuse of coloured teenagers by a ring including the late minister of defence Magnus Malan, businessman Dave Allen and former environmental affairs minister Mark Wiley.
The SADF was notorious for its raids in the townships and neighbouring countries as part of its attempts to entrench apartheid.
Minnie and Steyn’s book claimed that the boys were flown to Bird Island by military helicopters, entertained with a braai and alcohol and later sexually abused.
It is alleged that one of the boys suffered severe injuries and was treated in a whites-only section of a hospital.
The book also claimed that threats were made to some media not to investigate or publish articles related to the alleged ring
Steyn also claimed in the book, that as part of a cover-up some of the original state documents and files on the case were deliberately destroyed in the run-up to the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.
At the time of his death, Minnie was back in South Africa from China, where he now lived, to promot the book, which was scheduled to feature in the Open Book festival in Cape Town next month.