Former security branch police officer accused of misleading the 1982 Aggett Inquest
The lawyer for Neil Aggett’s family says a four-page statement in which the anti-apartheid activist allegedly implicated his comrades in illegal activities is a security branch fabrication to cover up their role in his death.
Howard Varney has been challenging former security branch police officer, Petrus Woensdregt, on his evidence at the Aggett inquest, which is being conducted virtually.
Woensdregt was among the officers who interrogated Aggett a few days before he was found hanging in his cell at the then John Vorster Square Police Station in Johannesburg in February 1982.
The security branch had claimed he committed suicide, but Aggett’s family believes he was murdered.
Aggett interrogator might again ‘emerge unscathed’
27 Jan 2021 News
Joseph Woensdrecht was one of the security police officers who interrogated activist Neil Aggett in his final days, but says he had nothing to do with his death.
Joseph Petrus Woensdrecht is a large man, a little hard of hearing and with the gruffness of manner that marks him as a man more used to asking questions than answering them. He celebrated his 71st birthday on Monday 25 January in the boardroom of the Cape Town offices of law firm Webber Wentzel. Here, he answered questions about what he described as a brief moment almost 40 years ago, when his path crossed that of Neil Aggett’s for a few hours on the 10th floor of John Vorster Square police station. This was on 30 January 1982, five days before Aggett was found dead, hanged in his cell.
https://www.newframe.com/aggett-interrogator-might-again-emerge-unscathed/
DEATH IN APARTHEID DETENTION
‘Hardened cop’ was ‘untouched’ by death in police cell of ‘intelligent, softly spoken’ Neil Aggett
A second police officer concedes in court that Neil Aggett did not seem a suicide risk. He also reveals secret oaths and codes that Security Branch officers had to swear to uphold.
Another Covid-19 delay at the NPA offices with no contingency plans in place means Wednesday’s sitting in the reopened Neil Aggett inquest has had to be scrapped. The hearings are now behind schedule and costs to taxpayers are mounting.
Over the past two days proceedings have already stuttered along with to-ing and froing to accommodate inept translations and technical glitches. These are frustrations but there’s the bigger question of just how competently justice is being served. It’s the delays, but also that ex-Security Branch police officers (whose legal representation and expenses are paid for by taxpayers) get to answer to a screen instead of under scrutiny of a live and public court sitting.
‘I had nothing to do with it’: State security cop unmoved by Neil Aggett’s death
A police officer called in to interrogate Dr Neil Aggett conceded on Tuesday that he had not been bothered by his death because of the type of work he did.
Joseph Woensdregt was among a number of officers who interrogated Aggett, a trade unionist and medical doctor, at John Vorster Square police station just days before his death in 1982.
When they killed Neil Aggett
The second inquest into the death in detention of the unionist, in 1982, is now under way. The first was a whitewash. To heal from such evil, South Africa deserves the truth.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
On 5 February 1982, anti-apartheid union organiser Dr Neil Aggett (28) was allegedly “found hanged” in cell 209 by police in the notorious John Vorster Square after 70 days of Security Police torture and 62 hours of interrogation.
“Somebody told me he spoke to Neil [Aggett] once and he said: ‘They’re going to kill you,’ and he [Neil] said: ‘Yes, I know.’”
Jill Burger, Aggett’s sister, told this chilling chronicle of a death foretold to journalist and writer Tymon Smith, who has written extensively about the recently reopened inquest into Aggett’s death and the new evidence that has emerged.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-24-when-they-killed-neil-aggett/
