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Eugene de Kock

Pretoria – Apartheid killer Eugene de Kock’s lawyer has appealed to the minister of justice and correctional services, Michael Masutha, to release his client who is being held in a secret location. According to the Sunday Times, De Kock’s lawyer Julian Knight said he was due to be released in January on parole but has been taken all over “the bloody country . . . against his will”.

“It’s literally like something out of a spook novel,” he said, adding that everyone is denying they have him.

De Kock’s close friend, Sarel Kruger, said on Saturday he was concerned about the whereabouts of the prisoner. “When he was in prison, you knew he was in prison. Now nobody knows where he is,” said Kruger.

Meanwhile Knight said that if Masutha fails to transfer De Kock to the community corrections section for his parole conditions and released from custody, he will bring a writ of habeus corpus before the court, which is a demand to the authorities to produce a missing person in court.

Last week News24 reported that Eugene De Kock is out of jail but has apparently been secretly handed over to security forces for detention against his will.

Justice and correctional services ministry, the State Security Agency, and the SA Police Service declined to comment.

Knight does not know where he is but has received instructions from him asking for help, saying he is being kept against his will.

“We’re instructed by our client that, to date, he hasn’t been released from custody and hasn’t been handed over to community corrections to commence his parole.”

Knight said paperwork indicated he was in the care of the SAPS.

Knight wants De Kock to be handed to the correctional services community corrections division and that he be released on parole.

De Kock commanded an apartheid police hit squad based at Vlakplaas. He was sentenced in 1996 to two life sentences plus 212 years for offences including murder.

On January 30 Masutha announced he had approved De Kock’s parole. – News24