Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990 TAG: 9006220847
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Medium
Authorities confirmed the arrests but said all were later released.
The report said the plan was that Mandela would be shot by a sniper at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts Airport when he returned July 18 from his six-week tour of North America, Africa and Europe. He is in New York today.
The report, which appeared in the Afrikaans-language weekly newspaper Vryeweekblad, said the plot was exposed by Jannie Smith, a former security policeman and National Intelligence Service agent, after he infiltrated far-right groups including the Afrikaner Resistance Movement.
There was no immediate government comment on details of the report.
But a spokesman for the Ministry of Law and Order confirmed that 11 men had been arrested, then released. The spokesman, Capt. Peet Bothma, said they had been held under a law allowing police to hold a suspect for 48 hours for questioning.
He confirmed that security for government ministers had been increased. South African police do not normally protect Mandela.
The spokesman said that if police felt there was a specific case to pursue they would present the information to the attorney general, who may then decide whether to prosecute.
The newspaper quoted Smith as saying the plot also aimed to kill South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo, Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok, Minister of Foreign Affairs Pik Botha and Minister of Defense Magnus Malan.
Some prominent staff members of the government-run South African Broadcasting Corp. television station were also on the hit list, the report said.
De Klerk's government this year freed Mandela from 27 years in prison, has begun dismantling apartheid laws and lifted repressive state of emergency measures in most of the country.
The Afrikaner Resistance Movement planned to blow up power stations, eliminate members of Parliament and to poison the water supply to Soweto, a huge black residential area outside Johannesburg, the report said.
The plot to kill Mandela, deputy president of the African National Congress, was planned by former Nazi captain Heinrich Beissner, the newspaper said. It said Beissner, 77, is now a regional head of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement in South Africa.
The newspaper said Smith was told June 19 that he was to carry out the Mandela assassination using a rifle with telescopic sights. He was also asked to kill Slovo.
A council member on the right-wing Boksburg Town Council, T.J. Ferreira was among those arrested Thursday, the report said. They were held in terms of Section 50 of the Criminal Procedures Act which allows the police to hold a suspect for 48 hours for questioning, it said.
by CNB