S. Africa Death Squad Chief Tells of Killings

The self-confessed commander of a South African death squad said Thursday he could not remain silent with blood on his hands.

Former police captain Dirk Coetzee told a South African judicial inquiry that he had supervised the murder of two suspected black guerrillas--one of them a member of his own hit team.

“We in the security police are above the law. . . . It is a secret war we fight against a secret enemy,” he said on the second day of his testimony at the South African Embassy here.

Coetzee, 44, fled South Africa last year after naming police officers he said were involved in a campaign of dirty tricks, kidnapings and killings of opponents of apartheid.

In an unemotional voice, Coetzee described a bungled attempt by his squad to kill two men with poison.

When that failed, the men were taken to a river where a squad member shot them, burned their bodies and dumped the ashes into the water, Coetzee said.

“It was not always possible to handle what (we) call this twilight war through court cases in a legal way,” he said.