Apartheid-era minister pleads guilty to trying to kill activist

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- A former government minister in charge of a police force that killed dozens of anti-apartheid activists pleaded guilty to attempted murder Friday in a plot to assassinate a church leader by lacing his clothes with poison.  Former Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok will serve no time in prison under the deal -- which ended the first prosecution of a minister from the apartheid government -- as long as he commits no new crimes for five years.

Vlok's former police chief, Johannes Van der Merwe, received an identical deal, in which the men will assist authorities in prosecuting other apartheid-era crimes.

Their intended victim, Frank Chikane, then secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches and now a top adviser to President Thabo Mbeki, said he has forgiven Vlok, and welcomed the deal.

"I am pleased that this thing is over and we can move forward," Chikane said. "I hope that whatever happened today can be used as a way of resolving all the outstanding issues."

Vlok washed Chikane's feet last year as a gesture of atonement for the 1989 plot.

After the proceedings, Vlok shook hands and exchanged telephone numbers with Chikane and voiced "sincere regret" at the murder attempt.

"I would like to say, 'Obey the Lord and He will heal the land," said Vlok, 70.

Three other former top security officials were given five-year deferred sentences that also will not go into effect if they commit no crimes for the five years.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said that the defendants would help any new prosecutions, which could open the way to a fuller accounting of apartheid-era crimes.

National Prosecutor Vusi Pikoli hailed the outcome as a "victory" for South Africa.

Vlok was minister of law and order from 1986-1989, when an estimated 30,000 people were detained and many were tortured. Allegations surfaced in 1989 that police hit squads may have been involved in the murder of more than 100 political activists.

Torture survivors and family members of people who disappeared or were killed by apartheid security forces demonstrated outside the court room Friday, as did relatives of those who died in bombs planted by the military wing of the African National Congress, which now rules the country. Deep divisions remain between the black majority and white minority that still run deep 13 years after the onset of multiracial democracy.

Vlok appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to help the nation come to terms with its past. He was one of some 1,000 South Africans who were granted amnesty for confessing to various crimes during harrowing two-year hearings. He never applied for protection from prosecution for the attempt on Chikane's life.