He took his work seriously. He was a careful and experienced pilot. I recall him being unhappy a few years prior to the accident about the cargo he was carrying together with passengers on a flight from London. I am not sure about his exact words, but I recall him saying that he was not happy transporting ammunition on the same flight as passengers. He also said that he was so unhappy about this that he posted a copy of the cargo manifest to his own address in South Africa.
He apparently received an instruction from the station commander to fly the aircraft, despite his misgivings. He received the copy of the manifest later at his home address. He sat for a long time one evening in his study with the manifest.
It should be possible to trace this incident, as a written copy of the report of such an incident should be filed at the Ops Room. Captain Dok Malan headed up the Ops Room at that stage. Another person who can be contacted regarding this is Mr Jan Lategan who currently lives in Smithfield. This was not the only time that he was unhappy about the cargo. The Ops Room is a small building just beneath the Holiday Inn hotel. It is a kind of control room where airplane information is dispatched from. It is not part of the main building.
Jan Lategan went to see someone who has allegedly been set up on a farm in the Cape. This person apparently had something to do with the disappearance of tapes.
After the Margo Enquiry [sic], a certain Piet Taljaard, presumably the chairman of the pilots association, tried to make contact with me. I avoided him because I was not happy with SAA.
I have also tried to trace my deceased husband’s logbook which contains detail on all his flights, but I have not had any success.
There was also a senior pilot, a Jimmy Hippert, who was involved in the investigation on behalf of the airline. Just before he was due to testify, he was transferred or sent away to Air Singapore.
I am aware of the contents of this statement and understand the contents.
I have no objection to taking the prescribed oath.
I regard the oath as binding on my conscience.
This made more sense. Clearly Dawie Uys had flown these dangerous missions before, and had voiced his misgivings.
After having her statement typed up, Torrie Pretorius returned it to Johanna Uys, but she refused to sign it, saying that it was not an accurate reflection of what she had said. This is very strange behaviour, to put it mildly. Torrie Pretorius swore blind that he had simply recorded what she had told him. She then demanded financial guarantees before she would sign the statement. I have evidence of this: on 27 March 1991, I tape-recorded and made notes from the investigator Mark Whale. The advocate in charge of the special investigation, John Welsh, was in contact with Whale and Johanna Uys’s lawyers when she stated that she wanted financial guarantees.
What did Johanna Uys mean by ‘financial guarantees’? The only financial link that she had to SAA was her husband’s pension fund, to which she would have been entitled, as he had died. However, if she was to be paid some kind of money in exchange for her silence, this would have been illegal – contra bonos mores – a contract based on immoral considerations.
It defies logic that Johanna Uys would deny making the statement to Torrie Pretorius. He was a senior legal professional and had no interest in fabricating a false affidavit. He had his notes from the interview and a witness to confirm what Uys had said.
Johanna Uys has remained silent on this matter all these years, and it is time that she broke her silence. I have also asked the state (in particular John Welsh, the advocate who investigated the matter on behalf of Dullah Omar) why they simply didn’t serve a Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act subpoena on Johanna Uys. This would have allowed the state to force her to make a statement in front of a magistrate. The reasons for not doing so are unconvincing.
We know that the fire on the aircraft was hot enough to burn the skin, so there was something on board that had its own oxygen, was unstable and would ignite easily if turbulence occurred. A number of comments were made indicating that there had been more than one fire on board the Helderberg, yet these were hushed up or denied.
Things were kept quiet because the government could not afford to have that aeroplane land. Contraband cargo was, and still is, frowned upon. I am aware of a cargo manager at the time who was told to report to SAA head office. He found the room full of top military officials, who wanted to know which routes back from the East and Europe had extra capacity in the hold – they were using these routes to bring various things into the country, breaking the embargoes and sanctions against South Africa at the time. Transporting innocuous substances can be forgiven, but certain dangerous materials should never be carried by air, particularly not when passengers and cargo are on the same deck. If the cargo hold is below the passengers, it can be flooded with carbon dioxide to kill the fire. But if this cargo was indeed ammonium pechlorate, it would have made little difference, as ammonium pechlorate does not require oxygen to burn. What happened with the Helderberg was grossly irresponsible and detrimental to innocent civilian lives.
At the time, families of the deceased passengers were paid out pittances of around $75 000, as specified by the Warsaw Convention. No challenges were posed to SAA, and most families could not afford to litigate. Transparency was certainly not an issue in the P.W. Botha era in South Africa: the ‘official’ version of the story was publicised, and everyone had to accept it. It was a frightening time.
The Margo Commission of Inquiry’s finding was the definitive word on the Helderberg air disaster: a single fire just outside Mauritius was the reason the aircraft had crashed, and the cause of the fire was ‘unknown’. I believe that the inquiry was a complete sham – Margo prompted responses from witnesses, threatened others and made absolutely sure that events would progress in a direction that suited SAA.
There are too many ‘ifs’ and ‘what ifs’ when it comes to the Helderberg – too many unanswered questions. After nearly twenty-three years, I am still dissatisfied with the official explanation given at the Margo Commission of Inquiry. For me, the case has never been closed. Although I have tried over the years to have it officially reopened by government officials, they have not been interested.
Later, there was a special investigation at the TRC into the Helderberg crash. It was concluded that more investigation would be necessary before this matter could be laid to rest. I participated in this investigation, and the TRC summary of the Special Investigation into the Helderberg crash is attached as Appendix G.
In an interesting twist, in 2004, Sawubona, the SAA in-flight magazine, mentioned the Helderberg in an article on SAA’s seventy years of flying. The article appeared on a website, but never saw the light of day in print, as that issue was destroyed and reprinted without the article, at a cost of more than R800 000. The airline plainly did not want its passengers to read about the Helderberg. Yet it is a story that will never go away.
The affidavits and other material I have collected over the years point to one feasible scenario only: that the Helderberg was carrying rocket fuel destined to assist a flagging South African Air Force in their Angola campaign. This rocket fuel caught fire, and everything that happened subsequently was a sustained government conspiracy to conceal the truth from the public and the rest of the world.
The journalist Robert Kirby had a field day with me in his column ‘Loose Cannon’ in the Mail & Guardian, lambasting me for suggesting that Uys would have allowed his authority to be overruled by government or SAA officials. Kirby never understood the consequences of landing the aircraft en route with severe casualties and possible deaths on board. Landing would have opened the whole can of worms, with dire consequences for the pilot and South Africa. Uys was a military man, and these consequences were too much for him. So he flew on into the abyss.
CHAPTER 18
THE NAKED TRUTH
‘[T]ruth and falsity are uniquely and unequivocally determined by the confrontation of statement with fact.’
– THOMAS KUHN,
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br /> American philosopher
Forensic science exposes the frailties of humankind, leaving behind only the naked truth about people. When someone ends up dead or in a situation beyond their control, the veneer of civilisation drops away, social airs and graces evaporate and the reality of life is what is left for the forensic scientist to investigate.
Life is difficult, and people respond to stress in different ways. Some turn to various forms of sexual gratification; others feel cornered and burn down their houses; still others kill themselves or their family members. It makes my line of work fascinating and, while I am sympathetic towards these people and their problems, there but for the grace of God go I, as the expression goes.
In death, there are few secrets. This becomes apparent when one looks at accidental deaths, which occur from time to time. Whether someone has died as a result of suicide or accidental death is often an issue of dispute. I have been involved in an advisory capacity in a few cases of sexual asphyxia, where the victim has gone too far and accidentally hanged him- or herself during sexual play. It is important to understand that, in these cases, if a life assurance policy has a suicide clause, the claims should be paid out, as they are not suicides, but rather accidental deaths.
Sexual asphyxiation is a road not frequently travelled. Some people believe, however, that by partially obstructing the blood flow to the brain during orgasm, they can achieve a heightened orgasm. The majority of the blood flow to the brain is through the carotid arteries, which run up through the neck just behind the jawbone. If someone suspends himself by the neck, the compression of the tissues in the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain, so that the only blood pumping through is via the vertebral arteries at the back of the neck. This is not sufficient to feed the brain, which then dies: the person becomes unconscious.
So, the trick is to cut off the blood supply just enough – without blocking the blood supply to the brain completely – and, at the right time, to achieve the heightened orgasm. That’s the theory, anyway. But every now and then someone misses the cue and ends up unconscious, suspended, and death rapidly supervenes.
These victims are most often men, although women are not excluded. Frequently the men in such cases are cross-dressers or are found with indicators of sexual activity close at hand, such as pornographic material or dildos. They are also usually on their own.
The range of humankind’s sexual behaviour and tastes is exceptionally wide. The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology used to be affectionately known as the Journal of Kinky Sex, as it contained articles on all sorts of medical complications from interesting and varied sexual practices. One story centred on a woman who had a deer’s tongue firmly lodged in her vagina. Another case involved a man who had lost the end of his penis because he was giving himself a blow job with a vacuum cleaner. Strange things are seen in hospital casualty wards – some may need to be seen to be believed!
I recall a case in South Africa years ago involving a man who came into the casualty ward at Johannesburg General Hospital, where I was working while studying trauma proteins in the blood. He was having difficulty walking, and, after an examination, was discovered to have an object stuck in his rectum. The rectal muscles had contracted and gone into spasm, and the object could not be removed. The man was booked into theatre, and the doctors removed a Melrose cheese-spread jar from his rectum. I still remember it was cheese-and-onion flavour!
The next day, of course, everyone wanted to know from him how it had got there. His explanation was that he had been walking across the kitchen floor and had slipped, falling onto the jar. The matter was left at that!
Suicide is always a challenging investigation, as it exposes how people cope with adversity in life. I have acted on behalf of insurance companies in some cases, and also very often on behalf of the family of the deceased. Frequently, the families have put me under immense pressure to come to a finding that is not suicide. I was involved in a case a while ago where a young man had financial problems and shot himself in the head. His father would not accept it and desperately wanted me to say that something else had caused his son’s death. Failing to accept the facts, however, can lead to anger, bitterness and frustration.
Families battle with the concept that a loved one was so troubled and unhappy that suicide was their only perceived way out. However, from the forensic point of view, there is often no other reasonable explanation: the person was alone and there was a contact shot to the head or inside the mouth, with the weapon found close by.
Contrary to popular belief, most suicide victims do not leave a note. As the forensic investigator, you have to infer what took place from events that transpired before their death, such as changes in behaviour (see Chapter 23, in which I discuss this point in relation to the highly publicised death of a well-known South African businessman).
There are no firm patterns as far as the method of suicide goes, but women tend to use less violent methods, such as drug overdoses, while men are inclined to choose firearms. Suicide by hanging is also quite common. In the case of a man I knew quite well, whom I had seen at a social gathering just a few days before his death, there seemed to be nothing untoward in his behaviour. His son later called me in to investigate his death: he had hanged himself from a beam in his garage. He had been under severe financial strain, and had seen suicide as the only solution to his problems. People reach a point of emotional flatlining and become so desperate that death seems to them to be the only option.
One suicide case stood out for me because of the immense tragedy of it all. It was the death of Jamie Verhoef, son of Gordon Verhoef, who was then the owner and director of Gordon Verhoef & Krause, one of the largest firms of refurbishers and painters in the country. Jamie’s father was a very wealthy man, but, sadly, Jamie had a rather mixed outcome in life. The son of divorced parents, he had a chequered career, dropping out of school at the end of Standard 8 before going to the army, where issues arose concerning him and drugs. After his army stint, Jamie was at a loose end; he had no qualifications or skills – all he had was a fabulously wealthy father.
Jamie tried a number of different careers. First, he wanted to be a boat builder, so his father sent him to New Zealand to one of the top boat builders in the world to learn the trade. A few months later, he came home. He then decided that he wanted a career in property management, something that usually requires tertiary education and years of experience. His father sent him to New York to a top firm of property managers to learn the art of managing high-rise buildings. Soon Jamie was home again, unqualified and jobless.
He then decided to be a game ranger and conservationist, which also would require a degree in zoology or something similar. Gordon Verhoef bought a magnificent game farm. Lavish guesthouses were built on the premises with gold-plated taps, broekielace and a chef: no expense was spared. The farm was stocked with the best animals, and guests would stay over and hunt on the farm or view the animals. Jamie managed the operation, and was given a Remington .243-calibre rifle as part of his equipment.
The game farm was located about ten minutes outside of Beaufort West. On entering the gate, it took well over forty minutes to get to the farmstead. The road was atrocious – a 4 3 4 was needed to navigate it – and there were steep drops along the side of the road: if your wheel went over the edge, you faced a thousand-foot drop. The farm was a very beautiful place, yet it was also desolate and lonely.
Jamie would go into town every now and then. During some of those visits, he struck up a friendship with an attorney, who was part of the elite in Beaufort West. Jamie also met and fell in love with a local girl. There had been rumours that Jamie had also been visiting a girl in the coloured township, and the new object of his desire seemed hesitant to become too involved with him, perhaps because of this fact. This love triangle came to an unpleasant end at a party on the evening of 18 January 1992.
The attorney and his wife played host to the who’s who of Beaufort West that evening. Foo
d and drink were laid on, and the event was a highlight of the social calendar. Jamie and his cousin were invited. All went well until the girl Jamie liked had a huge disagreement with him in front of all the guests: she publicly stated that she was no longer interested in seeing him. To add insult to injury, she snuggled up to one of her erstwhile boyfriends at the party. Jamie, mortified, fled outside. It was a major disruption – so much so that the hostess felt she had to halt the proceedings temporarily to console Jamie.
Some time past one o’clock in the morning, Jamie drove back to the farm with his cousin. Despite the fact that they had consumed alcohol and Jamie was visibly upset over the events of the evening, the two of them managed to find their way along the dark, treacherous road. Jamie parked the car and bade his cousin goodnight, saying, ‘See you in the morning.’ A short while later, his cousin heard a gunshot. He raced to Jamie’s cottage, where he found him dead, his brains splattered all over the ceiling and walls. The Remington was on the floor next to him.
There was a large amount of money at stake: Jamie’s life was insured for a million rand – the equivalent of roughly ten million rand or more today. The Verhoef family wanted the insurance policy to be paid out. Aegis Insurance Company came to consult me for an opinion on the matter, and I looked at all the facts: a contact wound under Jamie’s chin indicated suicide. I advised the insurers that, since Jamie’s was a recent policy with a suicide clause, and that the cause of death appeared to be a suicide, they should repudiate the claim. The family then pursued the matter. I thought it wise to have someone other than me in the defendant’s corner: it was going to be a tough battle in court and I wanted an expert who could merge the clinical aspects with the findings of the post-mortem. I made some calls and was referred to Vince di Maio, the author of Gunshot Wounds. He met with me and we discussed the case.
I had conducted considerable experiments with pigs using the same rifle that killed Jamie Verhoef, and we put the case together. The family’s experts contended that Jamie had dropped the rifle and it had gone off, or that Jamie had stumbled and in the course of this the dog had pulled the trigger! I showed that this was possible, but not in such a way that a contact wound would result. The weapon would have to have been within half a millimetre of Jamie’s skin in order to tear it the way it did.
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