>From: MCELROY@zodiac.rutgers.edu SOUTH AFRICAN LINKS WORRY S.F. IRISH by Joe O'Neill from the Irish Echo January 27/February 2, 1993 ********** Irish political activists have expressed concern over revelations that information gathered by members of the San Francisco Police Department's Intelligence Unit may have been sold to representatives of the South African and Israeli governments. At present, it appears that an officer, Tim Gerard, is the main suspect. Gerard, who recently resigned from the department, is believed to be in the Philippines. The Philippines and the United States do not have an extradition treaty. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office is reported to have seized files from the offices of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and personal computer equipment from the homes of SFPD officers. Intelligence files held by the police department have also been seized by the Special Prosecutors from the District Attorney's Office. Irish political activists are concerned about the South African-Israeli connection because of previous links between the South African government officials and loyalist gunrunners, which has resulted in Israeli and South African weapons in the hands of loyalist murder gangs in Northern Ireland. Loyalist and South African Embassy staff in Paris were arrested by French police in 1989 and plans discovered to hand over sensitive secrets in exchange of weapons. At the time, the Irish government made a protest to the SOuth African government through its London embassy. John McFudin, a former political prisoner in the North and now a criminal lawyer in San Francisco, has called for the SFPD to open up its files to the community to determine if any information on Irish-Americans collected by the department fell into the hands of South African or British agents. Supervisor Terence Hallinan has called on the Police Commission to investigate the incident and a hearing will be held before the Health and Public Safety Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. ********** The following is an article which was posted earlier in reg.ireland. It concerns another aspect of collusion between South African intelligence services and loyalists in Northern Ireland. ********** NORTHERN IRELAND POLICE IN SOUTH AFRICAN MURDER PLOT (from An Phoblacht/Republican News December 12, 1992) The RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) were directly involved in the London plot by South African state agents to assassinate former security police officer and political dissident, Dirk Coetzee, it was revealed this week. According to a secret South African government document, the RUC team not only provided surveillance and intelligence on the intended target, but also offered to "take him out" if required. The document also reveals that South African agent, Leon Flores, paid 2,000 pounds sterling to a Northern Ireland contact, Charles Simpson "for services rendered by his RUC friends in monitoring the activities of Dirk Coetzee." The revelation came in the wake of an internal inquiry by the South African government after two of their agents were arrested in London last April under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and interrogated about a possible conspiracy to murder a defector from the South African security police currently living in Britain. During the interrogation the two South Africans claimed that their secret mission was to gather information on possible links between the IRA and ANC as part of a propaganda initiative designed to discredit the ANC. The South African government initially reiterated its agents' statements until revelations about the assassination plot forced the government to distance itself. An internal inquiry by the Pretoria government was prompted after the revelations in the British media forced the British government to put pressure on De Klerk. It was claimed that the South African agents conspired with loyalist assassins in what their intended victim, Coetzee, described as a 'contract killing.' Dirk Coetzee, who miraculously survived four murder attempts in three years, is considered a prime target for the Pretoria regime. The former security police officer was directly involved in Pretoria's dirty war against the ANC. In 1989 Coetzee fled to Zambia where he revealed his own role in a series of poisonings and wayside murders. He also implicated one of the most senior members in the South African security establishment, Col. Eugene de Kock, who Coetzee linked to a number of hit squad killings of ANC activists. De Kock was promoted to colonel after Coetzee revealed his role in death squad killings. In the latest attempt on Coetzee's life, two South African state agents, who arrived on a secret mission in London last summer, were met at Heathrow Airport by Belfast-born Charles Simpson. The agents were Pamela du Randt, a captain in the South African Intelligence Service and Secretary to the South African head of military intelligence, and Leon Flores, a former police officer on the South African military intelligence payroll. From Heathrow the two were taken by Simpson to a pre-arranged meeting at the Three Kings public house in West Kensington with what British intelligence, in a briefing to the British media identified as a "well-known loyalist gunman." However, in a secret internal inquiry by the South African military intelligence, only part of which was given to the British embassy by way of an official explanation, it was revealed that those identified by British intelligence to the media as 'loyalist gunmen' are in fact members of the RUC, though given the extensive collusion between the RUC and loyalist death squads, it is understandable that British intelligence would make such a connection. The document also alleges that Simpson, identified in the British media simply as a loyalist with known South African connections, is probably a British intelligence agent. The document states that: "The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Simpson is an agent of the British intelligence services." According to the British intelligence briefing to the media, after the West Kensington meeting, two of the three men identified as RUC members by the South African intelligence services were watching a flat in Hinde Street in London's West End in which Coetzee and his children had been living. Meanwhile, the two South African agents, Randt and Flores, were escorted by alleged British intelligence agent Charles Simpson to a 'large house' forty miles outside Belfast for a second meeting where, according to the South African document, further "payment by means of the supply of Semtex (plastic explosives), weapons, night vision equipment and electronic eavesdropping devices" was discussed for the continued monitoring of Coetzee. According to journalist John Carlin in the London 'Independent', "If true, it exposes the existence of a dirty tricks department in the RUC dealing semtex and weapons." ********