PREVIEW: Can these authors be prosecuted?
"We published if it was publishable." This was how Cape Times editor Toney Heard phrased his decision not to run an explosive story in the 1980s, although rumours held that National Party ministers were part of a paedophile ring.
Decades later, South Africans are questioning the publication of The Lost Boys of Bird Island. The book details allegations of sexual abuse by former ministers Magnus Malan, John Wiley and the late businessman Dave Allen.
Another minister has not been named, but Barend du Plessis has since issued a statement stating, “I am clearly being identified in the book and in news reports, by referring to a former minister who is still alive, who has a holiday home in the Eastern Cape, and who was a frontrunner to take over from the then state president”. Du Plessis denied involvement in sexual abuse.
Authors Chris Steyn – an investigative journalist – and former policeman Mark Minnie have combined the results of their independent investigations in the book.
