Right-wing bomber speaks
Attending a Boekevat evening with true crime writer De Wet Potgieter always delivers a surprise and last week’s event did not disappoint when Worcester bomber Stefaans Coetzee addressed the gathering.
Stephané Bothma
There are few things that hold the attention as much as a good fictional crime story but somehow, true crime is far more captivating and personal.
None more so than murders, kidnappings, satanism and horrific criminal acts that were reported in local newspapers – crimes that South Africans lived with for years.
Investigative journalist for more than three decades, De Wet Potgieter, last week again attracted a large number of fans when he discussed his top-seller true crime book Gruesome, and introduced one of the subjects in the book to his audience – Stefaans Coetzee, the so-called right-wing Worcester bomber.
Coetzee was released from prison in July last year.
He was only 17 when he participated in a series of AWB blasts. The most damaging the bomb exploded at Shoprite in a Worcester mall during the festive season of 1996.
The blast killed six and injured 67 and the country was shocked when Coetzee, at the time expressed “disappointment at the low death toll”.
But, Coetzee, who had apologised to the families of his victims and had spoken to and begged for forgiveness from those who had survived, is a changed man today.
“It took me 12 years before I could meet with my victims,” Coetzee told the gathering, also known as Boekevat, at Café de Café in Doringkloof, Centurion.
The soft-spoken Coetzee praised Potgieter as the first journalist to place his career on the line for writing something positive – the complete change in Coetzee.
The in-depth look at the Worcester bombing is however just one of the articles in Gruesome.
In the book, Potgieter follows the trail of a number of criminals in South Africa’s history. These violent crimes, perpetrated from the late 1980s into the new millennium, vary from fanatical far-rightists who killed their innocent countrymen, to assassins who executed high-profile, state-sanctioned murders.
He takes the reader behind the scenes of some of the most controversial events in the country and, with his fearless style of writing, pulls you right into the belly of the beast.
In Gruesome, Potgieter shares information that has never been made public before. What really happened on the night of 17 June 1992 in Boipatong? What motivated the horrific attack on Alison Botha? What caused the ostensibly conformist policeman André Stander to become an unscrupulous bank robber? Who was the first person to see the connection between Gert van Rooyen’s victims and a probable human-trafficking network?
In the book, also available in Afrikaans, Potgieter relates how, as a journalist, he went about reporting on each of these interesting, gruesome cases. This book takes you back to the bloody newspaper headlines of yesterday.
He revealed last week, he was currently working with an international film studio which produced a true crime series about events that had South Africans talking for years.
A number of other sensational books have appeared from Potgieter’s pen in which facts stranger than fiction had been revealed.
Among them are Contraband, South Africa and the international trade in ivory and rhino horn, Total onslaught: Apartheid’s dirty tricks revealed, Kwart voor ’n bloedbad and Black widow white widow.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
- We have exciting news! We’re offering a free alert to help you always be in the loop. Send an email with the word ‘Subscribe’ to breakingnews@rekord.co.za to receive your free daily breaking news update.
