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One of the victims of an alleged paedophile network involving senior apartheid government ministers and businessmen in the 1980s has described to Netwerk24 how he was kidnapped, raped and forced to perform other sexual acts by former defence minister Magnus Malan and another "uncle".
The man, whom Netwerk24 dubs "Mr X", is now 44, married and a father of two. He told the publication that he had been kidnapped at the age of 13 in 1987 by a group of white men in Port Elizabeth. He and four other coloured boys were reportedly given liquor and he passed out.
- READ THE FULL STORY ON NETWERK24
According to Mr X, he realised the next morning that he had been raped by a man he refers to as "Uncle One", before being forced into more sexual acts. After that, Malan reportedly fetched the 13-year-old and further molested him. Mr X claims he bled after being repeatedly abused, and was made to be Malan's "wife" that entire night.
Netwerk24 said it was impossible to independently verify the allegation, but carried the interview due to public interest following the alleged revelations about Malan.
News24 reported on Sunday that three former National Party ministers, including one who is still alive, had been named as central figures in a paedophilia ring that operated during apartheid.
Investigations into Malan – as well as John Wiley, minister of environmental affairs, and another former minister, who was considered a possible successor to then-president PW Botha, and who is still alive – were halted by the police, and the investigating officer was hounded from service in the 1980s.
These and other explosive allegations are contained in The Lost Boys of Bird Island, a book by former police officer Mark Minnie and former investigative journalist Chris Steyn, which hit the shelves on Sunday.
READ AN EXTRACT: The Lost Boys of Bird Island - We called him 'Ore'
On Monday, Netwerk24 reported that Malan’s family, as well as former colleagues, had rejected the allegations against the late military strongman.
According to the book, Malan, Wiley and the other minister were involved, along with disgraced Port Elizabeth businessman John Allen, in ferrying coloured minors to Bird Island in Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth, where the children were molested and forced to satisfy the older men’s sexual fantasies.
Malan died in 2011, while Wiley and Allen both officially committed suicide in 1987.
'Fishing trips'
The identity of the third former minister, whose name is known to News24, is being withheld based on legal advice.
Following Malan's death in 2011, his obituary by Chris Barron, which was carried in the Sunday Times, also mentioned the allegations.
The obituary said Malan had used military helicopters to go on "fishing trips" at Bird Island with Wiley and Allen, and that two coloured boys were said to have been sexually assaulted on one of these trips.
According to the obituary, Allen was arrested for paedophilia, before he committed suicide.
News24 reported on Sunday that the book detailed how one child was maimed when a gun was thrust up his anus and the trigger was pulled.
