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Mark Minnie, co-author of The Lost Boys of Bird Island, found dead

Mark Minnie, co-author of the controversial book The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which details allegations that former apartheid minister Magnus Malan was part of a paedophile network, has been found dead.

Journalist Chris Steyn confirmed this to News24. “Yes, its true. But I really can’t talk now,” she said on Tuesday morning. 

Netwerk24 reported his body was found on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth.

The website reported the police do not suspect foul play and that an inquest docket has been opened.

News24 previously reported that the book detailed how three former National Party ministers, including one who is still alive, were allegedly 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 book by Minnie, a former police officer, and Steyn, a former investigative journalist.

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.



UPDATE | Media24 has apologised for the publication of defamatory statements regarding Mr Barend Du Plessis in the books "The Lost Boys of Bird Island" and "Die Seuns Van Bird Island" and for the emotional harm that the publication of the books may have caused the Malan and Wiley families. Follow this link to the relevant apologies.


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