Mark Minnie funeral to be held on Friday

The funeral service of Mark Minnie will take place in Port Elizabeth on Friday, August 24, Netwerk24 has reported.

Family member Tersia Dodo told the Sunday Times that the Minnie's funeral would be held "when everyone from overseas is here". 

The co-author of the controversial book, The Lost Boys of Bird Island, was found on a friend's smallholding in Theescombe, Port Elizabeth, on August 13, with a gunshot wound to the head and a firearm next to his body.

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.

Read: Magnus Malan, two other National Party ministers 'were paedophiles'

The Lost Boys of Bird Island, co-written by Minnie and Chris Steyn, alleges that former defence minister Magnus Malan, along with two other apartheid ministers and a local businessman, abused children on Bird Island, just off Port Elizabeth.

News24 reported last week that the book’s authors had been living in fear for their lives since the book's release two weeks ago.

Both Minnie and Steyn had been investigating several leads that have cropped up since the book was launched, but had been careful not to publicise what they had since unearthed.

According to a relative of Minnie, the family does not believe he committed suicide, and believe the suicide note found at the scene was staged. 

Read more: Mark Minnie's death was 'definitely not a suicide' - family member

"This supposed suicide note was either written under duress, and I would like to see it before I will believe that it was written by Mark," relative Tersia Dodo told the SABC in an interview last week.

Dodo also told the SABC that the things Minnie had been exposed to as a result of being involved with the investigation surrounding the book had "really plagued him".

She indicated that there was still "further information" that had yet to come to light, in addition to what was already revealed in the book.

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