Ex apartheid agent denies role in Cradock Four killings

"I WISH to emphatically deny that I had any involvement in the planning or killing of the Cradock Four ... the allegations are nonsense," Craig Williamson told the Gqeberha High Court this week.

- BRANDON NEL

Williamson, a former apartheid-era spy, spent decades living under the guise of an anti-apartheid activist. He was later exposed as a double agent working for the then SA Security Branch. His covert operations spanned continents, involving infiltration of banned organisations like the ANC and the SA Communist Party (SACP) and orchestrating acts of state-sponsored terrorism, including overseas bombings and assassinations.

The Cradock Four - Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sicelo Mhlauli, and Sparrow Mkonto - were anti-apartheid activists abducted in June 1985 after attending a United Democratic Front (UDF) meeting in Gqeberha. They never returned home to Cradock, now known as Nxuba. Their bodies were later found near Bluewater Bay, tortured and burnt.