By: ANG Reporter
Former apartheid-era law and order minister Adriaan Vlok died in hospital during the early hours of Sunday.
The family announced in a statement that 85-year-old Vlok was admitted to the Unitas Hospital in Centurion.
“It is with great sorrow that the family announces that Adriaan Vlok, former minister of law and order and correctional services, died early this morning after a short sick bed in the Unitas Hospital in Centurion. He was 85 years old.
“He is survived by his wife Antoinette, three children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.” The family said funeral arrangements would be announced shortly.
In 2006, Vlok came forward with public apologies for a number of acts that he had not disclosed to the truth and reconciliation commission (TRC), and for which he could therefore be prosecuted.
In a dramatic gesture, he washed the feet of Frank Chikane who, as secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches, had been targeted by Vlok for assassination. Subsequently, he washed the feet of the ten widows and mothers of the “Mamelodi 10”, a group of anti-apartheid activists who had been lured to their death by a police informant.
Vlok said he had become a born again Christian prior to his public apologies for his actions as Minister of Law and Order and cites this as the cause of his change of heart about his role in apartheid and his need to seek forgiveness. On 17 August 2007, the High Court in Pretoria handed him a suspended ten-year sentence for his role in the 1989 plot to kill Frank Chikane.
In 2014 he publicly called for more apartheid era perpetrators to come forward and apologise for their actions.
