Magnus Malan - After Politics

After Politics

On 2 November 1995 Malan was charged together with other former senior military officers for murdering 13 people (including seven children) in the KwaMakhutha massacre in 1987. The murders were said to have been part of a conspiracy to create war between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), and maintaining white minority rule. The charges related to an attack in January 1987 on the home of Victor Ntuli, an ANC activist, in KwaMakhutha township near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.

Malan and the other accused were bailed and ordered to appear in court again on 1 December 1995. A seven-month trial then ensued and brought hostility between black and white South Africans to the fore once again. All the accused were eventually acquitted. President Mandela supported the verdict and called on South Africans to respect it. Nonetheless in South Africa, the Malan trial has come to be widely held as symbol of the failure of the legal process in achieving justice for the atrocities committed under apartheid.

Malan also had to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

On 26 January 2007, he was interviewed by shortwave/Internet talk radio show The Right Perspective. It is believed to be one of the very few, if not the only, interviews Gen. Malan gave outside of South Africa.