The Sudden Arrest of the Western Cape “Mobile Unit”
In the morning of 16 May 1987, apartheid Security Branch Captain William Liebenberg produced a photo of Pieter Jacobs during his address to Sergeant McQueen, Sergeant Roman and Warrant Officer Edward Stoffels. He indicated that they are pursuing this suspect who was active in “terrorist activities”, and that he was expected to be at Klipfontein Road in Athlone that morning.
The other three policemen, McQueen, Roman and Stoffels departed from their meeting and proceeded to Athlone with the photo of Jacobs in their possession. Later that morning, in a passage running alongside Klipfontein Road, Stoffels sat reading a newspaper, with the photo of Jacobs inside the paper, when a woman gave him a signal, indicating that Pieter Jacobs was across the road, also reading a newspaper. Stoffels gave Roman and McQueen a nod, and just before 10:00, the three policemen walked up to Jacobs, who denied he was Pieter Jacobs when he was asked. Instead he claimed to be David Samuels. He was nonetheless arrested and taken to Manenberg Police Station, where he was handed over to Warrant Officer Johannes Nel.
These events began on 4 May 1985, when Quentin Michels was instructed by Ivor Adams in Gaborone, Botswana, to return to the Western Cape to recruit three other people into a cell that was to obtain safe houses for the storage of weapons and to host Comrades that were sought by the apartheid police. In the Western Cape, Miche
