The Brutal Murder of Bheki Mlangeni
On 15 February 1991, 35-year-old Bheki Mlangeni, who was a lawyer working for the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1990s, died instantly after he pressed play on a Walkman cassette player he received as a package intended for Captain Dirk Coetzee. Mlangeni opened the package at his office to find a cassette tape player, which he took home with. When he placed the booby-trapped headphones close to his ears, the right headphone exploded, as soon as he pressed play. Mlangeni was on study leave for his board exam at the time but collected the parcel when clearing his pigeonhole on 15 February 1991 and took it home.
Mlangeni and former apartheid police Captain Dirk Coetzee had worked together to expose the existence of a secret police unit based at Vlakplaas. The unit carried out assassinations of anti-apartheid activists. Coetzee himself was the second commander of the unit, after Colonel Johan Viktor, before he left the police force. In 1989, Coetzee exposed the existence of the C-10 Unit he once led. Fearing for his life, he fled to Zambia after making allegations of police assassinations of apartheid government opponents. When a package disguised as coming from Mlangeni failed to reach Coetzee in Zambia, it was sent back to “sender” (Mlangeni’s office).
On 17 November 1989, prompted by the death row confessions of a Security Branch police officer, Bhutana Almond Nofomela, former apartheid Security Police Captain Johannes
