Archbishop Desmond Tutu has told former president P.W. Botha's contempt trial that apartheid-era abuses were ordered from on top and were not just the work of a few "bad apples".
Dr Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate, was visibly angered yesterday by Mr Botha's defence argument that only rogue junior officers were involved in apartheid killings.
"I am deeply distressed," he told Mr Botha's lawyer when asked to admit only a small clandestine group had carried out illegal murders, tortures and bombings.
"How many bad apples are you going to concede?" Dr Tutu asked. "It wasn't just a small, insignificant group. It was a group which could sow the most awful mayhem because of who they were." Dr Tutu was testifying at Mr Botha's trial as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Mr Botha (82), is on trial for contempt after he ignored three subpoenas to testify to the commission - South Africa's official inquiry into atrocities committed by those seeking to protect white minority rule or to fight it - to answer claims he endorsed unlawful security force actions.
Since the trial resumed on Monday after a six-week break, Mr Botha has heard witnesses implicate him in gross human rights abuses. But he has remained unmoved, and maintained through his lawyers he has nothing to apologise for.
Dr Tutu (66) reminded Mr Botha that during the 1980s he asked for government investigations into reported killing, but had been brushed off by Mr Botha and his security force generals, some of whom were now applying for amnesty for human rights abuses.
"I got a knee-jerk reaction every time - `You are maligning the police' - when they (the generals) knew they were responsible for some of the most ghastly atrocities in this country," Dr Tutu said.
Up to 30,000 black opponents were jailed without charge under Mr Botha's emergency laws and more than 20,000 people were killed.