April 22, 2004
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Iraq Victim Was Top-Secret Apartheid Killer
Sunday Times(Johannesburg)
April 18, 2004
Julian Rademeyer
Johannesburg- A security contractor killed in Iraq last week was once one of South Africa's most secret covert agents, his identity guarded so closely that even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not discover the extent of his involvement in apartheid's silent wars.
Gray Branfield, 55, admitted to being part of a death squad which gunned down Joe Gqabi, the ANC's chief representative and Umkhonto weSizwe operational head in Zimbabwe on July 31 1981. Gqabi was shot 19 times when three assassins ambushed him as he reversed down the driveway of his Harare home.
Branfield was arrested and tortured while carrying out a reconnaissance operation in Zambia in 1986. For six weeks he and a colleague were subjected to beatings, water torture and electric shocks.
After eventually getting bail, Branfield skipped the country.
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