Bird island: Writer admitted that he had no evidence against ministers before his death.
The only known living witness says the book is a ‘load of tripe’, however publishers refuse to admit possible fabrication of content. JACQUES PAUW has discovered more skeletons in the closet of this controversial case.
“We do not have a concrete evidence that any victims have been sexually harassed or violated by any of the three accused ministers.”
This warning was declared by Mark Minnie, co-writer of The Boys of Bird Island: a shocking disclosure from within the heart of the NP- Government’’ on the 1st of August last year – four days before the publication of the book, two weeks before he shot himself.
Mark Minnie, also a former policeman, sent an email to his co-writer, Chris Steyn, as well as Maryna Lamprecht, a publisher at Tafelberg, in which he stated that they were in need of a victim to identify one of the ministers.
Tafelberg, which is a part of NB Publishers and National Press, published the alleged involvement of the former minister’s in the raping of young boys as a matter of fact and truth - despite the lack of actual testimony. These former ministers include Magnus Malan, Barend du Plessis, and John Wiley.
‘’In an interview this week Minnie’s only known living witness to the validity of The Lost Boys of Bird Island confessed that Minnie had twisted his version of what had happened and that the book was “a load of tripe.”’
Minnie himself has little to no credibility. VryeWeekblad.com is in possession of emails in which he admits that he has lived a life of crime in South Africa and that he had been involved in cases of fraud, theft, legal defiance and smuggling.
The emails also indicate that Minnie had falsified some of his qualifications with which he tried to procure a teaching position in China.
Minnie’s emails prove that the former policeman wrote three different versions of his book as well, whereby he changed, twisted and fabricated vital evidence.
In spite of these facts, Tafelberg stated this week that they stand by their writers and the book, and that the publication thereof was justified and within the public interest.
The publisher of the book, Maryna Lamprecht from Tafelberg, says that the writers “make it clear from beginning to end that they do not own any proof” and never pretend as though they are telling the full story.
During September last year, a month after Minnie shot himself, VryeWeekblad.com got a hold of his e-mails.
A Friend of Minnie’s, who had legal access to his computer, sent the emails to VryeWeekblad.com. The credibility of these emails is beyond suspicion.
THE SHOCKING DISCOVERY… The startling book was published despite the existence of contradictory versions made by the co-writer.
The emails also show that Minnie wrote three different versions of his part of the book, not to mention that he manipulated the content to involve Malan, Du Plessis and Wiley in acts of paedophilia.
For example: In the first two manuscripts of his book (which were both sent to Lamprecht) Magnus Malan’s name does not appear even once.
In the book the only known witness is presented to the reader as William Hart; one of the victims of the paedophile-ring that the three ministers allegedly were involved with in Port Elizabeth in the mid-eighties.
Minnie claims in the book that Hart told him that the Mastermind behind the ring, Dave Allen, took Hart to a house in Witelsbos in the Eastern- Cape (approximately 150 km from Port Elizabeth) and raped him there.
Hart confesses in the book that he witnessed the other “uncles” having sex with children. Every reader is thus lead to believe that the “uncles” Hart refers to must have been Malan, Du Plessis and/ or Wiley.
Minnie also claimed that Hart attended a photo identification parade whereby he identified Dave Allen and “a prominent cabinet minister” - which must have been Barend du Plessis. After that, he also identified Wiley.
Allegedly Hart was on the brink of identifying Malan, but Minnie stopped him; his reason being that “the time wasn’t right.”
‘’Hart denied this week that he identified Malan, Du Plessis and Wiley as the “uncles” that raped young boys’’
In Minnie’s first two manuscripts – which he called Max: Fact or Fiction, You Decide (Max being his nickname) – the Witelsbos incident with Dave Allen doesn’t appear at all. Hart claims in these versions, according to Minnie, that he was taken to Bird Island.
It is mentioned in the book that Hart had been to the island three times, and that every time: “‘uncle’ Dave or one of the other older men had sex with him.”
Hart is the pseudonym of a homeless man from Port Elizabeth. The knowledge of this man’s real name is kept from the public by the discretion of VryeWeekblad.com, who decided to keep the pseudonym of William Hart.
Hart denied this week that he identified Malan, Du Plessis and Wiley as the “uncles” that raped young boys.
He stated that the book was “a load of tripe” and added that basically everything that Minnie had claimed about him was falsified.
‘’Hart said this week that he was with Allen in Witelsbos, but that he wasn’t raped. The sex was consensual. There were no other “uncles” in the house’’
One of the biggest misleading aspects of the book is that Hart’s age is withheld by the writers and the publisher. He is fifty-nine years-old – the same age as Mark Minnie. In fact, they were at school together and had known each other for years. Yet, Minnie refers to him as a “lad” – which would suggest that he was an underaged boy.
Thus, Hart was of the age of twenty- six or twenty- seven in the mid-eighties, around the time the three ministers had allegedly raped children. Therefore, if he had been raped by Allen – in the circumstances that the book claims - it had to have been in the mid- seventies, when Hart was under the age of eighteen.
Malan, Du Plessis and Wiley only became ministers years later. Back then, Wiley was still the leader of the South African Party.
Hart said that he was with Allen in Witelsbos, but that he wasn’t raped. The sex was consensual. There were no other “uncles” in the house.
According to Hart, Minnie instructed him to point out the people that he could identify at the identification parade. He recognised the three ministers as he had seen them on the news before, and added that he reads newspapers, follows the news and was a serviceman in the army.
He also said that Minnie never specified to topics of sexual abuse, Bird Island or Witelsbos, or the connection thereof.
NO PROOF… Magnus Malan, Minister of Defence of the previous NP- Government of South Africa, was accused of being in charge of a paedophile - ring in The Lost Boys of Bird Island.
Image: MULTIMEDIALIVE
The forensic investigator from the Human Rights Foundation who has done comprehensive interviews with Hart has reported that policemen have been investigating the allegations within the book.
The investigator, Wouter de Swardt, confirmed that he spoke with Hart - who denied numerous aspects that Minnie had tied to him in the book. In De Swardt’s report to the Foundation he states that there are no testimonies against Malan or Du Plessis.
Lamprecht said that she found it “suspicious” that Hart changed his story and reckoned that he might have been “bribed” due to an apparent incident where he once said that he would deny that the book is true for a thousand rand.
She added that it is “completely reasonable” to accept that Hart became aware of the minister’s involvement “in his twenties”. He remained in contact with Allen.
VryeWeekblad.com is in possession of emails sent to and from the writers and Lamprecht before the book was published, in which they decided that Hart needed to be kept away from the press at all cost.
In an email from Lamprecht circa June 2018 she wrote that Hart “needed to be kept as far away from the media as possible” as the tiniest mistake from his side would damage the credibility of the entire book.
During this week she said that the publishers wanted to prevent “someone with an agenda to discredit the book” from bribing Hart to change his story.
Lamprecht pointed out to VryeWeekblad.com that the publishers are in possession of recorded conversations where Hart and Minnie confirm “key aspects” of the book.
However, VryeWeekblad.com are also in possession of emails with these recorded conversations, which proves that Hart’s confirmation of the “key aspects” of the book was untrue. Minnie leads on that Hart had answered his questions and answers the majority of the questions for him throughout the recording.
Lamprecht rejects the manipulation or fabrication of any information in the book, and holds strongly that neither the writers nor the publishers were negligent or dishonest.
Dave Allen’s confession that he, Malan, Du Plessis and Wiley raped young boys, which he shares with Mark Minnie, is arguably the climax of The Lost Boys of Bird Island.
After Minnie took Allen into custody (in Port Elizabeth) for the possession of pornography and the sexual abuse of young boys, he handcuffed him and took him to Louis le Grange police station.
According to Minnie, Allen started singing in the car like a “canary” and made “stunning” confessions that linked the three ministers to paedophilia, however he did not want to make a statement.
The following morning, before he would appear in court, Allen committed suicide. A short while after Wiley shot himself too.
In Minnie’s first two manuscripts (Max: Fact or Fiction, you decide) these events did not play out that way at all.
In the first manuscript (2015) he wrote: “I am driving to Louis le Grange police station. The suspect (Allen) is seated next to me. It has been silent all the way to the police station. I took is fingerprints on the prescribed forms. He refuses to make a statement.”
‘Minnie’s version of the drive to the police station suggests no confession to the name of the one minister (John Wiley), but later he links a major confession to the names of all three.’
In the second manuscript, sent to Lamprecht in 2016, the trip to the police station changes to the following: “He is certainly not comfortable with his hands cuffed behind his back. I don’t give a damn. Then he starts making confessions. Unbelievable confessions. But he’s careful. He refuses to name any names.”
“He tries to pin the blame on nameless people, but then accidentally mentions a name. Not just any name. I try to hide my shock. Is he for real? He then threatens to open the whole can of worms.”
Minnie’s version of the drive to the police station suggests no confession to the name of the one minister (John Wiley), but later he links a major confession to the names of all three.
Lamprecht stated that two years had passed since Minnie sent his first version to Tafelberg as well as the publication of the book. “A lot happened in this time. Chris Steyn got involved with the project, both she and Minnie gathered research for more than a year to attain more information and to ensure that their facts were correct. In the process they spoke with many old and new sources, which they updated their manuscript with accordingly. This is by no means strange in the publishing industry. To develop and improve manuscripts is a part of the process.”
She refers to an email from Minnie where he explains why he did not mention the three names originally. In this email he says that he had written it in such way that he could achieve a climax within the book and that he wanted to create a “web of intrigue”.
ROGUE BEHAVIOUR … Mark Minnie, co-writer of the book, left a crime trail behind.
The most flagrant paradox in The Lost Boys of Bird Island pertains to an incident where one of the young boys ended up in the hospital after he was shot in the anus. Minnie had either lied in the book or in his previous manuscripts – and the publishers knew it.
Chris Steyn writes that a National Party source told her that a boy was shot on Bird Island during a sexual deed where a pistol was inserted into his anus.
She claims that the shooter wasn’t Wiley, but rather someone much “higher up”. The reader would then figure that it had to have been Malan.
Minnie writes that William Hart told him the same thing (which Hart recently denied). The wounded boy is believed to have been taken away to hospital by a military helicopter, looked after by men in grey suits and treated in a “White’s Only” hospital (he was a “coloured boy”).
Minnie tells in The Lost Boys of Bird Island that he managed to find the doctor that treated the young boy all those years ago and that he called him. “The doctor refuses to speak on the matter and resorted to doctor-patient confidentiality. He exposed nothing. The men in grey suits had done their jobs. My research had cornered him.”
Let us look at what Minnie had to say in Max: Fact or Fiction, You Decide.
He explains that the matron who had been on duty the night that the wounded boy was brought in was told about the details of the incident by the doctor. He had then discovered that the same doctor had given false prescriptions to prostitutes for a pill that would supposedly cause sexual stimulation.
Minnie went to see Marcia – a prostitute – with whom he had previously mentioned he had “the best sex of his life”. He tells in torturous detail how her long legs and full chest filled him with desire and explains how much he wanted her.
She helps Minnie to get in touch with the doctor, and he is finally able to confront him in his consulting room. He threatens to expose the doctor, who then decides to work with him.
Minnie reports that the doctor said that he didn’t know who the patient was. “The men in grey suits did their jobs. All that the doctor can tell me is that Dave Allen needed his professional services to treat a wounded coloured boy that had been hurt during an argument about who would have sex with him first.”
“The treatment took place in a ‘Whites Only’ hospital. There was no account or receipt. Allen wanted to bury the knowledge of the incident.”
VryeWeekblad.com questioned Lamprecht as to why Minnie’s original version had been removed. She replied saying that the book “does not contradict the doctor’s version, that he told Minnie, where a shot had been fired while the men fought over the boy.”
It has been discovered though the emails that there was a chapter in The Lost Boys of Bird Island where Steyn and Minnie tried to prove a connection between Allen, Malan, Wiley, Du Plessis and the notorious paedophile as well as alleged mass murderer, Gert van Rooyen.
‘It has been discovered though the emails that there was a chapter in The Lost Boys of Bird Island where Steyn and Minnie tried to prove a connection between Allen, Malan, Wiley, Du Plessis and the notorious paedophile as well as alleged mass murderer, Gert van Rooyen.’
Van Rooyen and his female friend, Joey Haarhoff, is connected to the kidnapping, sexual abuse and suspected death of six school girls between the ages of nine and sixteen that took place in the late eighties.
When the pair was taken into custody in 1990, Van Rooyen first shot Haarhoff and then himself. Neither the girls nor their bodies were ever found.
I don’t know what kind of witness Steyn and Minnie had to link Allen, Wiley and Du Plessis with Van Rooyen, but in June 2018 Lamprecht told the writers: “The Gert van Rooyen part of the book has been removed, because there aren’t enough provable facts.”
What she added is very important: “Remember, this book is that of an investigative nature (investigative journalism) which means that everything must be factually correct and there must be enough sources and proof.”
Come along and witness my journey from policeman to villain. Witness the underworld of the nineties. This is a true story. Names and places have not been changed to ensure none are protected.
This is the introduction to Mark Minnie’s autobiography, The Switch, in which he tells-all about how he became involved with one of South Africa’s most dangerous and notorious gangs in the nineties.
The manuscript was in Minnie’s emails that had been given to VryeWeekblad.com. The emails also show that Minnie falsified at least two of his educational qualifications.
Minnie falsified a degree certificate from the University of Port Elizabeth, which he supposedly received in 1991, as well as a qualification from the “Western Cape College of Languages.”
‘In the book Minnie implicates himself in a series of crimes, including diamond- and gold smuggling, theft, fraud, smuggling of other kinds and legal defiance. His crime trail can be traced from South Africa to England, America, Thailand and Tanzania.’
The emails contain Minnie’s communication between the falsifier that pointed something out to him at a stage saying: “Mate, a quick mistake. At the bottom it says 21th instead of 21st.”
Minnie used these certificates when he tried to procure a teaching position in Beijing, China in 2017.
In the book Minnie implicates himself in a series of crimes, including diamond- and gold smuggling, theft, fraud, smuggling of other kinds and legal defiance.
His crime trail can be traced from South Africa to England, America, Thailand and Tanzania.
Minnie sent The Switch to Maryna Lamprecht before the publication of The Lost Boys of Bird Island.
VryeWeekblad.com wanted to know why Tafelberg had not done a background-check on Minnie.
Lamprecht confirms that she had received The Switch and that she only read the first couple of pages, but soon realized it was not “the type of book” that NB- Publishers would want to distribute.
She also said that they don’t ask writers for their academic qualifications.
Minnie goes on to tell in The Switch that he had to infiltrate the police-agent gang that Ferdi Barnard, Ralph Heyns and Corrie Goosen belonged to in the early nineties. The gang was active and widely feared in Johannesburg in the nineties.
Barnard has recently been released after serving a 23-year sentence for committing double homicide. He had also been found guilty of committing murder before. Heyns was also a convicted murderer before he disappeared without a trace a couple of years ago.
Goosen and his brothers were all convicted criminals. He stood trail in the mid-nineties due to a charge involving diamond theft a while before he died in a motorbike accident.
‘Minnie used money that he made in unlawful ways to open three brothels in Port Elizabeth.’
Minnie explains how he got involved with the Goosen-brothers and Heyns (which he describes as the King of Johannesburg’s underworld) and their crime schemes.
Minnie had been involved in the execution of so-called “knocks” – which was nothing more than diamond theft and gold smuggling.
He says: “I live the high life. First, I had lived a life of poverty. It is better to be rich. Believe me.”
Minnie tells tales about drug- and sex orgies at Barnard’s brothel in Johannesburg. “I did cocaine on a massive scale. I liked the feeling. And the sex! Heavens above. What a magnificent feeling, even though I did it with a prostitute. Everything was on the house.”
Minnie used money that he made in unlawful ways to open three brothels in Port Elizabeth. “The money rolled in,” he says “Heaps of it. Life was stress-free and amazing.”
Goosen and Minnie also started a detective agency in Port Elizabeth, but Corrie ended up getting himself viciously killed in a motorbike accident in the mid-nineties. Minnie lead the praise service at his funeral.
A journalist from VryeWeekblad.com did a documentary on Goosen and the gang, and knew that Minnie was apart of their crime network, but did not know to which lengths he had been involved.
Minnie writes about the interview that he had, in which he says that Goosen is depicted as a “heartless monster without a soul” and that “Mr. Pauw should be ready for a massive whipping.”
He ends his book with the following: “Max lives his life overseas now and has left his life of crime in Africa behind. In the meantime, he has quit his career in the teaching industry and spends his time in countries across South-East Asia.”
VryeWeekblad.com is aware that the police still haven’t found a witness to testify that any of the ministers were involved in the sexual abuse of children.
The investigation, which is under the command of the Western Cape’s Head Detective, Jeremy Vearey, is under extensive pressure “from above” to achieve results. Eight detectives, two of which are Colonels, headed to Port Elizabeth sometime last week to ask more questions in order to attest to Minnie’s credibility.
Lamprecht said that a “cold case” does not get solved in six months, and believes that the police should be given space to complete their work.
She also adds that Steyn had retrieved the identities of two victims since the book’s public appearance and that she handed the information over to the police.
[Nothing came of the so-called victims that Steyn reported to the police about.
22 months – one year and 10 months – since the start of the police investigation the police have found NO EVIDENCE and NO WITNESS and NO VICTIM.
The reason is obvious: There are no witnesses or victims because the crimes were never committed by any of the three ministers named].
Accountability 
The Apology
Barnard Beukman
7 April 2019