DEVELOPING: Forensic police officers on scene where Mark Minnie was found dead

Police officers comb through the scene where Mark Minnie's body was found. (Derrick Spies/News24)

A forensics officer has entered the property with a metal detector. (Derrick Spies/News24)

More police officers have arrived at the scene and cordoned off a section where they entered the premises. (Derrick Spies/News24)

Authors of book claiming that Magnus Malan was a paedophile feared for their lives

The co-authors of The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which alleges that former apartheid minister Magnus Malan was part of a paedophile network, had been living in fear for their lives since the book's release two weeks ago.

According to well-placed sources, Mark Minnie, who was found dead in Port Elizabeth on Monday, and Chris Steyn had been receiving threats and there had been anonymous enquiries about their whereabouts.

Minnie met a source on Friday and was meant to meet another one on Monday. Both authors had been concerned about their safety and were reluctant to appear in public. 

The publisher also decided not to have a traditional book launch and only one appearance, at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town, was scheduled.

Both Minnie and Steyn had been investigating several leads that have cropped up since the book was launched, but had been careful not to publicise what they had since unearthed. Steyn confirmed Minnie's death to News24, but was too traumatised to talk further. 

Police are reportedly still searching for Minnie's cellphone.

Police and media at the front gate of the premises where Mark Minnie's body was found in Theescombe, Port Elizabeth. (Derrick Spies/News24)

(Derrick Spies/News24)

Police enter the back of the premises where Mark Minnie's body was found in Theescombe, Port Elizabeth. (Derrick Spies/News24)

OPINION: 

On Magnus Malan, the TRC and white victimhood 

(By Jodi Williams)

News broke last weekend that there is compelling evidence that Magnus Malan and other apartheid government ministers were paedophiles. The story took up a news cycle or two and its ripple effects are still pulsing through the media and the public at large.

The pointed horror is stark when we consider that the child victims were coloured kids and how that resonates in terror with the white settler rape and abuse of coloured people since European invasion. What's more instructive, given our current national discourse on identities and privilege, is how South African society creates and perpetuates narratives that normalise overt abuses of whiteness, whether they be legal and/or criminal acts or "smaller" abuses of norms and dignity.

That there is negative and condemning reactions to the Malan story is to be expected. But what is more interesting is the burden of living in a world where white supremacy is not just centralised but the very rules by which we are all expected to play. This was illustrated when some quarters reacted to the Malan story by calling it "fake news".

Even more telling is the inability of society – people across all lines of privilege – to recognise that the apartheid government Malan served was corrupt; more corrupt than the state capture of former president Jacob Zuma and the Guptas. It was a corrupt ideology served by corrupt practices of nepotism and white tenderpreneurship.

Mark Minnie, co-author of The Lost Boys of Bird Island, found dead

Mark Minnie, co-author of the controversial book The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which details allegations that former apartheid minister Magnus Malan was part of a paedophile network, has been found dead.

Journalist Chris Steyn confirmed this to News24. “Yes, it's true. But I really can’t talk now,” she said on Tuesday morning. 

Netwerk24 reported his body was found on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth.

The website reported the police do not suspect foul play and that an inquest docket has been opened.

News24 previously reported that the book detailed how three former National Party ministers, including one who is still alive, were allegedly central figures in a paedophilia ring that operated during apartheid. 

ICYMI: 

I was 13 when Magnus Malan made me 'his wife' for a night - alleged child sex victim 

One of the victims of an alleged paedophile network involving senior apartheid government ministers and businessmen in the 1980s has described to Netwerk24 how he was kidnapped, raped and forced to perform other sexual acts by former defence minister Magnus Malan and another "uncle".

The man, whom Netwerk24 dubs "Mr X", is now 44, married and a father of two. He told the publication that he had been kidnapped at the age of 13 in 1987 by a group of white men in Port Elizabeth. He and four other coloured boys were reportedly given liquor and he passed out.

According to Mr X, he realised the next morning that he had been raped by a man he refers to as "Uncle One", before being forced into more sexual acts. After that, Malan reportedly fetched the 13-year-old and further molested him. Mr X claims he bled after being repeatedly abused, and was made to be Malan's "wife" that entire night.

Netwerk24 said it was impossible to independently verify the allegation, but carried the interview due to public interest following the alleged revelations about Malan.

News24 reported on Sunday that three former National Party ministers, including one who is still alive, had been named as central figures in a paedophilia ring that operated during apartheid. 

BOOK EXTRACT: The Lost Boys of Bird Island - We called him 'Ore'

I head back to my office so that I can listen closely to the recording of the older brother's version of events. I will have to anchor my investigation on the evidence of both brothers. I don't have anything else to go on at this point.

I take solace in knowing that half a dozen cold beers are waiting for me in my mini fridge. Leaning back in my ultra-comfortable chair, I crack open a can. I'm quite chuffed with myself as I've accomplished a lot today. The beer is my reward.

I eye the tape recorder on my desk, lean across and press Play. The boy explains that it all started years before, when a man who called himself Uncle Dave approached him while he was playing pool at the City Snacks Pool Den. I know the place. It is a popular hangout for pimps, sex workers and drug dealers.

Of course, customers gather there too. It's a perfect spot for paedophiles to pick out a young boy left to his own devices. The witness, who was then only fourteen, says he had never met this "Uncle Dave" before. He knew all the other local moffies who would come to the den for a "quick one" – a handjob in a car in a quiet back street. "We get R20," the boy says.

The problem for the kid is that he has a drug debt. He owes the local dealer R5 for a bag of marijuana he had bought the night before. All such debts need to be settled within 24 hours. This I know. It's my job to bust these guys. 

ICYMI: 

Magnus Malan, two other National Party ministers 'were paedophiles' 

Three former National Party ministers, including strongman Magnus Malan and one who is still alive, have been named as central figures in a paedophilia ring that operated during apartheid.

Investigations into Malan, former apartheid minister of defence, as well as John Wiley, minister of environmental affairs and another minister, who was considered a possible successor to then president PW Botha and who is still alive, were halted by the police and the investigating officer hounded from service in the 1980s. 

These and other explosive allegations are contained in The Lost Boys of Bird Island, a book by former policeman Mark Minnie and ex-journalist Chris Steyn, which hits the shelves on Sunday.

The three were involved, along with disgraced Port Elizabeth businessman John Allen, in ferrying coloured minors to Bird Island in Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth where the children were molested and forced to satisfy the older men’s sexual fantasies.