In the late 1980s a number of Umkhonto we Sizwe cells operating in the Western Cape were cracked and leading members detained. Once detained the men who had hunted them down, all members of the police terrorist tracking unit, had two goals. The first was to extract information about arms, contacts and routes as fast as possible. The second to compile a dossier of terrorism charges that would hold up in a court of law. They were successful; at the time the Western Cape had a spate of major terrorism trials, which resulted in lengthy prison sentences for the MK cadres. Jeffrey Benzien, William Liebenberg and Jakobus Griebenauw were some of the security men responsible for putting them behind bars. They now admit that their secret tool, the mechanism for their success, was torture. MK cadre Niclo Pedro was arrested in August of 1987 on his way to Lesotho and taken to this unit's headquarters at Culemborg in Cape Town.
