Petrus Johann Coetzee

General Johann Petrus Coetzee (born March 3, 1928) is a South African police officer. He was Commissioner of the South African Police from 1983 to 1987.

Personal life

Coetzee was born on the in Smithfield, Free State. He married Yvonne van Leylevid on 19 January 1952 in Johannesburg and has two children. at the age of 16. He started his career in the Mounted Police, including as a member of the SA Police Royal Mounted Escort during the 1947 Royal visit to South Africa. Much of his career was spent in the Security Branch, where he co-ordinated the infiltration of anti-apartheid groups such as the South African Communist Party.

While he was Commissioner, the South African Railway Police merged with the SA Police, a full-fledged Forensics branch was established and the SAP got a helicopter fleet. Braam Fischer, the brilliant advocate who turned underground leader of the Communist Party, was ultimately unmasked by Coetzee, and arrested through the efforts of one of his agents, Gerad Ludi. in Pretoria in 1981.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Coetzee, under cross-examination by George Bizos before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, denied any involvement in several murders and other atrocities committed by the apartheid National Party government. He later applied for amnesty from the TRC in 2000.