Who knew that 37 years ago an SAA Boeing was hijacked in the skies and forced to land in Malawi in an incredible drama that saw the hijacker demand an audience with mining magnate Harry Oppenheimer?
Fouad Kamil at work in his art studio.
It was South Africa’s very first hijacking and the hijacker, a Lebanese diamond agent who now lives in Brazil, gave Grubstreet an interview this week after he spotted a post I did about Eddie Botha’s two-part story about Fouad Kamil aka Flash Fred. Read the earlier post here and click here to read the two-part Dispatch story by Botha.
Now in his 80s and living as a writer and painter in the coastal city of Vitoria, north of Rio de Janeiro, Kamil told Grubstreet that he regretted the 1972 hijacking because “it was wrong to involve innocent people in my struggle for justice”.
He also said his mind was “full of resentment and contempt”. Since the hijacking, Kamil battled with Anglo American to claim money he believes he is still owed for recovering stolen diamonds for Anglo.
He claimed to Grubstreet that he only resorted to hijacking the plane because, he said, the mining company had kidnapped his secretary. “…her people blamed me. AA was threatening to kidnap my wife and son. They harassed and hunted me. My struggle was a fight for survival,” Kamil said via email.
"Anglo American survivng on the blindfolded and the weak" by Fouad Kamil.
In a 1992 letter from Oppenheimer to Kamil, he denied having any knowledge of Kamil’s grievances and claimed that they were based on misconception. Click here to read the letter at the Dispatch’s website. Later Oppenheimer gave Kamil $115 000 in the hope of “establishing normal relations” with Kamil.
Kamil, who is updating his 2003 autobiography, “The Diamond Curse”, to include allegations of dodgy diamond dealings and political meddling by Anglo in Sierra Leone, also had this to say on my blog when I asked him to expand on why he regretted the hijacking:
The following part of my autobiography, The Diamond Curse, may answer your question. Though confident of the success of the plan, I could not sleep. I could not dismiss the thought that I was about to take part in an action that in the past I had always condemned. I was not sure how to conduct negotiations in such circumstances. I searched for the possibility of another solution, even to the point of giving up the hijacking altogether. Needing to protect my family and survive, I could see no alternative. With every bridge burned behind me and every other path blocked, I had to go on.
"Lost" by Fouad Kamil.
He also said he remained frustrated that the media has been wowed by the sensational aspects of his life rather than pursuing other information he has passed onto them.
I confess it’s hard not to be wowed by Kamil’s adventurous life — a diamond agent in Africa in the 1960s and 70s, the hijack drama, the peculiar encounter with Malawian dictator Hastings Banda before his release and then his dealings with Oppenheimer are the stuff of classic crime fiction – except that it’s apparently fact. Read the Grubstreet email interview with the remarkable Kamil here and decide for yourself.
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May 12th, 2009 at 10:45 am
NICE ONE – Great Story !!!!!!
May 12th, 2009 at 10:52 am
It’s fascinating, ne? What an interesting guy! Unfortunately, his book, The Diamond Curse, is out of print but Kamil says he’s updating it and is looking for a publisher so maybe we’ll see it on the book shelves soon. I think the paintings are pretty cool too!
May 12th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Dear Gill,
Is there any way you can help me to find publishers for The Diamond Curse in South Africa? I think that South Africans would enjoy reading about my operations.
regards,
FOUAD
May 13th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Hey guys. Anyone got any ideas for Fouad to publish his updated autobiography in SA? “The Diamond Curse” was originally published in the UK by Vantage a few years back but it is now out of print. I don’t know anyone in publishing here but have sent him an email with Struik’s contact details and a link to http://www.crink.co.za.
I don’t think he’d mind me putting his email address here if anyone can help as he included it in a comment in the blog post I did about him.
kamil@andradegranitos.com.br
May 13th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Dear Gill,
Thank you very much for the publishing information. Of course I don’t mind making my address pubic. 30 years ago, I was hiding from AA agents in a little coastal village called Castelhanos because they attempted to kidnap me several times in Europe for the famous Executive File. A South African brigadier once told me: “You are the first one who pointed a finger at them and lived to tell the story…”
However, I hope to send you an autographed copy of The Diamond Curse in the future.
Warmest regards,
May 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Great stuff Gill! It’s wonderful that after so many years Fred Kamil can talk to us (i’m probably one of the few who still remember the hijacking!). It’s amazing that Fred picked up a reference I made about him in one of my earlier Monday columns in the Daily Dispatch – The Day the Hijacker Got Nervous. If it had not been for technology Fred and I would never have made contact again. I always found him one of the most courteous people I have ever encountered through my (too long) journalistic career.
I am glad that he has now made further contact with your very good news breaking website (you have certainly scooped a few newspapars!) and I sincerely hope that one of our local publishers will assist him.
Great to hear from you again Fred via my former colleague’s website.
As for you Gill, keep up the good work and remember me when I’m retired in the not so long future!
May 13th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Hey Eddie! You’re such a gent. And journalist don’t retire — they keep working… in the pub.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:26 am
Dear Eddie and Gill,
I ma most grateful to both of you for your interest in my conflict with those so called, elite, benevolent pillars of the South African society. I hope to find South African publishers for my book that members of your good society can see the social pigmies hiding behind Anglo American diamond masks.
Warmest regards
Fouad
May 16th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I stumbled a cross flash freds’ story in the local library in the small little drinking village with a fishing problem that I call home quite a few years ago. An updated version would be great. It was a bit old school, but still made fascinating reading. Hope you whooping it up in rio Fred. I am going next week to see if it is still there. Sounds like a bit of a collectors item and maybe worth another read.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Hi David Macgregor
Thank you for your comment. Life in Brazil is great, the climate, scenery, beaches and living among the wonderful, friendly Brazilian people. But I miss being in South Africa and friends I had during my stay in the country. If you ever come to Brazil, drop me an email that we may meet in person.
Alles van die besta,
FOUAD
May 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Hi Eddie Botha and Gill. After hijacking the Letaba and leaving Malawi, I attempted to unmask Harry Oppenheimer, his son Nicholas and their directors and security hounds through the media. I repeated my story and presented documentary evidence to dozens of reporters who followed me to Spain from South Africa and England, Unfortunately many of them were under the thumb of Harry Oppenheimer and a few twisted facts to sensational stories to sell their papers.
You were the first members of the media to convey an honest and accurate story to the public for which you have gained all my admiration and respect. I congratulate you for your honesty and courage.
FOUAD
May 17th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Little do you know, Fouad, that Dave is the kind of guy who will in fact turn up on your doorstop with a longboard and shortboard in tow so he can test out the surf on the other side of the Atlantic!
May 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
wow!
Through technology we can all connect
JIDI im sure you know who this is.
.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am
a book well read for a cause well served your grandson and I will visit god willing soon to hear more of the daimond curse from the legend him self
May 18th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Amazing! Respect!
May 20th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Gill, Eddie, Dave and my grand son Anesty. My heart and home is open to you. I wish you would come for a holiday that I may meet you all in person. I miss South Africa and the wonderful people I met during the time I spent in the country. I wish I could visit you all and enjoy being in your country, but unfortunately, Anglo American are still as powerful as they were before Nelson Mandela’s government took over.
I expected Mandela’s government to nationalise Anglo’s mines in the country. But the old racists were smart – They employed a black woman as a director and successfully penetrated the new regime…
With greetings and, alles van die besta from Brazil. I still remember words my beloved Afrikaner friends taught me.
Fouad
May 20th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Dimitri. I very much look forward to a visit by you and my grand son. Come soon.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:59 am
To all South Africans,
I long for you to read my autobiography, “The Diamond Curse” to discover the monsters, the racist parasites, the petty thieves, hidden behind the Oppenheimer and ANGO American diamond masks.
I am now writing the true story of Gladis that was told to me by Col. George Visser, Anglo American group security officer who hated the Oppenheimers.
Gladis, the teen age innocent coloured girl was seduced by the son of HO after meeting her washing clothes in an isolated AA property where her father worked. He pretended to be in love with her and promised to break the race barriers and marry her. in time, when the offender discovered that she was pregnant, he arranged through Visser’s security to transfer her and her family to a diamond protected area far away at the edge of the Calahari desert. Disappointed, desperate, lonely and frightened, Gladis committed suicide.
FOUAD KAMIL
August 8th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Hi Fred,
I was one of the crew members hijacked by you in 1972.
I have so many questions to ask and would love make contact with you.
Please send me your e-mail address to orangetail@absamail.co.za
Joppie.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:09 am
To Joppie Nieman,
Facebook
Dear vJoppie,
Thank you for your email message and forgiveness for hijacking the Letaba flown by captain Blake Fleminton and your team in 1972.
Memory of the hijacking will remain in your mind for the rest of your life. Forgiveness brought us closer together, but does not answer questions you and others live with about the hijacking and what drove me to do it. The following is only to answer such questions, not to justify my actions at the time.
From infancy human instinctive need for esteem and love keep one attached to his gregarious herd in the area called “normal” within the edges of human tolerance to stress. Once one is driven beyond tolerance and survival is threatened, the primitive monster asleep in the savage jungle in the human mind takes over.
When one strays out and commits an offense, the whole world crys out loud: “condemn!!!”. To this Kahlil Gibran wrote to judges: “…and how prosecute you him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?” The following details my spiritual prosecution at the time:
Until early 1970, with all my loyalty, I served Anglo American, followed the diamond through hell from he swamps and jungle of Africa to the window shops of Europe and earned enough money to retire, open an art studio and settle with my wife, Melanie and new born son, Riad. Melanie and I dreamed of more children and a large family.
In South Africa, my team was contracted to investigate IDB and receive one third of the value of diamonds recovered through our operations. Anglo American exchanged the valuation of the last parcel of diamonds recovered through an investigation conducted by my team during a period of one year with a smaller parcel to avoid paying our full share of the value. The parcel recovered through my team was valued at Windhoek Supreme Court at R1,256,042.00. Anglo American exchanged this valuation with the valuation of another parcel valued at R160,000 and paid me R60,000 instead of R418,680.66. This was committed by Anglo American’s security chief colonel George Visser, an envious man who demanded 10% of my commissions and often hinted on the possibility of a deal between us to get involved in IDB.
I thought that Harry Oppenheimer would have settled our differences. But Incidentally, at the same time, while conducting an investigation in Europe I discovered that Anglo American financed the Sierra Leonean coup de tat when hundreds of men women and children were machine gunned to stop the new prime minister elect from nationalising their diamond company, SLST, (Sierra Leonean Select Trust).
This discovery turned me into a dangerous enemy of Anglo American. Visser and Pastrick Weishmann, their world intelligence chief demanded that I drop the investigation and hand over the file of documentary evidence linking them to the coup. I refused. I was threatened. A telephone caller threatened to kidnap my wife and son.
I complained to Harry Oppenheimer in two letters and received no reply. Threats continued. I was tempted to drop the sum of money they defrauded me of and earn a living at art, my art work was known in Europe and galleries sold my paintings at high prices, but Anglo American spread false information in Europe that I was a terrorist member of the Black September group and had me declared, persona non grata. They went further and kidnapped my secretary and threats continued.
Betrayed, harassed and threatened, I decided to fight back. I flew to Kenya with two members of my team to snatch diamonds they smuggled from their Tanzanian diamond mine by a small aircraft that landed once a month at a secret air strip outside Nairobi, I caught one of my two companions reporting my position to Anglo American.
Faced with this, I cancelled the operation and moved to Zambia where Geoff and Linda, who claimed to be members of ANC, planed the hijacking to demand the release of Nelson Mandela. We were about to land in Johannesburg. Linda and Geoff did not appear. Obviously they were Anglo American agents who led me to a common South African trap, at the time. Members of South African BOSS, that fully collaborated with Anglo American, would arrest me on arrival and a few days later newspapers would report: “Kamil was arrested for… he jumped out of a widow or committed suicide…” I hadn’t slept the previous night, harassment, exhaustion and fear drove me beyond the edges of my tolerance to stress and the primitive man in the savage jungle of my mind took over.
By then I had learned that man is not yet civilised enough to provide fellow man with justice and human rights, which are still only illusions in the minds of the weak and needy. Such luxurious form the legal fortresses of the powerful and corrupt like the Oppenheimer family and their ANGLO America. As example.
Once their Sierra Leonean manager instructed me to send members of my team to a new African small diamond prospecting thatch camp at the edge of a swamp and set their huts on fire in the middle of the night. I told him: “Many people would burn to death. This is murder, we will not do it”. He replied: “Wake up Fred! What is wrong with sacrificing a few blacks to protect an industry that is paying you thousands?” We refused to do it. I later learned that the village was wiped out by arson.
The Oppenheimer family and their Anglo American mafia got away with $333,350 they defrauded me of and broke up my family. My wife Melanie now lives in Australia, my daughter Danielle in South Africa and my son Riad in the USA. I am living in a lonely Brazilian apartment between a mountain and the Atlantic ocean that separates me from my loved ones and all my dreams. But, at the age of 83, I am still fully determined to strip them of their diamond masks and expose their monstrous faces, especially in new South Africa, where they still bribe, corrupt and rule supreme.
My book, “The Diamond Curse” explains the above in full detail. Hopefully, I will soon find a publisher to publish and distribute the book in South Africa.
With kind regards,
FOUAD KAMIL
;
August 24th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Gill Moodie,
Since I have known you, you have gained my utmost respect and confidence. But now, the last paragraph of your story posted 1 May 2009, titled “Diamonds, hijacked planes and vendettas” (Below) brought down to the level of journalist who earned a survival under the thumb of the Oppenheimer family.
“…Oppenheimer even wrote Kamil a letter after he was posted a copy of his book, and the Dispatch has a copy! Great reading for a long weekend — it’s not just an extraordinary crime caper but an insight into the humble, generous Oppenheimer. Here are the links:”
You dismissed the fact that Oppenheimer wrote me the letter only after a TWENTY YEAR battle against them. You dismissed my struggle during which I bombed their London Company and hijacked an aircraft. You dismissed the kidnapping of young Ingrid by his agents. You dismissed all the publicity about my struggle. Regardless of the above, you attempted to convey to your readers that it was only Humbleness, benevolence and generosity that drove Oppenheimer to write me a letter. Shame on you.
Regardless of your attempt to credit Oppenheimer with noble values, the Oppenheimers remain parasites surviving on the poverty and misery inflicted upon the African population by them, their companies, their supporters and collaborators.
FOUAD KAMIL
August 25th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Dear Fouad,
I’m sorry you feel that way but above all a journalist never takes sides but merely presents both sides of the story, which is why I’ve left your comment up on my site. However, one comment is enough. There is no need to do it four times and I have deleted the other three.
regards
Gill
I do not expect journalists to side with me. I only expect honesty and accurate reporting. During the last couple of months, South African newspapers repeated again and again and again sensational stories about notorious, hijacker Flash, Lies such as Flash Fred throwing ransom money in the air etc. etc. But, conveniently, evaded all facts leading to the hijacking i.e. Theft of my legal entitlements. The murder of hundreds of Sierra Leoneans by AA agents to keep exploiting the country’s wealth, the kidnapping of Ingrid, the hijacking trap. This is prostitution not journalism. Like vultures , all of you, including Joppie Nieman joined in to earn a living by selling character assassinations against the f… foreigner Flash Fred. I have had thirty years of this. Shame on you racists!!! One fact remains: your humble benevolent, generous diamond kings; the Oppenheimers and their AA mafia are still holding tight to US$333,350 of my stolen commissions. Evidence??? The Windhoek Supreme Court, (operation Ovambo, Elias), Brigadier Erasmus who mounted the operation, evidence by Col Vanzij in the Old Baily, London.I have given up the money, but hell or high water I shall expose your Oppenheimer diamond kings to their African victims and the world,
FLASH FRED