Stab victim 'had been threatened'

ANTHONY TRAVERS, the man stabbed outside the law courts on Monday during the Jani Allan libel case, had been warned two weeks ago that attempts were being made on his life.

Mr Travers, believed to be in his 60s, staggered out of the George pub in the Strand, with blood coming from his mouth and a wound in his chest. He reportedly said as he collapsed: 'The bastard stabbed me in the toilets.' His attacker was described as heavily-built, white and in his 50s. He was wearing a dark blue suit.

Mr Travers said he suspected supporters of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) of trying to kill him because he had befriended Ms Allan and they were afraid he might reveal damaging information about their leader, Eugene Terre-Blanche. But he also said his attackers could be South African government agents. Someone had broken into his house last month and hit him over the head. Several items had been taken but not tapes which he said contained important information. He had also received threatening phone calls. Mr Travers, a businessman and gun dealer who lives in Twickenham, south-west London, contacted me after I had written an article about an attempt on the life of Dirk Coetzee, the former South African policeman now in hiding in Britain and the subject of an assassination attempt by a South African hit squad. Mr Travers came to the office of the Independent on 20 July with papers showing he was the British representative of the AWB. He has long-term links with the far right in southern Africa and five years ago was beaten up by black South Africans who suspected him of being a South African agent spying on the African National Congress in London.