Catch up TV

The Apartheid Killer

During a three-year bloodbath in the 1980s, private security guard Louis van Schoor killed at least 39 people in the South African city of East London. All of his victims were black. The youngest was just 12 years old. \n\nIt is a killing spree that places van Schoor among the most prolific mass killers in history. He was caught and arrested in 199, but with many of his killings signed off by local police as ‘justifiable homicides,’ he would receive a shockingly light sentence - serving only 12 years in jail. \n\nNow he is free, van Schoor is ready to speak. He is adamant he is not racist and claims he has been scapegoated and unfairly characterised as a 'monster'. Filmed over four years, this documentary follows van Schoor as he attempts to justify his past actions – interweaving his disturbing tale with others whose lives he has shaped: his daughter, the families of his victims, a journalist and an ANC activist.\n\nIt's been 30 years since the white supremacist apartheid regime crumbled. The unresolved trauma of this time has cast a long shadow across a nation. In piecing together the story of van Schoor, this film will expose the disturbed past and racial injustices of South Africa itself. \n

Source: BBC 2