Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Q: Image copyright AP 
  
 Eugene Alexander de Kock, nicknamed "Prime Evil" by the media in South Africa, was part of the apartheid killing machine. 
  
 News of his parole after serving 20 years in a South African prison could not be a better birthday gift for the apartheid assassin. 
  
 He turned 66 the day before the justice minister said he was being released in the interest of "nation building". 
  
 De Kock's primary duty as police colonel was to silence the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement, particularly those from the African National Congress (ANC). 
  
 Ironically it is the ANC government that has released him from prison. 
  
 'Quiet boy' 
  
 Born in South Africa's Western Cape Province, his father, Lawrence de Kock, was a magistrate and a very close personal friend of former apartheid Prime Minister John Vorster. 
  
 His brother, Vossie de Kock, described him as a "quiet boy" who "wasn't violent at all". 
  
 From an early age De Kock wanted to be an officer in the police. 
  
 Eugene de Kock at glance: 
  
 Commander of Vlakplaas police unit from 1983 
  
 Confessed to hundreds of murders at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 
  
 Nicknamed "Prime Evil" for the death-squad revelations 
  
 Sentenced to 212 years and two life terms in 1996 
  
 In 2012, Marcia Khoza publicly forgave him for killing her mother ANC activist Portia Shabangu 
  
 Served 20 years before getting parole 
  
 Like many young Afrikaner males he first tried the army but he was disqualified because of a stutter. 
  
 He became a policeman although his attempt to join the elite Special Task Force unit was turned down because of poor eyesight. 
  
 In 1979 he found his feet when co-founded the notorious Koevoet unit. 
  
 Its main task was to kill freedom fighters from the South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo), which was led by Sam Nujoma. 
  
 Swapo was fighting for the liberation of present day Namibia. 
  
 Koevoet became well known for its high assassination rate. 
  
 In 1983, the South African Police transferred De Kock to C10, a counter-insurgency unit based some 10km (six miles) from the capital, Pretoria, on a remote farm known as Vlakplaas. 
  
 De Kock rose through the ranks and became the commander of Vlakplaas under a new code name of C1. 
  
 This unit became the number one death squad for killing largely black anti-apartheid activists. 
  
 Beyond call of duty 
  
 He was arrested after South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president. 
  
 There is no greater punishment than to have to live with the consequences of the most terrible deed with no-one to forgive you Eugene de Kock 
  
 He appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up by Mr Mandela and chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 
  
 At the TRC, De Kock confessed to crimes against humanity. 
  
 His revelations shocked South Africans and revealed the length and brutal techniques the apartheid regime was prepared to take to stay in power. 
  
 He was granted amnesty for many of the crimes committed in defence of a racial segregation system. 
  
 But he was sentenced to 212 years plus two life terms for the murders and crimes he committed which the commission felt went beyond the call of duty. 
  
 While serving time in Pretoria's C-Max prison, De Kock conducted a radio interview in which he described the last apartheid leader FW de Klerk as man whose hands were "soaked in blood." 
  
 Mr De Klerk, who shared the Noble Peace Prize with Mr Mandela for ending apartheid, denied the allegations. 
  
 South African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela interviewed De Kock many times while he was in jail. 
  
 In her book, A Human Being Died That Night, she argued in favour of a pardon for a man she said had been a servant to a brutal regime. 
  
 Whilst in jail, the former police colonel asked for forgiveness from some of his victims. 
  
 In a letter he wrote to the family of Bheki Mlangeni, a lawyer he killed with a letter bomb, he said: "There is no greater punishment than to have to live with the consequences of the most terrible deed with no-one to forgive you. 
  
 "For me, even my own death can't compare." ||||| Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 South Africa has granted parole to Eugene de Kock, the convicted death-squad leader widely known as “Prime Evil” because of his torture of black activists during the apartheid era, after he served two decades in prison, the Justice Ministry said on Friday. 
  
 Mr. de Kock, 66, was arrested in 1994 on charges including murder and kidnapping related to his time as commander of a notorious police unit based at the Vlakplaas farm near Pretoria, the capital. 
  
 His crimes became emblematic of some of the worst abuses in the apartheid era. One of the trademarks of the Vlakplaas unit was to bind a man with rope, place him over explosives and then blow him up, a technique that killed the victim and destroyed the evidence. 
  
 Justice Minister Michael Masutha said that Mr. de Kock was to be freed “in the interests of nation-building,” and because he had shown remorse for his crimes. Mr. Masutha also said that Mr. de Kock had helped the authorities recover the remains of some of his victims. 
  
 The case laid bare South Africa’s struggle to balance justice and reconciliation, reflected in the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s, which sought to foster unity after the trauma and divisiveness of the apartheid era by granting amnesty in some cases. 
  
 Photo 
  
 While Mr. de Kock has expressed contrition, critics say that his ruthless brutality merits no mercy, and that he deserves to spend his life behind bars. 
  
 Mr. de Kock testified before the reconciliation commission after his conviction in 1996 on 89 charges that earned him a prison sentence of two life terms plus 212 years. He was pardoned for some crimes, including his role in blowing up the headquarters of a Johannesburg church in 1988. But many of his other crimes did not escape punishment. 
  
 Mr. de Kock had argued that he deserved to be granted parole because no other members of the apartheid-era police force had been sentenced to prison terms. His defenders said that he was a scapegoat for the apartheid-era government, and that his acts were committed on the orders of higher authorities. 
  
 His parole is likely to anger relatives of his former victims. “He’s a savage,” Victor Makoke, a relative of an activist killed by the Vlakplaas death squad, told Agence France-Presse last month. “He needs to rot in jail.” 
  
 Mr. Masutha said the date of Mr. de Kock’s release would not be made public, according to news reports. |||||
A:
A man believed to have committed more atrocities than any other during South Africa's apartheid will walk away a free man after more than 20 years in prison. Eugene de Kock, known as "Prime Evil" for his role in the torture and murder of black activists, was granted parole today, a day after his 66th birthday, the BBC reports. His expressed remorse and assistance recovering victim remains helped the government reach its decision, which is "in the interests of nation-building and reconciliation," the country's justice minister says. It's controversial nonetheless. "At some point we need to forgive one another," a taxi driver tells Reuters, while another local argues, "He is not supposed to be freed. The atrocities he did to our people were very bad." De Kock was once the head of a counter-insurgency police unit at a farm called Vlakplaas, where victims were bound in rope and blown up to destroy all evidence of a crime. He was sentenced to two life sentences plus 212 years in 1996 after confessing to hundreds of murders at Nelson Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the BBC reports. De Kock said he should be granted parole because he was the only member of the police force to be sent to prison, the New York Times reports. Others argued he was a scapegoat for the apartheid-era government and his orders came from superiors. Meanwhile, Clive Derby-Lewis, the mastermind behind the assassination of a Communist Party leader in 1993, was denied medical parole today. He is said to be dying of cancer.