Justice drags its heels

More than three decades after a group of Soweto security policemen allegedly kidnapped and murdered a female Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) operative, a date for the murder trial of her alleged killers has yet to be set.

Judge Eben Jordaan yesterday provisionally postponed the trial of former Soweto police officers Msebenzi Radebe, Willem Coetzee, Anton Pretorius and Frederick Mong to August 8 in the High Court in Pretoria for a final trial date to be set.

A review application to set aside the Gauteng police commissioner’s refusal to pay for their legal representation will be heard in the high court in May.

The former officers – now all pensioners – are accused of murdering MK courier Nokuthula Aurelia Simelane after she was kidnapped at the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg in September 1983.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) only decided in January last year to prosecute the four men.

Her family launched a court application to force the NPA to prosecute. Coetzee, Pretorius and Mong applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for kidnapping and torturing Simelane, but not for her murder. Radebe never applied for amnesty.

– ilsedl@citizen.co.za

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