Destroyed evidence, lack of witnesses behind delays in overdue apartheid prosecutions

Although the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has vowed to speed up the prosecution of apartheid-era crimes referred by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the unavailability of records, crimes that happened a long time ago and problems with suspects and witnesses, among others, hamper progress.

Briefing Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Services Portfolio Committee on progress with the TRC-related cases, Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Rodney De Kock said the NPA aimed to deal with all the 300 cases referred by the TRC to bring closure to families of those who were murdered for taking a stance against the apartheid regime.

Most of the cases in KwaZulu-Natal

Currently, at least 129 cases are either under investigation or before the courts.

Leading with the most cases is KwaZulu-Natal with 29, followed by Gauteng with 25. In Mthatha, Eastern Cape, there are 11 matters, while 14 others were reported in the rest of the province.

The province with the least number of cases is the Free State, with only two matters.

“We know more progress is expected, and we are committed to delivering on this commitment. Challenges still include the age of matters, age of witnesses, persons of interest, suspects, destruction of records including inquest records, no trace of dockets, exhibits, etc.

“Members of the committee might be aware that some of these records have been deliberately destroyed and that makes it difficult for us to investigate,” De Kock said.

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Where witnesses or suspects are deceased, evidence or dockets can’t be traced, the NPA have other mechanisms such as the hiring of experts to reconstruct crime scenes.

“We have experts to reconstruct scenes for us, we also look into postmortems and records. As we know, many doctors who did the postmortems are long deceased as well, so we have experts to examine those reports and become witnesses in court cases.

“These are various technics we apply to prosecute cases, but of course, there are challenges as matters happened a long time ago,” said De Kock.

Increased capacity for TRC cases

The NPA’s TRC division has increased investigating and prosecuting teams coordinated by the head office.

Of the 129 cases, at least 56 matters took place between 1980 and 1989. Twenty-seven matters occurred between 1970 and 1979.

De Kock said NPA gets monthly reports on each of the cases, and keep families of the deceased up to date through meetings across the country.

“Successful engagements are facilitated by the national office with representatives of Apartheid Era Victims Family Group (AVFG) and the DPP divisions,” he said.

At least 25 prosecutors are assigned exclusively for the work.

KwaZulu-Natal has five prosecutors while Gauteng has six.

“There are 40 TRC investigators, and they don’t operate in isolation there’s other support staff around them -19 of them are in the inland regions.

“We have applied to National Treasury for a deviation to appoint prosecutors we have. Money was specifically allocated, and there is a ring-fenced budget within NPA for us to continue working.

“We hope to complete this work within 3 to 5 years, but we are doing everything we can to move speedily and finish sooner. We are also advocating for a permanent TRC division.”

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179 missing persons recovered

Meanwhile, the Missing Persons Task Team (MPTT), a division within the NPA tasked with finding those who were murdered and concealed in South Africa and abroad, has so far recovered 179 remains of the missing persons.

This includes the location of the remains of an unknown uMkhonto We Sizwe (MK) member shot dead in 1980, for whom excavation was being planned. It is believed the activist could be either Walter Shandu, Abel Boshomane or NK Sigwe.

DNA results would confirm their identity once excavation was completed.

The team also identified a burial site where four missing MK members were ambushed by the brutal security branch in the Caprivi Strip in 1970. They were Clem Boshielo, Theophilus Khaliphi and Faldini Mziwonke.

The fourth member, Bennet Ndezakhu, was not killed in the ambush. He managed to escape but was later captured and is believed to have been murdered by the security branch.

Another recovery was that of the remains of political prisoner James Booi who was buried in a pauper’s grave.

His remains were exhumed and presented to the family for reburial, which took place on 30 July this year.

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