South Africa To Re-Visit Probe Of Four Anti-Apartheid Activists’ Murder

The South African Justice Ministry announced on Friday that it would reopen an investigation into the killing of four anti-apartheid activists, which turned out to be one of the well-known crimes of the time and is still unresolved over forty years later.

Following a meeting, the famous Cradock Four were kidnapped and killed in June 1985 while they were making their way back to the southern village of Cradock.

Days later, the four bodies—Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkonto, Fort Calata, and Sicelo Mhlauli—were found with multiple stab wounds and severe burns.

“It is in the interests of justice to finally bring closure to the families of the deceased who have been waiting decades for the truth about who killed their loved ones,” South Africa Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said in a statement on Friday.

Naija News reports that the statement detailed that although two inquests were undertaken, in 1987 and 1993, “more questions than answers” were found.

In order to expose the atrocities of the white-minority system, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was founded after apartheid ended in 1994.

According to the TRC, there was “a systematic pattern of abuse” by the South African government, police, and security branch that led to “the deaths and disappearances of activists.”

The ministry stated that, in the Cradock Four case, “security forces revealed how and why the deceased were killed, 14 years after the gruesome deaths of the deceased.”

The TRC offered amnesty to those who gave a full accounting of their crimes, although it was denied to suspects involved in the Cradock Four deaths.

The National Prosecuting Authority Service has however  requested that the case be reopened to introduce TRC evidence that was overlooked during the earlier investigations.

According to Lamola, the action was necessary for “confidence in the justice system to be restored.”