Cape Town - The end of a 22-year-long wait for justice and closure for the families of a group of anti-apartheid activists – collectively known as the Cosas 4 – is in sight as the trial of two apartheid police officers begins today in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg.
The activists were members of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) and the accused in the trial are the remaining members of an apartheid police squad that carried out an attack in 1982.
The trial of the two accused, Christiaan Rorich and Thlomedi Mfalapitsa, concerns a 1982 attack which led to the murders of Eustice “Bimbo” Madikela, Peter “Ntshingo” Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and the attempted murder of Zandisile Musi, who died in 2021.
Rorich and Mfalapitsa, now elderly, are charged with kidnapping, murder and crimes against humanity of murder and apartheid for unlawfully and intentionally killing the three students in the context of “a systemic attack or elimination of political opponents of the apartheid regime”.
Legal Resources Centre spokesperson Thabo Ramphobole said the trial was historical and significant.
“These charges are being introduced under Section 232 of the Constitution, which recognises customary international law as law in the Republic, unless it is inconsistent with the Constitution or an Act of Parliament.
“It will be the first time that charges under international law, specifically the crime against humanity of murder and the crime against humanity of apartheid, will be brought against two individuals in a South African court.”
Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) spokesperson Kholekile Mnisi said: “The commencement of the trial will be the first huge step for the family members in seeking justice and closure over the murder and injury of their loved ones.”
The FHR said: “Although the masterminds behind the killing, Jan Carel Coetzee, Willem Frederick Schoon and Abraham Grobbelaar, were refused amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1999, the democratic state failed to hold them accountable.”
The three went to their graves without having faced justice. Rorich and Mfalapitsa were also denied amnesty by the TRC in 1999.
Since the indictment of the two accused in 2021, the matter has faced several challenges and postponements, including litigation opposing the police’s refusal to pay the legal costs of Rorich’s defence.
However, in January, having ruled that as a former officer of the Security Branch of the police, Rorich was entitled to state support, the court directed the police to pay the legal fees.
Meanwhile, judgment in the reopened inquest of Dr Hoosen Haffejee has been set down for September 13, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Haffejee was a dentist who died in police custody on August 3, 1977, aged 26. The police alleged that he had hanged himself with his trousers from a grille door at Durban’s Brighton Beach police station.