Pretoria - The trial of four former Soweto special branch members accused of killing apartheid activist Nokuthula Simelane was once again postponed on Tuesday in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to November 25.
It is, however, doubtful that the case will then proceed, as the former policemen have launched review proceedings against the police for refusing to pay their legal fees.
They said the charges against them stem from the days when they served in the Soweto Intelligence Unit and during which the time Simelane was abducted and subsequently disappeared.
The four - Msebenzi Radebe, Willem Coetzee, Anton Pretorius, and Frederik Mong were earlier released on R5 000 bail each.
All four faced charges of murder, and Radebe an additional charge of abduction.
The trial was set down to be heard over a period of three months, but their lawyers once again told the court that they are not ready to proceed.
Advocate Johan Gaum, representing three of the men said his clients’ application for the police to pay their legal fees, was refused. Their will now ask the court to force the police to pay the legal fees.
According to Gaum the application will probably only serve before court early next year. “If all goes well the criminal trial may get under way around April next year,” he said.
Simelane, an Umkhonto we Sizwe operative, was abducted and subsequently disappeared 33 years ago. It is claimed that the then 23-year-old was brutally tortured and killed.
Her family had all this time been waiting for answers.
During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it emerged that Simelane was in 1983 abducted in the parking lot of the Carlton Centre by Soweto Security Branch officers.
National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams in January this year decided to prosecute the four accused for her murder.
Pretoria News