NPA considers charging De Klerk for apartheid killings

As the furore over FW de Klerk’s apartheid denialism continues to get play in the wider media, a Mail & Guardian report says the NPA is considering a request to charge the former President for his role in allegedly authorising the murder of anti-apartheid activists in 1985. De Klerk, who served as the apartheid regime’s last President, is among those who may be charged for complicity in the murder of Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli, known as the Cradock Four. In January 2018 the case was among 20 related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that the Hawks and the NPA had listed for re-opening for investigation, notes the M&G. It says the case is now with the NDPP for consideration. Former TRC commissioner Yasmin Sooka, who along with the victims’ families and NGOs, has been lobbying for the cases to be re-opened since 2003, said: ‘There is a discussion with the NDPP. We have been putting a lot of pressure … to try and ensure that there are no further delays as people (who were involved in the killings) are dying. One of the things we have suggested is that the NPA get the Calata matter and the Pebco Three matter on the roll. These cases go right to the top. Whether there is an inquest first, or whether the matter goes straight to a trial, is the discussion that is with the NPA.’ The NPA reportedly declined to comment.

The Cradock Four were murdered by Security Branch operatives after being abducted at a roadblock, allegedly on the instruction of the State Security Council (SSC), which recommended that they be ‘permanently removed from society’. The Mail & Guardian report says a 1994 inquest found that the state had been behind their killing, which was carried out by Security Branch members and that the decision to act against the Eastern Cape activists had been taken by the SSC. De Klerk was, according to documentation presented to the TRC, at the SSC meeting at which the operation to remove the four men from society was discussed. The operation to assassinate the Pebco Three — Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi – in 1985, was planned at the same level. Sooka reportedly told the M&G they believed that De Klerk had ‘command responsibility’ for the actions of troops and police members who carried out murders and other crimes against activists. In his two submissions to the TRC on behalf of the apartheid government and the National Party, and in responses to further questions from it, De Klerk accepted overall responsibility for what happened under his leadership, but denied authorising any killings. The FW de Klerk did not respond to calls and e-mails from the M&G.

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Full Mail & Guardian report