South Africa reopens inquiry into murders of 4 apartheid-era activists by police hit squad
Three teachers and a railway worker were abducted and killed while returning home from a 1985 political meeting, but no one has been brought to justice
A South African court opened an inquest on Monday into the murders 40 years ago of four anti-apartheid activists by a police hit squad in one of the most notorious atrocities of the apartheid era.
No one has been brought to justice for the 1985 killings of the so-called Cradock Four, and their families have accused the post-apartheid government of intervening to block the case from going to trial.
Teachers Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe and Sicelo Mhlauli and railway worker Sparrow Mkonto were abducted and killed while returning home from a political meeting in the southern town of Cradock.
“After 40 years, the families are still waiting for justice and closure,” Advocate Howard Varney, representing relatives of the four men, told the court in an opening statement.
“We intend to demonstrate that the deaths of the Cradock Four were brought about by way of a calculated and premeditated decision of the apartheid regime taken at the highest level of the government’s state security system,” Varney told the court in the Eastern Cape city of Gqeberha.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to uncover political crimes carried out under apartheid refused amnesty to six men for the Cradock Four killings.