Court to rule on proceeding with Griffiths Mxenge death inquest - SABC News - Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court is expected to hand down its decision as to whether the inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist and human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge should proceed. The inquest. . .
The Pietermaritzburg High Court is expected to hand down its decision as to whether the inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist and human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge should proceed. The inquest into Mxenge’s death was officially reopened in April last yearbut was twice adjourned due to issues of legal representation of the former police officers and witnesses. The legal team representing several witnesses and former security branch members in the probe believes the reopened inquest is a fishing expedition by the State. The three security policemen who were found guilty were later granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It’s the first time in South African legal history that an inquest has been reopened after a criminal trial. This emerged during the hearings before the Pietermaritzburg High Court into the Mxenge inquest. Three security policemen, former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, Almond Nofomela and David Tshikalange, were found guilty and convicted but were later granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1989, Nofomela confessed to the murder while on death row and revealed the existence of the Vlakplaas death squad. During the hearing into whether the inquest into Mxenge’s death should proceed, Advocate Johan Eksteen – representing former askari Joe Mamasela, told the Court that Nofomela’s confession set in motion a probe by the Harms Commission, a criminal trial for Mxenge’s murder and TRC amnesty hearings for Coetzee, Nofomela, and Tshikalange. Eksteen had further argued that the reopened inquest would be prejudicial to the witnesses and the Mxenge family, as the matter was concluded by trial and theTRC. He said the state was on a fishing expedition, hoping to find new evidence forty years later. Advocate Johan Eksteen, representing Mamasela,says, “It’s not only going to be prejudicial to the implicated person, but also to the victim’s family. They will again have to go through this whole lengthy process of hearing evidence that happened and then hoping that somebody will say something different from what was said prior at the previous inquest, at the criminal trial, the harms commission, at the TRC. Hoping that somewhere in these fifth proceedings, we might now get something different. My lord, this is prejudicial, and that is an abuse of our judicial system. ”The state, in its submissions, argued that it was only the hitmen who were revealed and not the state apparatus involved in the murder, who planned it, who gave the order, or why Mxenge had to be killed. Judge Pieter Bezuidenhout, after considering arguments presented by the state and legal representatives of witnesses, will decide whether the inquest should proceed.