Justice for the PEBCO three: Families support inquest into apartheid-era murders
Families of the PEBCO Three, anti-apartheid activists who were brutally murdered 40 years ago, have expressed their support for a long-awaited inquest into their deaths.
Image: File
The families of the slain anti-apartheid activists known as the PEBCO Three have welcomed the Department of Justice's decision to open a formal inquest into their brutal killing 40 years ago.
In a joint statement issued earlier this week, the families of Sipho Hashe, Qaqawuli Godolozi, and Twasile Galela, together with the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR), said they supported the inquest, which will be heard in the Gqeberha High Court, as a long-overdue attempt at justice.
“We welcome the decision by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to open an inquest into the brutal murder of the three anti-apartheid activists,” they said.
“The families had always known that the apartheid state would not prosecute its own actions, but they hoped that the democratic government would duly investigate and prosecute perpetrators who have been known to the state at least since 1997.”
On 8 May 1985, the three were lured to Port Elizabeth Airport under the false promise of a meeting with a British Embassy official. Instead, they were kidnapped by the Security Branch and a Vlakplaas unit, tortured at the disused Post Chalmers Police Station near Cradock, and their bodies burned.
A criminal case was registered in 1990. In 1997, nine individuals applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty for their role in the kidnapping and murder. Only two were successful.
In 2004, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) charged three former Security Branch officers, but delays in court proceedings and the eventual deaths of the accused left the case unresolved.
“Inexplicably, the Department of Justice never reconvened an Amnesty Committee, and the NPA never reinstated the cases,” the statement said.
In 2019, the families formally asked the NPA and Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation to reopen the case. While at least five suspects were still alive at the time, “no further investigative or prosecutorial steps were taken.”
In December 2023, the families’ legal team submitted new evidence urging the prosecution of the three surviving suspects: Colonel Roelof Venter, Warrant Officer Gerhardus Beeslaar, and "askari" Joe Mamasela.
However, by early 2025, the NPA had indicated it would not proceed with criminal charges. The families accepted that “at this stage, an inquest would be the only feasible option.”
They said they remained committed to working with the state “to ensure that the inquest, hoped to bring a glimmer of justice to families who have been denied it for so long, is conducted without undue delay.”