JUSTICE FOR NYOKA | TRIAL POSTPONED TO 2 DECEMBER
OHANNESBURG – Judge Mohamed Ismail has warned the defence to refrain from delaying tactics in the trial of slain student activist Caiphus Nyoka.
This after the lawyer representing accused 3 Pieter Stander withdrew his services. Hilton West did not provide reasons for the withdrawal.
Stander’s instructing attorney, JP Okes then applied for a postponement, saying he needed to prepare for the case. Former police officers Leon Louis Van Den berg, Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander face one count of murder each. They have pleaded not guilty.
Last week, former security branch member Johan Marais admitted to the role he played in Caiphus Nyoka’s death and entered a guilty plea. The Nyoka family is frustrated by the delays.
https://www.enca.com/news/justice-nyoka-trial-postponed-2-december
Trial of alleged killers of student activist Caiphus Nyoka postponed
Advocate Hilton West did not give reasons for withdrawing
The trial of three policemen accused of murdering student activist Caiphus Nyoka in 1987 has been postponed after advocate Hilton West, for accused Pieter Stander, 61, withdrew his legal representation.
West did not provide reasons.
Stander’s instructing attorney, JP Okes, applied for a postponement, saying he needed to prepare for the case. Okes told the court he had other matters to attend to.
Judge Ismail Mahomed said the court would have to be convinced of exceptional circumstances when granting a postponement.
There was a lot of blood’: Sister of slain activist Caiphus Nyoka describes murder scene
he younger sister of slain East Rand activist Caiphus Nyoka told the court on Wednesday she knew her brother had been killed by the security branch when she walked into his room which was covered in blood. She recalled the events of that night in August 1987 when her elder brother was killed.
The court ordered that the names of Nyoka’s family members testifying should not be published. State prosecutor Esther Kabini led the evidence of Nyoka’s sister, who is the second witness in the case. She testified that when members of the security branch arrived at her home in the early hours of that fateful day 37 years ago, she and her sister were already asleep in one of the bedrooms in the main house.
Friends of Caiphus lived in fear after he was killed
- Student activists went into hiding after police killed their friend Caiphus Nyoka in 1987.
- Three former police officers now face murder charges after one officer confessed last week.
Friends of slain student leader Caiphus Nyoka had to live in hiding after apartheid police killed Nyoka in his Daveyton bedroom 37 years ago.
Three former police officers are now on trial for shooting Nyoka multiple times on 24 August 1987. Last week, Reaction Unit 6 leader Johan Marais pleaded guilty to the murder. On Wednesday, commanding officer Major Leon van der Berg, Sergeant Pieter Stander, and Sergeant Abram Hercules Engelbrecht visited Nyoka’s home with court officials. This was part of the court trial’s inspection in-loco of the crime scene.
https://scrolla.africa/we-lived-in-fear-after-they-killed-caiphus/
WATCH: Ex-apartheid cops face Caiphus Nyoka’s ‘ghost’!
IT’S been thirty-seven years since Caiphus Nyoka’s death.
On Wednesday morning, 20 November, the ex-apartheid cops returned to the room where they allegedly killed him to face his ‘ghost’.
Accompanied by their lawyers, the then-former commanding officer Major Leon van der Berg, Sergeant Pieter Stander, and Sergeant Abram Hercules Engelbrecht joined the Pretoria High Court and the state for an inspection in loco at the room where Nyoka was killed on 4 August 1987.
Former apartheid cops plead not guilty to the murder of activist Caiphus Nyoka
Former apartheid police officers Leon Louis van den Berg, Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander pleaded not guilty to the murder of student activist Caiphus Nyoka who was killed in 1987. Prosecutor advocate Esther Kabini told the Pretoria high court sitting in the Benoni magistrate’s court on Tuesday the state will lead evidence from Nyoka’s family at the time the incident occurred. The court heard the state intends to conduct an inspection in loco at Nyoka’s family home to corroborate the evidence after the first witness testified.
Sister of student activist killed in 1987 tells of constant police raids
Apartheid-era police accused of murdering East Rand student Caiphus Nyoka
The elder sister of Caiphus Nyoka, who was murdered in August 1987, described him as “an altruistic person” who would share his last morsel with others.
The woman, whom the court ordered should not be named, was the first witness to testify in a murder trial at the Pretoria high court sitting in Benoni magistrate’s court on Tuesday.
She took the stand after apartheid-era police pleaded not guilty to murdering East Rand student activist Nyoka.
The trio, Leon Louis van den Berg, Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander, pleaded not guilty to the murder. The state’s case is that they acted in the furtherance of a common purpose in the commission of murder.
Judge denies postponement of trial of former apartheid cops accused of activist’s murder 37 years ago
18 November 2024 – Phathu Luvhengo Journalist – TIMESLIVE
The murder trial of three former apartheid police officers that was scheduled to start on Monday was rolled over to Tuesday by the Pretoria high court sitting in the Benoni magistrate’s court. The three men, Leon van den Berg, Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander are accused of the murder of an East Rand student activist, Caiphus Nyoka, more than 37 years ago. On Monday, Stander’s lawyer brought an application for a postponement of the trial as the state had not furnished the defence team with a plea statement from Johan Marais, 65. Marais who was stationed at Unit 6 in Dunnottar in Ekurhuleni, pleaded guilty in the Pretoria high court last Tuesday to killing Nyoka in 1987.
COSAS 4
Eustice ‘Bimbo’ Madikela, Peter “Ntshingo” Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and the attempted murder of Zandisile Musi on 21 August 2023. The four anti-apartheid activists were members of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and were collectively known as the ‘COSAS 4’.
COSAS 4 murder case continues on Thursday
The COSAS 4 trial involving two former apartheid security officers has been postponed to Thursday at the High Court in Johannesburg.
Christiaan Rorich and Thlomedi Mfalapitsa are facing charges of crimes against humanity and murder. The charges are in relation to the murder of Eustice “Bimbo” Madikela, Peter “Ntshingo” Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and the attempted murder of Zandisile Musi in 1982.
The three students were killed by an explosion inside a pump house at the Krugersdorp mine, west of Johannesburg. One person survived the attack.
The Legal Resource Centre has now also been added as Friend of the Court. National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson in Gauteng, Phindi Mjonodwana says, “The state had to deal with the objection by the defence challenging the charge sheet and also stating that the states right to institute a prosecution has lapsed and the court is still busy hearing those arguments and the state was busy responding to the objection when the court was adjourned. So, tomorrow the state will continue its arguments in support of itss prosecution against both accused.”
https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/cosas-4-murder-case-continues-on-thursday/
Court turns down amnesty bid in COSAS 4 murders
Written by Nicola Daniels Multimedia Journalist, Cape Times – IOL
Families of anti-apartheid martyrs, the COSAS 4, have lamented the slow wheel of justice, 30 years into democracy, after the Gauteng High Court dismissed suspect Thlomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa’s bid for amnesty.
Mfalapitsa had approached the court to set aside a 2001 decision by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) which refused his application for amnesty. The refusal was in relation to his alleged role in the murder of the COSAS 4.
CHIEF ALBERT LUTHULI
What was behind the death of the first African Nobel Peace Prize winner?
16 Nov, 2024 09:09 HomeAfrica – RT
By Kubendran Chetty, a South African-based international affairs commentator
Gunnar Jahn (1883 – 1971), President of the Peace Prize Committee, presents Albert Lutuli (c.1898 – 1967), President-General of the ANC, with the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 1960 in Oslo, 10th December 1961. © Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Chief Albert Luthuli, renowned anti-Apartheid activist and Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1967 after being struck by a train. His death was ruled accidental, but in May this year, 57 years later, South Africa’s national prosecuting authority reopened the inquest, saying there are suspicions regarding the circumstances of his death.
South Africa under colonial rule
The country had been under colonial rule for almost 250 years by the time Luthuli was born in 1898, and regardless of whether it was the Netherlands (1652-1795 and 1803-1806) or Great Britain (1795-1803 and 1806-1961), the majority of Luthuli’s countrymen were treated as second class citizens for decades.
Successive colonists were attracted by the lure of the mineral revolution that was taking place in the country. The greed of this desire to possess the country’s mineral wealth would see them enact various phases of dispossession and the exclusion of black people from power in the quest for wealth.
https://www.rt.com/africa/607685-apartheid-horrors-albert-luthuli/
