Apartheid massacres go to court

Former Azanian People's Liberation Army commander Letlapa Mphahlele is about to go on trial accused of masterminding atrocities, including the massacres at the St James Church and the Heidelberg Tavern in the early nineties. The Sunday Independent reports that according to well-placed sources the case is among about six post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigations that the National Prosecuting Authority is completing for trial. The other cases include that of three men accused of poisoning Reverend Frank Chikane; the accused in the 1983 abduction and torture of the the still-missing activist, Nokuthula Simelani; a group of former security policemen accused of another abduction; and the surviving security policemen accused of two mid-1980s Eastern Cape killings of ANC activists – known as the Cradock Four and the Pebco Three.
The prosecutions are expected to stir controversy amid acrimony over post-TRC prosecution guidelines. The guidelines have been criticised for providing a de facto amnesty process in cases that the NPA declines to prosecute, despite the perpetrators either having failed to apply to the TRC for amnesty or having been refused amnesty.