KEY POINTS
- The convicted murderers of Griffiths Mxenge ask South African Police Services to fund their court defense.
- New evidence brought investigators to resume the inquest investigation of Mxenge’s death.
- Fresh evidence opened a new investigation into the death of Chief Luthuli.
In their legal defense of the reopened inquest both surviving men convicted of killing anti-apartheid lawyer Griffiths Mxenge have sought financial support from the South African Police Service (SAPS).
During the inquest restart at KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg on Monday it became known that the two alive Mxenge murder convicts asked SAPS for financial help to secure legal representation.
Details of the murder and Mxenge killers amnesty
Prominent human rights lawyer Mxenge became a member of the African National Congress (ANC) before he suffered a brutal murder at Umlazi Durban where police officers stabbed him 45 times in 1981.
Three South African police officers named Butana Nofemela and David Tshikalange along with Dirk Coetzee received amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) following their convictions for murdering Vusumstar Mxenge.
Mxenge killers sought legal defense through a lawyer while requesting eventual funding from South African Police Service
The court learned that Coetzee has died while Tshikalange and Nofemela both finished their service at SAPS in the past. The former police officers made requests to the SAPS asking for legal fees to be paid because they were police employees during the murder. The presiding judge verified that defendants obtain legal protection and the system to select representatives is active. SAPS required further time until June 17 to make their decision.
The authorities have retried the investigation into the death of Chief Albert John Luthuli
During the same day an inquest was being heard regarding the death of Chief Albert John Luthuli who won the Nobel Peace Prize as an African before becoming a well-known anti-apartheid leader. Since 1967 the authorities have revised their initial ruling regarding Luthuli’s accidental death because new perspective emerged.
The senior ANC member and leader of the Defiance Campaign Albert Luthuli died close to KwaDukuza after a goods train accident allegedly killed him. The recent disclosure about political reasons behind Luthuli’s death led investigators to pursue additional studies regarding his tragic end.
Political context and ANC’s perspective
Jeff Radebe head of ANC KwaZulu-Natal presented the party’s long-standing position that politicians used both Luthuli’s and Mxenge’s deaths for political murder. According to Radebe the ANC has continuously raised questions about Luthuli’s official cause of death while indicating that the apartheid government targeted the leader following ZAPU and ANC decisions to send military forces into Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
According to him the choice to deploy armed forces into Rhodesia marked Luthuli for elimination because he was leading the anti-apartheid movement.
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