POLITICAL interference was to blame for the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA’s) failure to prosecute apartheid-era political murders, torture and disappearances, former national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli said on Thursday.The almost total dearth of prosecutions for apartheid-era crimes continues to rankle.Fundamental to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC’s) process — which many accepted reluctantly, even bitterly — was the idea that those who did not apply for, or did not receive, amnesty would face the might of the law.Mr Pikoli’s affidavit was filed in support of a court case from the family of Nokuthula Simelane, an Umkhonto weSizwe operative who in 1983 was abducted by the security branch and brutally tortured for five weeks on a farm in the North West.Her body has never been found. She was 23 years old at the time.While amnesty was granted to some of Ms Simelane’s torturers, it was refused to others. But no prosecutions followed.Her family want...
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