The family of slain anti-apartheid activist and human rights lawyer Mlungisi Griffiths Mxenge has appealed to those who confessed to his murder to reveal who ordered a hit on him.
In 1981, Mxenge was returning home from his legal office in the Durban central business district, when he was kidnapped, brutally murdered and his body was found on a sports field in Umlazi south of Durban.
His son Mbasa Mxenge, who was 15 years old at the time of his father’s death, said the family welcomed the reopening of the inquest into his death and appealed to the assassins, who confessed their involvement in the killing to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC), to reveal who had ordered them to carry out the killing.
He said former Vlakplaas operative Dirk Coetzee had been identified as the key figure in the killing but the family still believes he was not acting alone and would have received orders from senior apartheid government officials.
“The Mxenge family truly appreciates the reopening of the inquest into the murder of our father Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge. We will follow the legal process with keen interest and we trust that it will bring finality to what happened on November 19, 1981,” said Mbasa Mxenge.
The inquest will take place at the Pietermaritzburg High Court from today.
In a statement issued by the National Prosecuting Authority in KwaZulu-Natal, it said its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) unit in collaboration with the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigations and the National Archives, will be presenting evidence before the court in an attempt to have the initial findings into the death of Mxenge, overturned.
The NPA said the inquest will take place concurrently in different court rooms in Pietermaritzburg High Court with that of Inkosi Albert Luthuli.
The NPA further stated Mxenge’s death inquest was conducted in 1982, however, it could not establish who the killers were.
The perpetrators were finally revealed nine years after his death through a confession drafted by Butana Almond Nofemela.
In 1997, Nofemela together with David Tshikalange and Dirk Coetzee were found guilty of the murder, however, they were granted amnesty by the TRC before they could be sentenced by the High Court sitting in Durban.
This resulted in the discontinuation of the trial proceedings.
The family of the late ANC president Luthuli last week also welcomed the NPA's decision to reopen the inquest into his death in 1967.
Luthuli’s grandson Albert Mthunzi Luthuli said the family was happy with the decision which it had been pushing for, for many years.
He said the family had always maintained that his grandfather had not been knocked down by a train - the original inquest stated that Luthuli succumbed to his injuries after being struck by a train.
The family said it always suspected that Luthuli - who awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 brought international awareness to the atrocities of Apartheid - was murdered on the orders of the Apartheid government.
Cape Times