Activists to be exhumed

The remains of two or more youth activists allegedly killed by members of the infamous Mandela United Football Club are to be exhumed tomorrow at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto.

Police and National Prosecuting Authority investigators believe two graves might contain the remains of several activists killed by the club's members and could open a 25-year cold case involving ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Operating as a front for political activists, the club hit international headlines when its members killed Stompie Moeketsi, 14, in January 1989.

Madikizela-Mandela was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and being an accessory to the assault of Stompie, which led to his death. Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.

Stompie was killed for allegedly being a police informer. He was not the only activist to disappear. Documents in possession of investigators show that on November 15 1988 a double murder case was opened.

Case numbers CR392 and CR393 give little insight into the killings of the two people buried as paupers.

Information came to light late last year that the graves contained the bodies Lolo Corlette Sono, 21, and Siboniso Tshabalala, 19, both couriers for the ANC's armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Their bodies were found in a field in Diepkloof, Soweto, with multiple stab wounds. Both were allegedly accused by Madikizela-Mandela of being police informers.

They disappeared less than two months before Stompie was killed.

Madikizela-Mandela has continuously denied involvement in the killings, despite Sono's father insisting she had Lolo, who was badly beaten, with her the day he disappeared.

Information given to The Times yesterday showed that officers were investigating a case of murder.

"This is high profile. The president is being kept abreast of the investigation," said a policeman close to the investigation.

He said the murder case, which had gone "cold" 25 years ago, had been reactivated recently.

"Investigators have been surveying the graveyard for months. This has to be done properly if those who are responsible are to be finally convicted," he said.

He said South African and Argentinian archaeologists and police forensic experts would be involved in the exhumation.

"Police forensic investigators will examine the bodies for signs of injuries, especially to the skull and DNA samples will be taken and compared against those gathered from surviving family members.

"Investigators are following up on information which surfaced recently, that at one point there were more than two bodies in the graves ... possibly up to five."

NPA spokesman Bulelwa Makeke, asked about the soccer club members' possible involvement, said it was just dealing with the exhumation.

"The rest of the matter is for the police to comment on," she said.

"The graves are believed to contain the remains of Sono and Tshabalala, who disappeared in November 1988. The missing persons task team has established that two bodies, with multiple stab wounds, were found in a Diepkloof field and buried as unidentified persons in these graves with a large group of paupers," she said.

Colonel Tummi Shai declined to comment on the murder probe.

"We are assisting the NPA. I cannot comment on who or what is being investigated."