PENNY SUKHRAJ | 'Any of you could find yourselves in trouble working abroad'

South African journalist Penny Sukhraj delivered part of the Carlos Cardoso memorial lecture at the African Investigative Journalism Conference at the University of the Witwatersrand on Tuesday. Her husband, Anton Hammerl, was killed in Libya 11 years ago and the family has battled to obtain answers from the Libyan and South African governments. This is an edited version of her speech.

In the years leading up to his death, American journalist James Foley — with a few other journalists who travelled with Anton on the day he was killed in Libya on April 5 2011 — committed to investigate and do everything they could to find out what had become of Anton’s remains.

James himself is no longer. He was the first journalist beheaded by Isis in 2014.

The need for our family was then — and remains — simple: we need the truth, accountability and justice. We need to know what happened to Anton’s remains and where they are. And only by those truths and facts will we be able to seek accountability of those involved in Anton’s death.

But it should not have been up to this band of journalists, travelling from country to country, to do this job.

Anton left London in late March 2011 to cover the war in Libya. I had recently given birth to our youngest son and was on maternity leave in London, and it made sense for him to go at the time [because I would be at home]. In the end, there was one problem with the plan: he never came back.

We heard Anton had gone missing — then that he was captured. For 44 days our family was told he was alive. We were promised precious proof-of-life calls. They never materialised. 

Blissful maternity leave turned into a hellish living nightmare — the cries of our eight-week-old son felt like the cries of Anton — somewhere, out there, who knew where, or what had happened. 

And our eldest, at seven years old, helped me manage the baby. That’s all we could do. We felt helpless to do anything else, being so far away as we were in London, only calling whichever officials we could for help and aid as we watched Libya burning on our TV screens.

We did not have the support a family ought to have in such circumstances — if anything, we were misled, cruelly, into believing he was alive when he had been killed. Nobody seemed to have any idea of what became of his remains and all our attempts to find out proved futile.

The death of Anton, who had dual South African/Austrian nationality and who lived and worked in the UK, drew a blank from all the governments that might have assisted. Our family received no support.

But why should you care?

It matters because what happened to Anton could happen to any of you. Any of you could find yourselves in trouble working abroad and then being sent to cover an assignment even further afield. Your families will have scant access to help — the case of Anton is emblematic of what could happen to any journalist working and living abroad.

We’ve lobbied; we’ve written letters to UK parliamentarians and South African officials to ask for intervention; we’ve addressed UN committees tasked with investigating extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances; we’ve crowdfunded for our legal costs; we’ve stood in the English town where we live, metres from where we said goodbye to Anton, raising awareness about our case in our local community.

Over the past 12 months we’ve stepped up our campaign. We took the decision to engage under South Africa’s freedom of information laws to understand more about Anton’s passport and other documents which would shed light on his last days. 

He travelled to Libya with his passport; it was on him when he was murdered; it was later sent to us by the South African government. No explanation accompanied it. We have Anton’s passport; we still don’t know what happened to his body. We still don’t have a grave to visit. We believe under international law we have a right to know.

We have had to follow through with a court application against the South African government to demand more information. And, finally, it seems there is a real sense and willingness from them to engage. I commend South Africa’s new high commissioner to the UK, Jeremiah Nyamane Mamabolo, for meeting us last month for the first time in London after years of writing letters to request this. And we have been given confirmation of a second meeting with [international relations and co-operation] minister Naledi Pandor's legal team and senior officials from the department. 

The wheels of justice and truth turn slowly and I believe the arc of the universe leans towards justice.

Families like ours — and yours — cannot be expected to undertake investigations from afar, let alone put up expensive legal battles. Thank you therefore to our international team, Doughty Street Chambers, and our local team, Webber Wentzel, for their invaluable pro-bono work.

We are not the first family this has happened to. I fear we will not be the last. 

My hope, and wish, is that through the campaign for justice for Anton we will ensure that these cases are taken seriously and properly investigated.