ANC activist who died in 1966 to be exhumed from pauper's grave

The National Prosecuting Authority’s missing persons task team will on Friday conduct a public exhumation of the body of an ANC activist James Booi, who died in 1966 in the Free State.

The exhumation will take place at Zamdela Cemetery in Sasolburg from 10am.

The NPA says there are no potential prosecutions related to the matter. It said Booi’s family will be in attendance.

Booi, from Gqeberha, was one of hundreds of people who were arrested in the early 1960s after the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress.

Booi was sentenced to imprisonment on Robben Island. In January 1966, he was transferred from Robben Island to Groenpunt prison in Deneysville in the Free State. He died on March 15 1966. 

“Though they heard that he had died, his family never knew what had happened to his body.  They have searched for decades to find him,” the NPA said.

The task team conducted investigations and was able to locate an unmarked pauper's grave in Zamdela cemetery in the Metsimaholo local municipality where Booi had been buried.

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