It was one of apartheid’s most brutal mysteries. Now we may hear the truth

The disappearance of ANC courier Nokuthula Simelane on September 8 1983, has been one of the most intriguing and brutal stories to come out of apartheid.

The case against the two surviving security policemen who allegedly abducted her at the Carlton Centre and, after weeks of interrogation, snuffed out her life, was postponed on Monday until June 6 in the North Gauteng high court.

Presiding judge Mokhine Mosopa postponed the matter because accused one, Willem Coetzee, had apparently contracted Covid-19 and also has “underlying complications with his lungs”, according to testimony to the court. Only accused two, Anton Pretorius, was in court.

Judge Mosopa was informed that prosecutors adv Adele Barnard and adv Raymond Mathenjwa and the defence advocate had agreed to the postponement. Bail was extended for the accused and the witnesses were requested to appear again in court on June 6.

It’s been 26 years since SA learned of Nokuthula’s name, which means “Mother of Peace”. This September will be the 39th anniversary of her betrayal by double agent Norman “Scotch” Mkhonza, resulting in her abduction in the Carlton Centre parking lot by police officers W/O Coetzee, Sgt Pretorius and Sgt Frederick Mong, together with Sgt Msebenzi Radebe, a Sgt Mathiba and Const Mokapi Selamolela.

Nokuthula, 23 at the time, had just completed her studies at university in Swaziland and was due to graduate the following month. She was bringing instructions from “Mpho”, the MK name of the commander of the ANC’s Transvaal Urban Machinery in Swaziland.

Then began a tortuous family journey seeking justice for Nokuthula and closure for themselves, hampered by obstruction, foot-dragging, excuses, delays and failures at every level.

She was bundled into the back seat of a Ford XR-6 with Radebe and taken her to a rooftop storeroom at the married quarters of Norwood police station, where she was interrogated. A junior policeman said in an affidavit years later: “It was brutal.”

She was taken to a farm at Northam, in what is now North West, where for two to three months she was repeatedly beaten and tortured, according to statements given to police later.

Her only clothing was a single brown overall. She had no toiletries. But Nokuthula refused to be “turned” into an askari or divulge any information, despite torture that included electric shocks.

Just two weeks before the abduction, the United Democratic Front had been launched in Cape Town. Earlier in 1983, 13 bombs had detonated, including the SAAF HQ bomb in Pretoria that killed 19 people and injured 220. In retaliation, the air force had bombed ANC houses in Matola, a suburb of Maputo, Mozambique, killing six.

At times she could not stand and her face was “unrecognisable”, according to a junior policeman, who said they would nurse her at night but had to be careful not get caught by their white “superiors”.

Then the police guards were withdrawn and Nokuthula disappeared. Two policemen ordered to rendezvous with Coetzee on the Potchefstroom-Johannesburg road, near Fochville, saw Nokuthula, still handcuffed, in the boot of Coetzee's Ford XR-6 police car. She was still alive.

When Pretorius was asked a few weeks later what had happened to her, he said: “Moenie so baie vrae vrae nie” (don't ask so many questions).

Nokuthula was never seen again.

Then began a tortuous family journey seeking justice for Nokuthula and closure for themselves, hampered by obstruction, foot-dragging, excuses, delays and failures at every  level. No one, it seemed, wanted the politically charged post-TRC prosecutions to go ahead.

Political interference at the highest levels made a mockery of the National Prosecuting Authority’s mandate to prosecute crime “without fear, favour or prejudice”.

It seems that finally the NPA is pursuing the case with slightly more vigour than previously.