Inquest into ‘Cradock Four’ killings resumes in Gqeberha

Zuko Komisa

Cradock Four inquest reopens as families seek decades-delayed justice — Image: sahistory.org.za

The judicial inquest into the Cradock Four murders—prominent anti-apartheid activists killed in 1985—resumes today in the Gqeberha High Court.
The men were abducted and murdered by apartheid security police, but a 1989 inquest named “unknown persons” and no perpetrators were ever prosecuted despite a later TRC finding.
Reopened by the NPA earlier this year, the current proceedings aim to finally determine legal accountability for the decades-old killings.

A judicial inquest into the notorious 1985 murders of the Cradock Four is set to resume in the Gqeberha High Court today, almost four decades after the killings became one of the darkest episodes of the apartheid era.

The four Eastern Cape anti-apartheid activists—Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli, and Sparrow Mkonto—were abducted, assaulted, and murdered by members of the apartheid security police outside Gqeberha in June 1985. Their burnt bodies were tragically discovered later.

The men earned the moniker ‘Cradock Four’ due to their activism in the small Eastern Cape town of Cradock (now known as Nxuba). Operating under the banner of the United Democratic Front, they organised civic structures and school boycotts, actions that drew the hostile attention of the security branch who saw them as a significant threat to the apartheid regime.

A formal inquest held in 1989 concluded that the men had died at the hands of “unknown persons,” despite widespread suspicion that security police members were responsible.

The subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) later confirmed that the murders were indeed carried out by the security branch. However, no perpetrators were ever successfully prosecuted for the crime.

The current inquest, which initially opened earlier this year, was reopened by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) following sustained pressure from the victims’ families and human rights organisations seeking justice.

The proceedings aim to determine if any living individual can be held legally responsible for the deaths. The first sitting involved testimony from family members and former police officers, alongside a review of evidence previously presented at the TRC hearings.

This inquest forms part of a wider push by the NPA to revisit unresolved apartheid-era cases where true accountability for grave human rights abuses was never achieved.