Mbeki denies any political interference with NPA’s work on TRC cases

Former President Thabo Mbeki has denied any political interference with the NPA’s work on TRC cases referred to it by the original TRC Commission.

He said while he had the power to pardon perpetrators of these apartheid-era human rights violations, he did not stand in the way of the NPA investigating and prosecuting perpetrators.

Mbeki has been testifying at the TRC Cases Inquiry public hearings in Newtown, Johannesburg.

“I did not understand that my office entitled me to instruct investigators to abandon a criminal investigation or prosecutors not to institute a prosecution which they considered was warranted.

That distinction is important to much of the evidence identified in the summons.

Government undoubtedly remained concerned with the cases for which pardons were applied for.

It does not follow from that fact that government adopted a policy that TRC cases must not be prosecuted.

The executive did not concern itself at all with the cases that the TRC referred to the NPA for prosecution.” Video: Thabo Mbeki appears before the Khampepe Commission