TRC Cases Inquiry hears lack of political will hindered prosecutions

While some of the blame for the dismal record of investigating and prosecuting TRC cases can be attributed to the NPA, there must be acknowledgement of the greater role played by a lack of political will and interference.

This was the testimony delivered at the TRC Cases Inquiry in Newtown, Johannesburg, by long-time member of the NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit (PCLU) Dr Jacobus Pretorious.

Pretorious was quizzed on the loss of dockets by the unit of the Cradock 4 and Nokuthula Simelane matters, as well as the lack of enrolment of a single case for prosecution or inquest between 2007 and 2016.

“I make a distinction between political will and political intervention.

If there is no will, you don’t get the investigators that you need, they cut off the water and lights.

So, there may have been individual shortcomings along the way in a portfolio of this size, and over many years.

But for me, the dominant event was the combination of direct political interference and lack of political will and therefore, chronic under-resourcing.

There was a genuine will to prosecute.

The resources just did not happen, but the question is where the weight lays, but if you just try to say it is individual shortcomings, I would add these other matters,” explained Pretorius.

Earlier, Pretorious sought to correct what he said were “material inaccuracies” in the testimony of anti-apartheid activist Reverend Frank Chikane.

He challenged Chikane’s previous testimony that the NPA did not follow up on information related to Project Coast, the apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme.

Additionally, he questioned the allegation that its head, Wouter Basson, was not prosecuted.

Chikane was poisoned in 1989, with his would-be killers receiving minimal sentences in a plea and sentencing agreement brokered with the NPA.

Pretorious served as a member of the NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit and served as its member since its inception in 2003 till his retirement in 2022.