COSAS 4

Eustice “Bimbo” Madikela 

Born on 27 May 1967 in Kagiso, Johannesburg, Eustice was a pupil at St Peter’s Roman Catholic School and later Mosupatsela High School, where he attended Grade 10. He was deeply affected by the ongoing injustice under apartheid. Inspired by the 1976 Soweto Uprising and conversations with his father, he became increasingly political. Unknown to his family, Eustice joined COSAS and secretly committed to the liberation cause. He was just 15 when he was killed, months before his 16th birthday. His family, left in grief and confusion, later learned he had been murdered by Security Branch operatives in a covert operation involving Askari informants. His sister, Maide Christinah Selebi, continues to advocate for truth and accountability in his name. 

Peter Itumeleng Matabane 

Affectionately known as Ntshingo, Peter Itumeleng Matabane was born on 29 October 1960 at Paardekraal Hospital and raised in Kagiso, Johannesburg. He attended St Peter’s Primary and Thutolore High School in Soweto, where he met his close friend David Tselapedi, became politically active, and joined COSAS. He later met Comrade Tilili through the Youth League, and they became close. He also developed a strong bond with another comrade who sadly passed away during the 1980s. Peter left behind two children: Pauline Masike and Tshepo Mokgatle. His family continues to mourn his loss and demand justice, believing that his sacrifice must not be forgotten or be in vain. 

Fanyana Elijah Nhlapo 

Born on 27 July 1964 in Kagiso, Fanyana was raised by his grandmother, Catherine Nhlapo, who instilled in him strong values of humility and service. He attended Thembile Primary School and later Orlando High School in Soweto, which is a known hub of political awakening. A gifted student and natural leader, he played a key role in recruiting others into the liberation struggle, including Nomvula Paula Mokonyane. He was inspired by the 1981 Matola Raid and was closely connected to the Musi family. On a tragic day in 1982, he and his comrades walked into a trap under the illusion of joining MK in exile. His life, cut short at just 17, left a profound impact on all who knew his strength, intellect, and quiet conviction. 

Zandisile Musi 

Born on 10 September 1963 in Kagiso, Zando, as he was affectionately known, was a fearless and politically committed anti-apartheid activist. He attended Thembile, Sandile, and Kagiso Senior Secondary Schools. At the time of a significant political incident in his life, he was studying in Standard 9. A survivor of the 1982 attack, Zando carried both physical injuries and emotional trauma. During states of emergency, he was frequently detained and placed in isolation. He was later sentenced to six years on Robben Island, serving three, a testament to his sacrifices for South Africa’s liberation. After his release, he remained committed to justice and his family. His testimony was central to preserving the truth of what happened to the COSAS 4. He died in 2021 without seeing justice done in his case. 

On 15 February 1982, four teenage student activists from Kagiso, Eustice Madikela, Peter Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo, and Zandisile Musi, were taken to a disused pump house outside Krugersdorp. They had been led to believe they were going to receive military training to join the African National Congress (ANC) in exile. The COSAS 4 intended to join the liberation struggle. To this end, the COSAS 4 became acquainted with one Thlomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa. Mfalapitsa was a former member of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the military branch of the ANC. Mfalapitsa, together with Mbulelo Musi, Zandisile’s brother, received training in exile from the ANC military wing MK, and it is for this reason that the COSAS 4 trusted Mfalapitsa. Unbeknownst to the COSAS 4, Mfalapitsa was no longer an ANC member and MK operative. Instead, Mfalapitsa had become a Security Branch informant, an askari. 

Mfalapitsa reported his discussions with COSAS 4 to his superiors, who ordered him to lure Musi and the others to a pump house at a mine near Krugersdorp, under the guise of giving them military training. Mfalapitsa, who was in fact working for the apartheid Security Branch, transported the students to the pump house with fellow operative Joe Mamasela. Once inside, Mfalapitsa handed the students hand grenades before leaving on the pretext of getting more equipment. Shortly after, an explosive device planted in the building was detonated by Security Branch officers Jan Carel Coetzee and Christiaan Sebert Rorich. The explosion killed Madikela, Matabane, and Nhlapo instantly, while Musi survived with serious injuries. After the explosion, Zandisile was located by the police, who took him to Leratong Hospital for treatment. Thereafter, Zandisile was taken to a field and was interrogated and tortured, whereafter he was kept in detention without charge for about six weeks. The police falsely claimed that Musi had lured the COSAS 4 to the mine to kill them, blaming him for the explosion. Since the victims were close friends, this fabrication caused deep resentment toward the Musi family. Musi remained silent for years, only speaking about the incident in 1996 at the TRC. It was there that the other families met him for the first time and finally learned the truth.  

The murders were covered up by the Security Branch and remained concealed until certain of the perpetrators applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). 

The families of three COSAS activists who were killed in a bomb blast testified before the TRC Human Rights Violations Committee, including:  

1. Ms Maide Selebi spoke about her brother Bimbo 
2. Mrs Gumede spoke about her brother Fanyana
3. Mrs Lebakeng spoke about her brother Peter 

After Zandisile Musi, the survivor of the 1982 attack, had told his story to the TRC in 1996, the police officers involved in the explosion applied for amnesty at the Commission. The TRC rejected the state’s claim of an accidental explosion, finding that the deaths were the result of a premeditated assassination planned by the Security Branch.  

Five individuals, including Jan Carel Coetzee, Willem Frederick Schoon, Christiaan Sebert Rorich, Abraham Grobbelaar, and Thlomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa, applied for amnesty in relation to the killings, but all five were denied. Joe Mamasela testified in camera at a section 29 investigative hearing, confirming his involvement and the Security Branch’s orchestration of the attack, but he has never applied for amnesty in the COSAS 4 case. 

Despite these findings and the TRC’s recommendation for prosecution, the case remained dormant for years, with the file handed over by the TRC to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for further investigation and prosecution. For decades, the families of the victims consistently sought answers, but their efforts were met with institutional inaction. 

In 2019, at the request of the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) and the Webber Wentzel Pro Bono Department acting on behalf of the COSAS 4 families, an investigation into the matter was revived. 

2020: Exhumation Application 

On 2 September 2020, the families of Eustice Madikela and Fanyana Nhlapo filed an application in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court for the exhumation and forensic examination of the remains of the three victims. The application argued that no post-mortem or inquest had ever taken place despite the unnatural circumstances of death. The goal was to establish an official cause of death and create a forensic basis for a criminal investigation that had been denied for decades. 

2021: Indictment of two individuals  

After nearly four decades of inaction, the exhumation application prompted the NPA to act, and in 2021, kidnapping and murder charges were preferred against two former Security Branch and Vlakplaas members, Thlomedi Mfalapitsa and Christiaan Sebert Rorich. The indictment marked a turning point in the case, representing a major breakthrough in the broader effort to address unresolved apartheid-era crimes.  

Crimes against humanity charges were subsequently added to the indictment, the very first time that such charges had been pursued in South Africa. 

2021 – 2023: Legal Costs Battle 

Following the indictment, the commencement of the trial was repeatedly delayed by the refusal of SAPS to pay the legal defence fees of Rorich. 

The lawyers for the families intervened in the criminal trial and litigated against the SAPS to ensure that the trial process without a delay. It resulted in a court order issued by Mokgoatlheng J on 4 May 2022 compelling the SAPS to pay Christiaan Rorich’s legal costs. The SAPS belatedly took this order on appeal, which was opposed by the families. On 5 December 2022, the FHR sent an open letter to the Minister of Police asking him to change course on the question of legal costs. Leave to appeal was dismissed on 12 January 2023. The SAPS then petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeals but abandoned its appeal in April 2023. 

2023 – 2025: Further delays of the trial  

On 8 May 2024, Rorich lodged his objection in terms of s 85(1) of the CPA to the crimes against humanity charges before the criminal court. On the same day, Rorich launched a civil application before the criminal court for a declarator on the same question, together with interdictory relief. 

Various challenges have delayed the start of the trial, and the case underwent extensive judicial management overseen by Judge Dario Dosio and Deputy Judge President Sutherland of the Gauteng High Court. 

This case management became necessary after multiple applications by Rorich’s attorney, Mr. Kobus Muller, and Mfalapitsa’s attorney, Mr. Innocent Mthembu, throughout 2023 and 2024, each intended to delay the trial’s commencement. 

20223-2024 Amnesty Review Application 

On 14 July 2023, just weeks before the scheduled trial, Mfalapitsa launched a civil review application to overturn the TRC’s 2001 decision denying him amnesty. The review was heard between 14 and 18 October 2024. The court eventually dismissed Mfalapitsa’s application on 11 November 2024. In reaching this decision, the court elected to address the merits of Mfalapitsa’s application despite the substantial delay in its submission. Judge Wilson affirmed the original decision of the TRC Amnesty Committee and its finding that the murders were not proportional to any political objective. It was Mfalapitsa who told the boys that he would train them, escalated the COSAS 4 into a position of perceived threat, and thus created the very justification for their murder. 

2025: Application for Judge’s Dosio recusal 

On 23 April 2025, the Gauteng High Court dismissed an application by former apartheid security officers seeking the recusal of the presiding judge in the COSAS 4 case. Judge Dario Dosio ruled that he would not recuse himself, affirming the court’s ability to hear the matter impartially and fairly. In his judgment, he held that knowledge of the TRC’s denial of amnesty to the accused does not compromise judicial objectivity, nor does it violate the accused’s constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, as enshrined in Section 35 of the Constitution. On 23 May 2025, Judge Dosio dismissed Rorich’s application for leave to appeal, which prompted him to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal. 

Trial 

The trial of Christiaan Sebert Rorich and Tlhomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa is set to commence on 20 October 2025 in the Johannesburg High Court. The accused face charges of kidnapping, murder, and crimes against humanity of both murder and apartheid. This case marks the first time in South African legal history that the crime of apartheid is being prosecuted as an international crime, carrying significant legal and historical weight for the pursuit of accountability for apartheid-era atrocities. 

In November 2021, Rorich and Mfalapitsa were charged with murder and apartheid as crimes against humanity.  

On 8 May 2024, Rorich lodged his objection in terms of s 85(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act to the crimes against humanity charges before the criminal court.  On the same day, Rorich launched a civil application before the criminal court for a declarator on the same question, together with interdictory relief. 

On 26 September 2024, the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), acting on behalf of the COSAS 4 families, served an application to intervene as amicus curiae in the section 85(1) objection proceedings. 

The objections to criminal charges under international law were heard before Judge Dosio in November 2024, with families intervening as amici curiae.  

On 14 April 2025, the Johannesburg High Court handed down a historic judgment, dismissing the accused’s attempt to have charges of crimes against humanity removed from the indictment and paving the way for the prosecution of apartheid as a crime against humanity before South African courts. 

Judge Dosio’s ruling affirms that: 

• Customary international law forms part of South African law. It is directly applicable and does not require separate legislative enactment to be enforced domestically.   

• The state has an obligation to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed in the South, both before and after 1994. In addition to the relevant treaties ratified by South Africa, section 232 of the Constitution provides an independent legal basis for the State to fulfil these obligations.   

• Apartheid as a crime against humanity is prohibited under customary international law and can be prosecuted as such in South African courts.   

• Charges of crimes against humanity brought under section 232 of the Constitution do not violate the principles of legality and non-retroactivity, as the specific crimes in question—namely kidnapping, murder, and apartheid—had already formed part of customary international law by the time the COSAS 4 were murdered in 1982.  

• The non-prescription of crimes against humanity and war crimes constitutes a peremptory norm under international law and applies to serious international crimes committed in South Africa before and after 1994. 

Judge Dosio has dismissed Rorich’s application for leave to appeal his ruling on international charges. On 18 June 2025, Rorich approached the Supreme Court of Appeal seeking to challenge Dosio’s judgment. 

Resources and legal papers

TRC Documents 

• The TRC’s Human Rights Violation hearing on the murder of the COSAS 4 can be viewed on this link. 

Exhumation Application  

• A full set of the legal papers filed with the Magistrate’s Court in September 2020 can be viewed on this link. 

Legal Costs Battle  

• The court order (17 January 2022) by MOKGOATLHENG J on the legal costs question in the COSAS 4 can be viewed on this link. 
• Legal Argument ( 25 March 2022) on behalf of the Nhlapo & Madikela Families (legal costs) can be viewed on this link. 
• The court order (4 May 2022) by MOKGOATLHENG J on the legal costs question in the COSAS 4 case can be viewed on this link. 
• The judgment (4 May 2022) by MOKGOATLHENG J on the legal costs question in the COSAS 4 case can be viewed on this link. 
• The application for leave to appeal by the Minister of Police (16 August 2022) – the legal costs question can be viewed on this link. 
• The application for condonation by the Minister of Police (16 August 2022) – the legal costs question can be viewed on this link. 
• The application of Ms Selebi (29 August 2022) to intervene as a respondent and to oppose the applications of the Minister of Police can be viewed on this link. 
• The court order (13 January 2023) by MOKGOATLHENG J on the legal cost question can be viewed on this link. 

Mfalapitsa’s civil review application of the 2001 amnesty decision 

• The Applicant’s Heads of Argument (29 July 2024) can be viewed on this link
• The judgment (11 November 2024) by WILSON SDJ on Mfalapitsa’s application to overturn the 2001 refusal of his amnesty request can be viewed on this link.  
• The legal papers filed in Mfalapitsa’s civil review application of the 2001 amnesty decision can be viewed on this link. 

Rorich’s objection to the international charges 

• The court papers related to Rorich’s objection to the international charges under section 85(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA) can be viewed on this link. 
• Index to the bundle of authorities filed in the Section 85 Objection can be viewed on this link. 
• The judgment (14 April 2025) by DOSIO J on the international charges under section 85(1) of the CPA can be viewed on this link. 
• Rorich’s Application for Leave to Appeal the Section 85 objection judgment (22 April 2025)  can be viewed on this link. 
• Amicus (Families) – Grounds of Opposition – Application for Leave to Appeal (4 May 2025) can be viewed on this link 
• Judgment by DOSIO J in the leave for appeal of the Section 85 objection (09 May 2025) can be viewed on this link
• Leave to SCA to Appeal Judgement by DOSIO J (12 June 2025) can be viewed on this link
• Order by SCA granting leave to appeal (25 September 2025) can be viewed on this link

Recusal Application

• Judgment by Judge Dosio refusing to recuse himself (23 April 2025) can be viewed on this link. 
• Judgment by Judge Dosio dismissing leave to appeal (23 May 2025) can be viewed on this link.
• Application to SCA for leave to appeal the judgment in the recusal application (18 June 2025) can be viewed on this link.
• Order by SCA granting leave to appeal (25 September 2025) can be viewed on this link