On the night of 1 May 1993, the Highgate Hotel bar in East London became the site of a brutal and unresolved attack. At approximately 10 pm, at least two armed assailants—wearing balaclavas—entered the hotel and opened fire with AK-47 rifles. They also deployed a hand grenade and a teargas canister. Five people were killed and seven others seriously injured in what became known as the Highgate Massacre.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) initially attributed the attack to the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). However, this claim has since been challenged. The TRC confused the 1993 massacre with a separate attack that took place at the same venue nearly a year later, on 26 March 1994.
To date, no individual or organisation has claimed responsibility for the 1 May 1993 attack, and no amnesty applications were submitted to the TRC for it. Despite testimonies from three survivors and two victims’ families during the TRC hearings in East London (1996-1997), no inquest was ever held, and no arrests were made.
Survivors and families of the deceased formed the Highgate Survivors Group in 2007, continuing their advocacy for truth and justice. The decision to open the inquest was announced by the NPA in 2024. The inquest proceedings took place in East London from 27 January 2025 to 7 February 2025 and from 24 to 27 March, and from the 11th to the 15th of August 2025. The final sitting took place from 1 to 5 September 2025.
Judgment was delivered on 1 December 2025, with Judge Potgieter finding that the attack was likely carried out by “members of a renegade covert group within the Apartheid security forces, seemingly intent on derailing the political transition at the time, who staged the attack, to falsely implicate APLA.”
