PRESS RELEASE
To: All Media
ATT: News Editors, Human Rights Reporters
For Immediate Release
21 July 2025
Justice Deferred: State opens an inquest in PEBCO 3 Case
Statement by the families of PEBCO 3 and the Foundation for Human Rights
The families of Sipho Samuel Hashe, Qaqawuli Godolozi, and Twasile Champion Galela, collectively known as the PEBCO Three, represented by Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr Inc (CDH) together with the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR), welcome the decision by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to open an inquest into the brutal murder of the three anti-apartheid activists.
On 8 May 1985, following a call intercepted by Colonel Gideon Nieuwoudt between Sipho Hashe and his PEBCO comrade in Lusaka, Zambia, the Port Elizabeth Security Branch lured the three activists to the then Hendrik Verwoerd Airport in Port Elizabeth under the pretense that they would meet an official from the British Embassy who would provide funding for their political activities. Upon arrival at the airport, the PEBCO Three were swiftly kidnapped by officers from the Security Branch and a Vlakplaas unit that had been deployed to the Eastern Cape.
The Security Branch transported the activists to the old, disused Post Chalmers Police Station near Cradock, where they were held. There, they were interrogated and tortured for extended periods before being executed. Their bodies were then placed on a pile of wood and burnt with diesel.
The inquest, which will be held before the Gqeberha High Court, is seen as a second-best outcome. The families always knew that the apartheid state would not prosecute its own actions, but they hoped that the democratic government would duly investigate and prosecute perpetrators who have been known to the state at least since 1997, when they applied for and were refused amnesty.
A criminal case of kidnapping and murder was registered as early as 1990. Yet the PEBCO Three case stands as an example of how TRC-related cases have been swept under the carpet for more than 30 years of South African democracy.
The families, together with the FHR, remain committed to working collaboratively with the state to ensure that the inquest, hoped to bring a glimmer of justice to families who have been denied it for so long, is conducted without undue delay.
ENDS
Media queries:
Foundation for Human Rights: Sesetu Holomisa, sholomisa@fhr.org.za / 071 391 0043
Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr: Eugene Bester, Eugene.Bester@cdhlegal.com / 011 562 1173
Background of the case
On 11 November 1997, Colonel Nieuwoudt applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for amnesty for the kidnapping and murder of the PEBCO Three. He implicated several members of both the Security Branch and the Vlakplaas unit. A total of nine individuals applied for amnesty for their role in the kidnapping and murder; only two were granted amnesty.
The NPA’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit (PCLU), established in 2003, was mandated to investigate cases identified by the TRC and recommended for possible prosecution. The PEBCO Three case was among those identified.
In 2004, former Security Branch officers Gideon Nieuwoudt, Johannes Martin van Zyl, and Johannes Koole were charged with the 1985 kidnapping and murder. However, Nieuwoudt and van Zyl applied to the court to review the decisions to refuse them amnesty. That review was delayed by five years due to the failure, or refusal, of the Department of Justice to file answering papers. Nieuwoudt died in August 2005. Inexplicably, the DOJ never reconvened an Amnesty Committee, and the NPA never reinstated the cases against van Zyl and Koole, both of whom have since died.
In August 2007, the remains of five persons were discovered by the NPA’s Missing Persons Task Team at Post Chalmers. On 12 September 2009, the Minister of Justice formally handed over the remains to the families.
In 2019, the PEBCO Three families, supported by FHR, formally requested the NPA and DPCI to reopen the case. Despite repeated engagements and follow-ups by the families’ lawyers urging the authorities to finalise the matter and to indict the remaining perpetrators (four of whom were still alive in 2019), progress remained slow.
Between 2011 and 2019, the PEBCO Three docket was held by the PCLU at the NPA’s Head Office. At that time, at least five known perpetrators implicated in the murders were still alive. Yet, to our knowledge, no further investigative or prosecutorial steps were taken. Lotz died in March 2016 at the age of 56; Du Plessis died in 2023; and Venter passed away in 2024.
On 1 December 2023, the families’ legal team handed over a detailed analysis of the evidence to the NPA, calling for criminal charges to be brought against the last three surviving suspects: former Vlakplaas members Colonel Roelof Jacobus Venter (75), Warrant Officer Gerhardus Cornelius Beeslaar (85), and askari Joe Mamasela (70). The lawyers implored the NPA to act expeditiously, given the advanced ages of the suspects.
Despite repeated efforts by the families’ lawyers to schedule a meeting with the NPA to obtain a decision on prosecution, such a meeting only took place in December 2024. Further engagements followed, but it was only in the first quarter of 2025 that the NPA made it clear they would not proceed with prosecution. The families accepted that, at this stage, an inquest would be the only feasible option.
