PRESS RELEASE
To: All Media
ATT: News Editors, Human Rights Reporters
For Immediate Release
28 October 2025
Trial of COSAS 4 Perpetrators Postponed as Supreme Court of Appeal Considers Challenge to Historic Crimes Against Humanity Charges
Statement by the Foundation for Human Rights and Legal Resources Centre
The long-awaited criminal trial of Tlhomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa and Christiaan Siebert Rorich, the two accused in the COSAS 4 murders, faces yet another significant delay.
The criminal trial was set to commence on 20 October 2025, before Honourable Judge Dosio at the Johannesburg High Court, but was postponed to 26 March 2026, pending the outcome of the appeal proceedings before the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). The provisional date for the criminal trial has been set for 20 July 2026.
The former Security Branch officer Rorich, and askari, Mfalapitsa, have been indicted on five main counts, including kidnapping, and the unprecedented charges of apartheid and murder as crimes against humanity. Bail for both accused has been extended until the commencement of the trial in 2026.
The present postponement follows the SCA’s order of 25 September 2025, granting Rorich leave to appeal to the SCA against the High Court’s landmark judgment of 14 April 2025, which dismissed Rorich’s objections to the charges of crimes against humanity for murder and apartheid, brought under customary international law. The SCA has further granted Rorich’s petition in respect of the judgment dismissing an application for the recusal of Dosio J. Both appeals will be heard together.
The High Court has already ruled that serious international crimes committed before and after 1994 are competent in South African law, and are accordingly prosecutable before South African courts under section 232 of the Constitution. The SCA will consider Rorich’s appeal against the High Court judgment findings.
The FHR and LRC stand in solidarity with the COSAS 4 families, who continue their long struggle, spanning over four decades, to ensure that the systemic cruelty of apartheid is legally acknowledged and that justice is finally delivered.
Media queries:
Foundation for Human Rights: Sesetu Holomisa, sholomisa@fhr.org.za / 071 391 0043
Legal Resources Centre: Moray Hathorn, moray@@lrc.org.za / 063 003 0640
Background
The four young victims, Eustice ‘Bimbo’ Madikela, Peter Ntshingo Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo, and Zandisile Musi, were prominent members of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in Kagiso. On 15 February 1982, they were lured to a pumphouse near a Krugersdorp mine by Mfalapitsa and others under the false promise of military training. An explosive device, detonated by Rorich, killed Madikela, Matabane, and Nhlapo, and severely injured Musi, who later succumbed to his injuries in 2021.
The murder was covered up by the Security Branch, but the perpetrators were denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2001. After decades of police and National Prosecuting Authority inaction, charges were finally brought in 2021 against Mfalapitsa and Rorich, the only two surviving accused. The subsequent inclusion of the crimes against humanity of murder and apartheid marked a historical and groundbreaking step in seeking justice for serious international crimes before a domestic court.
