South Africa: Thabo Mbeki's Claim That 'We Never Interfered' in Prosecuting Trc Cases Ignores the Facts

27 March 2024
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By David Forbes

Former president Thabo Mbeki has denied his government ever interfered in the prosecution of cases referred to the NPA by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. History says otherwise.

Former president Thabo Mbeki has denied - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - that his government interfered with or suppressed the prosecution of about 400 cases referred in 1999 to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Mbeki proclaimed in a 1 March 2024 press release issued by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation: "(I)t is with some reluctance that I respond to Ms Karyn Maughan's article: 'Long-awaited NPA report gives no answers on ANC govt's alleged blocking of apartheid trials' published on News24 on 21 February.

"During the years I was in government, we never interfered" in NPA work, Mbeki stated.

"The executive never prevented the prosecutors from pursuing the cases."

Maughan's News24 article focused on a report the NPA commissioned on allegations the Mbeki administration had interfered in the prosecution of apartheid cases.

The report, compiled by advocates Dumisa Ntsebeza SC, a former TRC commissioner, and Sha'ista Kazee, recommended that a commission of inquiry investigate the extent of, and rationale behind, the political interference with the NPA between 2003 and 2017.

The NPA has refused to release Annexure 3 of Ntsebeza's report into whether anyone should be charged with "interference"...

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