South Africa: The Chilling Case of Nokuthula Simelane - - Justice Delayed By Political Interference

25 February 2026
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Marianne Thamm

The Khampepe Commission into TRC prosecution delays has heard how investigator Andrew Leask linked security police to the 1983 kidnapping and prolonged, violent torture of student and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) undercover courier Nokuthula Simelane.

Nokuthula Simelane, or "Mpo" as she was known in the underground, was only 23 when she was lured by Norman Mkonza "Scotch", an Askari (a former liberation movement operative, captured and turned), to a meeting at the Juicy Lucy at the Carlton Centre in the Johannesburg CBD on 11 September 1983.

Simelane was then arrested and transported to Norwood, where she was tortured by police officers and forced to reveal the work she was doing for the ANC. She was later moved to a farm, where she was tortured by police operatives until she died.

On Wednesday, Andrew Leask, a lead investigator for the now disbanded Directorate for Special Operations (the Scorpions), told the Khampepe Commission into Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) prosecution delays that the case against Simelane's kidnappers and killers, Security Branch members Warrant Officer Willem Coetzee and Sergeant Anton Pretorius, had been fully prepared for trial. However, the process was abruptly halted when former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla ordered the National Prosecuting Authority to freeze all TRC-related cases.

Read more Former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla halted TRC cases, ex-NPA official tells Khampepe Commission February 23, 2026 Leask was originally attached to the D'Oliveira...

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