Two former apartheid-era police officers in South Africa have been found guilty of murdering student leader and activist Caiphus Nyoka, nearly four decades after his killing, underscoring renewed efforts to address unresolved crimes from the white-minority era.
A Gauteng High Court judge in Johannesburg on Tuesday convicted Abraham Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander, both reportedly in their 60s, for Nyoka’s 1987 killing. They are scheduled to be sentenced at a later date. A third former officer was acquitted.
The case was revived after Johan Marais, a former member of the apartheid police’s Reaction Unit, publicly confessed in 2019 to participating in the operation. Marais pleaded guilty earlier this year and received a 15-year prison sentence.
Nyoka, a young local activist at the time, was gunned down at his family home near Johannesburg in the early hours of the morning. A 1988 pathology report and court records indicate he was shot at least 12 times, initially while sitting up in bed, and repeatedly after falling back.
At the time, police officers involved in the raid were cleared after claiming self-defence — a common tactic used during apartheid to shield security forces from accountability for political killings.
The case had resurfaced briefly in 1997 when South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reviewed Nyoka’s death. No officer accepted responsibility or applied for amnesty. The TRC documented thousands of politically motivated killings, disappearances, and torture cases, recommending hundreds for prosecution, though very few were pursued.
Renewed pressure from families and civil society has prompted authorities to revisit stalled apartheid-era cases. In October, a fresh inquest into the 1967 death of ANC president Albert Luthuli concluded he was likely beaten to death by security police, overturning the earlier finding of a train accident. Officials have also announced plans to reopen the investigation into the 1977 death of Steve Biko, who died in police custody following severe beatings, sparking global outrage.
A separate inquiry will examine claims that successive post-apartheid governments deliberately blocked prosecutions related to apartheid-era killings.
Nyoka’s conviction is among the few successful murder prosecutions linked to apartheid abuses and could signal a renewed commitment to confront unresolved crimes that have shadowed South Africa for decades.
