South Africa's former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla has told the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry that she never told prosecutors to suspend cases arising from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Daily Maverick reports.
The senior prosecutor Silas Ramaite testified earlier this year that Mabandla phoned him in November 2004 to announce a moratorium, shortly before the former apartheid police minister Adriaan Vlok and others were due to be arrested over the 1989 poisoning of the Reverend Frank Chikane.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, with former President Thabo Mbeki in the audience, Mabandla said neither she nor her officials had made such a call. She said that after checking dates with her legal team she believed she had been in the Central African Republic at the time, although she could not prove it. The inquiry is examining why post-TRC prosecutions stalled.
Source: Daily Maverick
