TRC ROULETTE : I saw nothing, heard nothing, former justice minister Jeff Radebe tells TRC inquiry

Senior ANC leader and former minister of justice Jeff Radebe has told the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into delayed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) prosecutions that he was unaware of “any formal or informal agreements” engineered to halt the process.

Radebe was appointed by former president Jacob Zuma in 2009 and served in the position until 2014. He also chaired the high-level Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cabinet cluster during the early 2000s, a highly contested period concerning TRC prosecutions. Radebe possesses unique institutional insights.

The former minister returned to the commission for cross-examination on 22 and 23 September, noting that the ANC’s approach to handling apartheid-era crimes had involved both formal state processes and “informal negotiations” alongside legislative and executive policy initiatives.

The stalwart testified that during his tenure on the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC), its National Working Committee (NWC) and in various positions in Cabinet, he was only ever aware of formal state negotiations and the statutory TRC process.

Transition to democracy

Radebe noted that formal negotiations between the ANC (led initially by Thabo Mbeki and later by then secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa) and the National Party government had established this framework for South Africa’s transition to democracy.

After the 1994 elections, he said, President Nelson Mandela had initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) under the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act.

During cross-examination this week, he insisted that his ministerial focus at the time had been the economic cluster, claiming no specific memory of several internal task team reports or policy shifts concerning TRC-related prosecutions.

Radebe’s amnesty bid

As a younger man, Radebe was involved in Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) underground operations, such as “Operation Butterfly” in Lesotho, and as a commander of self-defence units in KwaZulu-Natal.

He later appeared before the TRC, where he applied for and received amnesty for the activities of these units.  He served in various positions from 1994 to 2014 and as policy head of the ANC for 25 years from 1997 to 2022.

Operation Butterfly, conceived around 1984/1985, sought to flatten command structures, shift MK commanders from Frontline States into South Africa and establish direct communication links with the ANC in Lusaka, bypassing traditional intermediate infrastructures.

The Pebco Three

One of the investigations that dragged on for years was that of the Pebco Three – Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisations members,  Quqawuli Godlozi, Champion Galela and Sipho Hashe. The men were abducted, murdered and burnt by former apartheid Security Branch members in 1985.

Testimony presented to the inquiry has highlighted this matter, as well as others, as exemplifying the decades-long systemic delays and failure to pursue post-TRC criminal justice. Security Branch perpetrators involved in the Pebco Three crimes had applied for amnesty, but this had been refused by the TRC Amnesty Committee.

The accused, the notorious Gideon Nieuwoudt, Johannes van Zyl, Johannes Koole and Jo Mamasela, subsequently filed court applications to review and overturn the amnesty refusal. They were finally charged in 2004, but the legal proceedings were stalled by various legal reviews. Nieuwoudt died in 2005.

In 2009, the high court ordered the Department of Justice to reconvene an Amnesty Committee to hear the matter. However, the department never reconvened the committee and criminal charges were never reinstated, the inquiry heard.

The memorandum

Shortly after Radebe’s appointment as minister of justice in May 2009, then acting National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Mokotedi Mpshe had sent him a memorandum explaining the decision to temporarily withdraw murder and abduction charges against two of the former Security Branch officers.

In that memorandum, Mpshe noted that the dissatisfaction of the Pebco Three families highlighted a broader, systemic issue since the finalisation of the TRC in 2003.

The mortal remains of the Pebco Three were eventually recovered and exhumed by the NPA’s Missing Persons Task Team. In fact, it was Radebe who presided over an official ceremonial event in the Eastern Cape, handing over the remains of the four activists.

The inquiry noted that six suspects were still alive during Radebe’s term as justice minister. By 2026, only one perpetrator, Joe Mamasela, was still alive, claiming he was medically unfit to stand trial.

What did you do?

Khampepe commissioner, advocate Andrea Gabriel, challenged Radebe’s reliance on his cluster chairmanship to evade taking action, asking him what he had done to address the delays with his counterpart, the Minister of Police. 

Radebe attempted to justify his lack of follow-through by arguing that the JCPS cluster had a vast portfolio and that his focus was occupied by major structural reforms such as the transformation of the judiciary and the creation of the Office of the Chief Justice.

“So with respect to the TRC cases and the recommendations of the Amnesty Committee, you cannot recall any specific intervention that you made with your counterpart in the executive to resolve this problem of a lack of investigators?", she inquired.

Under direct questioning, Radebe admitted that he could recall no specific executive intervention beyond discussions “in general terms”.

Sleeping dogs

Evidence from Reverend Frank Chikane, who was poisoned in 1989 by military and security police, as well as former National Director for Public Prosecutions, advocate Vusi Pikoli, was that elements within government had believed pursuing post-TRC prosecutions would destabilise the new democratic order.

A primary driver in the curtailing of prosecutions had been a concern that pursuing former apartheid security personnel would trigger public pressure or legal retaliation to prosecute ANC leaders and cadres for pre-1994 liberation struggle activities.

Based on Cabinet minutes and testimony at this inquiry, the “quasi-judicial process” agreed to by Cabinet in August 2002 and reaffirmed in April 2003 had been intended to achieve a number of key political and legal objectives.

These were to direct the minister of justice, in consultation with the minister of intelligence, to establish a mechanism for dealing with unresolved issues arising from the original TRC amnesty process.

It sought to also broaden the mandate of the government task team handling amnesty to deal with individuals who remained “unaccounted for” – specifically perpetrators of past political crimes who had not applied for amnesty during the formal TRC process.

This process was meant to establish a clear mandate and specific timeframes to bring final legal and political closure to conflict-era cases.

Radebe’s view

Radebe testified that, in his view, the initiative was conceived under the framework of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act as a means to foster national unity, reconciliation and resolve lingering past conflicts.

This process directly informed the 2005 amendments to the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) policy, which allowed the NPA to decline prosecutions based on broad criteria. 

High court Judge Frans Legodi, however, later struck down these policy amendments as unlawful and unconstitutional and observed that a special procedure served no purpose and was “absurd” unless the underlying intention was to grant indemnity or amnesty. 

Advocate Howard Varney for The Calata Group (representing victims’ families and civil society) probed whether Radebe or the ANC leadership had been aware of informal discussions held between 1998 and 2003 between ANC officials and former apartheid generals/operatives to reach an agreement suspending prosecutions.

Varney submitted that Cabinet's approval of the 2005 amended prosecution policy constituted “an unlawful executive intervention that compromised the independence of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to shield perpetrators and ANC cadres”.

He highlighted that victims and their families had been excluded from the drafting of post-TRC prosecution policies and presidential pardon processes.

Varney presented internal NPA memoranda and specific cases to demonstrate that TRC cases were systematically “uninvestigated” while key suspects died off.

He put to Radebe that the post-apartheid state had failed the families of victims and raised the issue of the payment of constitutional damages to families whose cases could no longer be resuscitated.

Division of powers

Radebe mounted his defence based on the constitutional division of powers, the nature of ministerial reporting and the action he had taken when specific obstacles were formally brought to his attention.

He repeatedly argued that under Section 205 of the Constitution, the investigation of crimes was the exclusive responsibility of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and maintained that the SAPS and the Minister of Police were accountable, not the Minister of Justice.

Radebe highlighted that under Section 179 of the Constitution, the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) possessed “complete independence to institute or decline prosecutions without executive interference”.

He further stated that a Minister of Justice could not lawfully instruct an NDPP on whom to charge or prosecute. Radebe described this role as administrative, budgetary, and supportive rather than directing operational prosecution decisions.

Radebe urged the commission not to evaluate his tenure solely through the lens of TRC cases, explaining that the justice portfolio encompassed a vast range of institutional transformation initiatives, such as establishing the Office of the Chief Justice to ensure judicial independence. DM