Unprecedented Trial for Apartheid Atrocities Opens in South Africa

An election poster, with President Cyril Ramaphosa atop a pole in Soweto, South Africa, on April 22, 2024

By Africa News

A significant step by South Africa's legal system in confronting the atrocities of the country's dark political past. 

A judge this week approved the trial of two apartheid-era police officers for their involvement in the 1982 assassination of three student activists.

The prosecution is unprecedented. Until now, no individual had been held accountable for the crime of apartheid.

The case centers around three young freedom fighters killed in an explosion in 1982. The victims were part of a resistance movement opposed to the apartheid regime which enforced White-only rule and domination over the Black majority.

Experts say the trial could open the door for others.

Also, this week, South Africa reopened an investigation into the death Albert Luthuli, a former president of the African National Congress (ANC) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was killed in 1967.

The prosecuting authority seeks to have the findings of previous inquests into Luthuli overturned.

The authorities at the time had concluded that Luthuli's death the result of an accident.

The development comes more than 30 years since South Africa became a democracy and after a Truth commission unearted numerous atrocities.