Nokuthula Simelane murder: Court holds fitness to stand trial hearing
Simelane, an uMkhonto weSizwe operative, disappeared in Johannesburg in September 1983 and is now understood to have been tortured, killed, and buried after she was abducted.
A portrait image of a young Nokuthula Simelane, sent by her sister. Picture: Supplied.
JOHANNESBURG - A fitness to stand trial hearing for one of the men accused of struggle activist Nokuthula Simelane's murder is before the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.
The uMkhonto weSizwe operative disappeared from underground parking in Carlton Centre, Johannesburg in September 1983.
She had gone there to meet a man named Norman Khoza, whom she thought was a comrade.
However, Khoza was an undercover member of the security police, and the meeting was a setup that saw Simelane thrown into a police vehicle, never to be seen again.
It’s now believed that after her abduction, Simelane was held at the notorious Vlakplaas farm for some time and that she was tortured, killed and buried.
To this day, the location of her grave remains unknown.
Two former apartheid policemen believed to be responsible - Willem Coetzee and Anton Pretorius - were finally arrested and charged with her murder in 2016.
It's Cotzee's fitness that the court is looking into.
The start of the trial has been hamstrung by delay after delay since then.