Nokothule Simelane was a courier for Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, Zulu for "Spear of the Nation").
This was known to be the armed wing of the ANC, which was co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre.
Simelane was abducted from the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg by members of the Soweto Security branch on the 8th of September 1983 and held at the Norwood police flats. According to information from the TRC hearings she was trapped by police members in thinking she was meeting a source.
She was then taken to a farm and held for five weeks, during which she was severely tortured, beaten and not allowed to sleep. She subsequently disappeared and is presumed dead.
Eight of the operatives of the Soweto Security Branch applied for amnesty for the detention and torture only. Three of the applications were refused and five were granted.
The TRC declined to grant amnesty for torture to officers Willem Coetzee, Anton Pretorius and Frederick Mongo, because they failed to make full disclosure. The commission concluded that the evidence they gave was untruthful.
The case against four members of the Soweto Security Branch got underway in the Pretoria Magistrates Court a short while ago.
