/ 15 March 2005

Bullets found in the bodies of MK cadres

Bullets have been found in each of the remains of the two Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres exhumed in Piet Retief on Monday.

National Prosecution Authority (NPA) spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said on Tuesday that the findings brought them closer to the conclusion of the case.

”We had information that the two men we were looking for had been shot dead and this information matches the findings. We are close to finding out the identity of the second cadre who was killed with Madoda Bonga. As soon as we know who he was, we will inform his next-of-kin first before making the information public,”

said Nkosi.

On Monday, friends and family gathered at Thandukukhanya cemetery in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga for the exhumation of the two MK men, killed by police in January 1983.

Nkosi said months of research and interviews with several sources, including the police, had them to the two unmarked graves.

Their discovery, and an exhumation last week in Pietermaritzburg, brings the number of people who went missing in the anti-apartheid struggle between 1960 and 1994 from 477 to 473.

On Wednesday, the bodies of Oscar Maleka and Jabulani Ndaba were exhumed from Sinathing cemetery in Edendale near Pietermaritzburg.

The two died during a confrontation with security forces on April 13, 1988. Maleka died after detonating a hand grenade that also killed two police officers, and Ndaba was shot dead a few hours later.

In tracing the missing people, the NPA is acting on the instructions of President Thabo Mbeki who ordered in 2003 that the cases that arose from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission be finalised.

Nkosi said more exhumations were expected in the next couple of days. – Sapa