State alleges apartheid police cover-up in death of Matthews ‘Mojo’ Mabelane

Matthews ‘Mojo’ Mabelane died on 15 February 1977 while in detention at the then John Vorster Square police station. Picture: Truth Be Told. The Johannesburg High Court has heard allegations of a systematic cover-up in the way deaths in detention at the former John Vorster Square Police Station were investigated during apartheid.

This was revealed during the reopened inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Matthews “Mojo” Mabelane. Proceedings in the long-awaited reopened inquest into the death of Mabelane commenced before the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg on Monday, nearly five decades after his death in police detention. The re-opening of the inquest follows written authorisation by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, on 29 January 2025, in terms of the Inquests Act.

The State argued that it intends to persuade the court to reverse the 1977 findings of magistrate WP (Willem Petrus) Dormehl that nobody was to blame for the death of Mabelane. “We intend to demonstrate that the police version is unsustainable. It is not consistent with the objective facts.

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We will show that Matthews did not try to escape from the 10th-floor window of room 1008, nor did he walk along a tiny ledge, nor did he lose balance and fall. “Something else happened on the morning of 15 February, 1977, to explain how he landed on the bonnet of a vehicle, in the car park of John Vorster Square. We intend to demonstrate that it was the deliberate conduct of the security branch that led to his death,” the State argued.

Mabelane, a 22-year-old anti-apartheid activist, died on 15 February 1977 while in detention at the then John Vorster Square police station under the interrogation of members of the apartheid-era Security Branch. At the time of his death, Mabelane had been detained in terms of Section 6 of the Terrorism Act 83 of 1967. An inquest into his death was initially conducted at the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court on 30 May 1977. The inquest, presided over by Dormehl, found that no person could be held responsible for Mabelane’s death.

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