DA fields murder accused as candidate
THE DA is to field its suspended Johannesburg councillor Msebenzi Radebe as a candidate in next month’s municipal elections despite him facing charges of murder and kidnapping for uMkhonto weSizwe operative Nokuthula Simelane three decades ago.
Radebe, an apartheid-era police officer, is number 236 on the DA’s City of Johannesburg proportional representation list for the August 3 polls.
The 66 year old – along with fellow apartheid-era police officers Willem Helm Johannes Coetzee, Anton Pretorius and Frederik Barnard Mong – is due back at the North Gauteng High Court next Monday charged with the killing of Simelane, who was Polokwane mayor Thembi Nkadimeng’s older sister.
Radebe faces kidnapping and murder charges while Coetzee, Pretorius and Mong are only charged with murder because they were granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Simelane’s abduction.
They were each released on R5 000 bail in February by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.
DA Johannesburg regional chairman Khume Ramulifho said Radebe would be fielded as a candidate because the party wanted due processes to be followed first. “It’s not a DA case,” he said. Ramulifho said the party suspended Radebe earlier this year after it came to light that he had been charged with Simelane’s abduction and murder in 1983.
At the time, Simelane was about to graduate from the University of Swaziland and operating as an uMkhonto weSizwe courier.
Ramulifho said Radebe has not been found guilty and his membership will be terminated if he is.
Nkadimeng did not respond to Sowetan’s requests for comment yesterday, but in an affidavit filed at the North Gauteng High Court in a bid to force the National Prosecution Authority to prosecute her sister’s alleged killers, she said: “My family and I have not rested since we learnt that my sister went missing.
“We know the most terrible things she suffered. But we don’t know how she died, and where her body is today.”
Radebe could not be reached for comment.