The Pretoria High Court, sitting in Benoni, is expected to hand down judgment in the murder case of Daveyton student activist Caiphus Nyoka, nearly four decades after his killing.
Three former apartheid security officers Leon Louis van den Berg, Abraham Hercules Engelbrecht, and Pieter Egbert Stander are accused of murdering the 20-year-old while he slept at his family home in Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, in August 1987.
A late-1990s inquest ruled that the officers had acted in self-defence, finding the shooting justifiable. However, the case was reopened after a 2019 confession by former East Rand Reaction Unit officer Johan Marais, who admitted to participating in the killing. Marais pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison last year.
Nyoka, a prominent student leader, was active in several youth formations, including COSAS, and served as SRC president at Mabuya High School. His death became one of many emblematic cases of apartheid-era violence against political activists.
The three remaining accused have pleaded not guilty and maintain their innocence. Judge Ismail Mohammed is expected to deliver his ruling a decision that may finally bring clarity to a case long shadowed by contested narratives and decades-old wounds.