Hopes for end to agony as new witness found

‘I heard moans from missing PE detainee’

A DEVASTATED Port Elizabeth family desperate for answers after the disappearance of a relative 30 years ago has urged investigators to follow one last lead to find his remains.

Political activist Michael “Popi” Magwaca was arrested at his home in Kwazakhele by apartheid security police on June 20 1986.

The family is one of many desperately seeking answers after the disappearance of loved ones in the hands of apartheid police.

To date, the National Prosecuting Authority through the Missing Persons Task Team (MPTT) has exhumed the remains of 95 slain political activists and 76 people have been handed over to their families for reburial.

But the remains of more than 400 people who went missing from police custody countrywide during apartheid had yet to be found, the Department of Justice said last week.

Magwaca’s family has urged the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to investigate one more lead – elderly former activist Nobomvu Joyce Sandlana who is believed to be the last person to have seen Magwaca in custody.

The family said Sandlana’s story had not been probed and she had never been called to give testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Magwaca’s son, Ludwe, said: “She had a lot to say about what happened to my father but she was not called to testify in the TRC.

“Time is passing, she is getting old and my fear is that she will die without saying anything.”

In an interview last week, Sandlana, 83, said she had seen Magwaca the day of their arrest and he was in a bad state. “I last saw him when we were taken by the security police to an abandoned school near Kragga Kamma,” she said.

“He was in a bad state, being pushed and beaten. We were placed in separate rooms to be questioned.”

While she was being interrogated by two policemen, she could hear Magwaca in the other room.

“He was moaning like someone who was in deep pain,” Sandlana said.

“The two black policemen who were with me noticed that I was listening and they asked me, ‘What are you listening to?’

“I said I had heard someone moaning. Immediately, they closed the door . . . that was the last time I heard his voice,” Sandlana said.

That night she returned to the Bethelsdorp police station and asked other inmates if they had seen Magwaca, but nobody knew what had happened to him.

Speaking of her husband’s disappearance, Magwaca’s wife Nokwakha, 70, said: “I can remember it like it was yesterday. They kicked in the front door and kept asking: ‘Waar is Popi?’

“In my heart I believe he is no more, but without seeing his remains I can never be at peace,” she said.

Ludwe said continuous calls to the NPA, ANC leaders and veterans in Nelson Mandela Bay had yielded no results.

NPA spokesman Advocate Luvuyo Mfaku said no progress had been made in finding Magwaca’s remains.

Mfaku said only the police officials who were in direct contact with Magwaca after his arrest would have information concerning his fate.

But, he said, Sandlana’s name as a possible witness had not previously come to light and the MPTT would follow up the lead.