De Kock Testifies on Cradock Four Killings

One of South Africa's most notorious apartheid era police commanders testified this week at

a new inquiry into the 1985 killing of four activists known as the Kratok 4.

Eugene Decock denied any role in the deaths of Matthew Goneyway, Fort Kalata, C. Shiloh

Amlauli, and Sparrow Maconto who were abducted by police and found burned.

He revealed that security forces back then kept photos of around 6,000 anti-apartheid figures

labeled as terrorists, targeted for killing if.

They couldn't be arrested, though these four weren't on the list.

Decock also described how one implicated officer reached out to him for help, covering

up the crime, asking for a different gun and ways to tamper, with ballistic evidence.

The 77-year-old, once head of a counter-insurgency unit, served two life sentences plus

212 years for murders and kidnappings, before parole in 2015.

His court appearance in G. K. Berha came under tight security with his face blurred on video

feeds.

Families of the victims have long pushed for truth after two earlier probes in the apartheid

years, one in 1987 and another in.

1993 were seen as white washes that blamed unknown killers or unnamed cops.

The six officers named in the killings got no amnesty in the late 1990s.

Truth and reconciliation process, and were never charged, but all, have since died.

This inquiry, launched last year, fits a wider effort to revisit unpunished apartheid

horrors, including probes into the 1967 death of.

Nobel winner Albert Luthouli, the 1981 murder of lawyer Griffiths MXNJ and Steve Beakos

1977 police custody death.

South African leaders now face questions, too, with President Cyril Ramaphosa ordering

a review into whether his party stalled post apartheid.

Prosecutions, signaling a push to finally close these painful chapters from the past.

That's the story for today.

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I'm Cory with the story.