By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The former President Thabo Mbeki is appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Cases Inquiry in Newtown, Johannesburg, on 19 and 20 October 2026.
The establishment of the commission of inquiry is part of an agreement reached in settlement discussions in a court application brought by families of victims of apartheid-era crimes.
In his affidavit to the Commission, the former president charged that post-TRC prosecution delays were rather caused by former apartheid-era prosecutors inherited by the NPA who may have been “unmotivated” to prosecute their former “comrades” among the security forces, as this would have “exposed their leaders”.
Mbeki was accused of personally halting the planned 2006 arrests of former minister of police, Adriaan Vlok, and former police commissioner Johan van der Merwe, for the attempted murder by poison of Reverend Frank Chikane.
He denied this categorically, saying that neither he nor his administration ever adopted a policy, issued instructions, or made any attempt to halt, delay or suppress the investigation or prosecution of TRC cases.
Mbeki denied also authorising or directing the suspension of planned arrests in the Chikane matter, stating that he was unaware of the planned arrests and that the allegation rested on hearsay.
He noted that three weeks before his parliamentary speech he had issued a presidential proclamation establishing the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit within the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) to handle TRC-related prosecutions.
In the speech, he said he had explicitly declared there would be no general amnesty and had reaffirmed that those who were refused amnesty or who had failed to apply to the TRC “remained fully accountable”.
He had also exclusively dealt with “pardon cases” (convicted offenders seeking presidential pardons under Section 84(2)(j) of the Constitution) and not the 300 cases referred by the TRC directly to the NPA for prosecution, he noted.
Mbeki argued that the creation of this dedicated prosecutorial machinery for TRC cases directly contradicted allegations that his intentions had been to suppress these prosecutions.
He contended that the failure to prosecute TRC cases lay with the NPA’s failure to discharge its “exclusive statutory mandate, rather than any executive obstruction”.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of TRC.