A Long-Awaited Reckoning: Inquest into the 1985 Disappearance of the Pebco Three Finally Begins

Thirty-nine years after three anti-apartheid leaders vanished without a trace, the wheels of justice are set to turn, however belatedly. This Friday, the state will enrol the long-awaited official inquest into the deaths of the Pebco ThreeSipho Samuel Hashe, Qaqawuli Godolozi, and Twasile Champion Galelaat the Eastern Cape High Court in Gqeberha.

The three men, leaders of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO), left their homes on 8 May 1985 for a meeting with a supposed donor at the airport. They were never seen again. Their fate remained a state secret until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in 1997, when former Security Branch Colonel Gideon Niewoudt confessed to a crime of chilling brutality.

A TRC Confession of Unfathomable Cruelty

Niewoudt revealed that the men were lured by a police informant posing as a British embassy official. Upon arrival, they were abducted by the Special Branch, taken to an abandoned police station near Cradock, and subjected to torture. They were stripped, beaten, suffocated, drugged, and strangled. Their bodies were then burned on a diesel-soaked pyre as their killers braaied nearby. Some remains were dumped in the Fish River.

Why an Inquest Now?

While Niewoudt and several other Security Branch members applied for amnesty, it was only granted to two for conspiracy charges; both are now deceased. Niewoudt and two others were indicted, but the case collapsed due to legal delays and their subsequent deaths. Critically, no formal inquest was ever held.

“It is therefore imperative that all the facts and evidence be properly ventilated before an Inquest Court,” said NPA spokesperson Luxolo Tyali. The inquest, ordered by Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, seeks to establish a conclusive legal record and provide long-denied closure to the families.

For nearly four decades, the Pebco Three were among apartheid’s most haunting ghosts. This inquest represents a final, formal attempt to answer the unresolved questions of that day in 1985, to honour their memory with truth, and to write the last chapter of a story that the apartheid state tried to burn into oblivion.