2 apartheid-era police officers found guilty of 1987 murder of South African student leader

By Mevlut Ozkan

ISTANBUL (AA) - Two former apartheid-era police officers were found guilty by a South African court on Tuesday for the 1987 murder of student leader Caiphus Nyoka, with a third officer acquitted due to lack of evidence, according to local media.

The Johannesburg High Court acquitted Maj. Leon van den Berg after ruling that prosecutors had not presented sufficient evidence to link him to the killing. However, the court determined that sergeants Abraham Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander were responsible for Nyoka’s death, Eyewitness News reported.

Judge Mohammed Ismail delivered the verdict, acquitting van den Berg, who had been accused of ordering the raid on 23-year-old Nyoka’s home in Daveyton in 1987, which resulted in Nyoka being shot to death.

Although their bail should expire following their convictions, the two convicts have filed new bail applications, which the court is now required to review.

Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, where the white minority oppressed the non-white majority through discriminatory laws.

South Africa ended decades of apartheid rule in 1994 with its first multiracial election, which saw the governing African National Congress party, led by Nelson Mandela, emerge victorious and establish a democratic government.