Former apartheid era cops Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander found guilty of murdering student activist Caiphus Nyoka in 1987.
Alex Mitchley/News24
Former Security Branch member,Abram Engelbrecht,and former riot cop,Pieter Stander,have been found guilty of the 1987 murder of Caiphus Nyoka. Nyoka,a prominent student activist,was gunned down on 24 August 1987 during a raid at his parental home in Daveyton on the East Rand. A third accused,former Security Branch member Johan van den Berg,was acquitted. Thirty-eight years after activist Caiphus Nyoka was gunned down in Daveyton on the East Rand,the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has found that he was executed at the order of former Benoni Security Branch member Abram Engelbrecht.
In a lengthy judgment handed down on Tuesday,Judge Mohamed Ismail found Engelbrecht and former riot cop Pieter Stander – one of the shooters – guilty of murder.
However,their co-accused,another Security Branch member,Johan van den Berg,was found not guilty,as there was no evidence linking him to the assassination.
Ismail started his judgment with a quote from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” before moving on to the detailed description of the apartheid era in which the accused operated.
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Quoting case law,Ismail said those who opposed the National Party government policy “were severely dealt with by the state,who used its forces to quell such opposition and in particular the police under the Security Branch were given unlimited powers to deal with any opposition to the apartheid state.”
Enter Nyoka,a prominent 23-year-old student leader on the East Rand.
READ | Former apartheid-era cop denied leave to appeal against sentence for 1987 murder
The court detailed the evidence before the court,how Nyoka’s family home had been raided on several occasions – including in the early morning hours of 24 August 1987,when he was shot and killed.
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The court heard that on the evening of 23 August,a briefing was held at a police station regarding a joint operation to arrest Nyoka. This was after a man named Daniel Motsoneng was arrested and found in possession of explosives and weapons that he said he got from the student.
Ismail said he would not harp on the case of Motsoneng,as the findings of that matter would not assist him in determining whether Nyoka was murdered by the accused who raided his home on that fatal day.
Former apartheid era cops Abram Engelbrecht and Pieter Stander found guilty of murdering student activist Caiphus Nyoka in 1987.
Alex Mitchley/News24
“It merely explained why the police raided the premises as opposed to what their true purpose was.”
Instead,Ismail focused primarily on the evidence presented by the State,the inquest into Nyoka’s death held in the late 1980s,which found that the shooting was in self-defence and the plea explanation of former riot cop Johan Marais,who had pleaded guilty to his role in the murder in November 2024.
According to Marais,while executing the arrest operation at the house in Lemba Street,Daveyton,he was ordered to take Nyoka out.
Moments before Engelbrecht,Stander and myself penetrated the room,Engelbrecht instructed me to take the deceased out when we were alone in the room with the deceased. I understood this as an instruction that the deceased had to be killed.
After Engelbrecht identified Nyoka,he left the room. Marais said he then fired four consecutive shots while Stander simultaneously fired five shots at the student activist.
Marais said that Nyoka did not pose a threat when he shot him and that there were no weapons in his possession.
“The deceased was opposed to the apartheid government,and he frequently challenged the apartheid regime and its discriminatory policies in public. His involvement in educational and local politics resulted in him being identified as a threat to the apartheid government,” Marais said.
Ismail lamented the fact that Stander did not give a defence,having closed his case without testifying,and also quashed his argument that the inquest records should be ruled as inadmissible,because he hadn’t been informed about his rights against self-incrimination.
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“On the accepted evidence,the court finds that the assailants entered Mr Nyoka’s room not to effect an arrest,but to assassinate him. When the deceased was shot,he posed no threat to any of the policemen who entered the room.”
Caiphus Nyoka was gunned down in his parents’ home in Daveyton during the early hours of the morning of 24 August 1987.
Supplied by family
Ismail ruled that Stander was one of the shooters and is guilty of murder.
On Engelbrecht,Ismail said,while he did not shoot Nyoka,he gave the instruction that the student must be killed,and is therefore also guilty of murder.
Turning to Van den Berg,Ismail said the evidence is clear that he was not in the room when Nyoka was shot,nor was he present when Engelbrecht gave the order to kill him.
When the shooting happened,Van den Berg was on the other side of the house.
In short,there is no evidence which ties him [Van den Berg] to the shooting of the deceased or that he was aware that the deceased was going to be shot.
“By the same token,there is no evidence that he associated himself with the conduct of the others,as he was not aware of the intent of the others to kill the deceased.”
Consequently,he found Van den Berg not guilty of murder.
However,she said they did not get the whole truth they were looking for,because Stander,Van den Berg and Engelbrecht chose not to testify.
READ | Caiphus Nyoka murder: Marais refused to turn State witness,court hears
Alegria said: “The [guilty verdict] is better than the 38 years we waited [when] the accused were just living normal [lives] and our lives,as a family,were turned upside-down after that fateful night.”
She said the verdict is one step closer to closure,but had it been coupled with the whole truth,closure could have come faster. The questions the family feels are unanswered centre on why Nyoka was murdered.
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Despite that,Alegria was happy that the court found that Nyoka was unarmed and defenceless when he was murdered.
After judgment was handed down,Stander and Engelbrecht brought bail applications pending sentencing. However,the applications were not concluded,so the accused will remain in custody until 11 December.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information.
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