Between 9 and 16 August 2012, 37 mineworkers were shot while protesting to demand a living wage and better working conditions in Marikana. In total, 44 people were killed, 94 were wounded (78 on the 16th), and 275 miners were arrested in a week of violence.
Three miners and two police officers died at Marikana on August 13, 2012. The police oversight body, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), investigation determined that all of these deaths were caused by police actions. The completed dockets were forwarded to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on 24 April 2017.
On 18 June 2018, nine police officers allegedly implicated in the deaths of three strikers who died on 13 August 2012 appeared briefly in the North West High Court sitting in Mogwase, North West Province in two separate cases. In the first case, five of the officers, including former North West deputy police commissioner General William Mpembe, are accused, amongst others, of murder and attempted murder, including the murder of Pumzile Sokanyile, who was shot in the head.
In the second case, four of the officers are charged with defeating the ends of justice, contravening Section (29)(1) of the IPID Act for failure to report a death in police custody to IPID and contravening Section 6(2) of the Commission Act for lying to the Commission under oath. These charges stem from the discovery of photographs of a deceased miner during the IPID investigation of the killings at Marikana.
A photo album discovered as part of the IPID investigation contained images of a dead miner in the back of a police truck which had been used to transport miners from Scene 1 and Scene 2 to a police detention facility on 16 August 2012. IPID identified Motisaoitsile Van Wyk Sagalala as the deceased depicted in the photos. The investigation determined that Mr. Sagalala had been transported from the detention centre where the photos of his body where taken, to the Andrew Saffie Hospital, to the government mortuary.
SAPS testified in front of the Commission that Mr. Sagalala had died at the hospital. The IDIP investigation revealed that, in fact, Mr. Sagalala died inside the police truck at the detention centre, that SAPS failed to report the death to IPID as required under the IPID Act, and that SAPS lied to the Commission in testifying that Mr. Sagalala died at a hospital.
Both matters have been postponed to 14 September 2018 for pre-trial purposes.
The deaths on August 16, 2012
Thirty-four miners died on 16 August 2012, 17 miners died in the first scene of shooting which was broadcast widely while the remaining 17 had been killed in a scene that the police had initially sought to hide. Six years after the tragedy, there have been no arrests of, or charges laid against any police officers for these deaths.
In March 2017, IPID informed Parliament that it had identified 72 police officers for prosecution for their role in the killing of 34 mine workers in Marikana.
In April 2017, IPID submitted completed dockets to the NPA. The NPA returned the dockets to IPID with further directives and the completed dockets were resubmitted on 01 August 2017. The only outstanding matter is the reconstruction of Scene 2, for which IPID has requested funding from the National Treasury.
Charges can be laid against many of the officers implicated in the docket without the reconstruction of Scene 2. In September 2017, the NPA indicated to SERI attorneys that charges would be laid within two weeks. However, as of 13 August 2018, no officers have been charged for the killings on 16 August 2012.
SERI maintains that IPID must be given the budget to reconstruct the scene so that those responsible will be held accountable for their conduct. However, until the reconstruction is done, the NPA must charge those implicated by the IPID investigation completed in 2017.
