A joint inquest into the deaths of Sipho Samuel Hashe, Qaqawuli Godolozi and Twasile Champion Galela, known as the PEBCO Three, is scheduled to begin on 12 October 2026 at the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court in Gqeberha. It is expected to run for five days.
Before witness testimony, the court will inspect the sites at Post Chalmers near Cradock and at Chief Dawid Stuurman International Airport.
Hashe, Godolozi and Galela led the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation, which was affiliated with the United Democratic Front. Amid civil resistance to apartheid in the Eastern Cape, they left for a meeting with a prospective donor at Hendrik Verwoerd Airport on 8 May 1985 and were never seen again.
Their fate remained unknown until November 1997, when former Security Branch policeman Colonel Gideon Nieuwoudt applied for amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He confessed to taking part in the abduction, robbery and murder of the three men.
Nieuwoudt said he paid a police informant to pose as a British Embassy official and lure the men to a meeting. Security Branch members abducted them at the airport and took them to the abandoned Post Chalmers police station near Cradock. They were interrogated and tortured, then their bodies were burned; some of their remains were thrown into the nearby Fish River.
Ten other Security Branch members, including askaris, sought amnesty in connection with the deaths. Two received amnesty for conspiracy to commit murder, abduction and assault; both have since died. The Gqeberha High Court indicted Nieuwoudt, Johannes Martin “Sakkie” Van Zyl and Johannes Koole, but the case could not proceed because of interlocutory applications and the deaths of all three accused.
The National Prosecuting Authority said no formal inquest had previously been held. The court will now examine the facts and evidence, while the NPA and its partners continue to support the victims’ families in seeking answers.
