Former Head of Public Prosecutions Advocate Anton Ackermann says he believes that the late-Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi was behind efforts to ensure that investigators were not provided to work on Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases. Ackerman who was also head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Priority Crimes Litigation Unit tasked with resolving the cases, faced cross examination by the TRC Inquiry’s evidence leader Advocate Vas Soni in Newtown, Johannesburg on Friday.
WATCH | Geoffrey Ledwaba, former deputy head of the NPA’s Directorate of Special Operations, denies allegations by families of apartheid-era victims and former Priority Crimes Litigation Unit heads Advocates Anton Ackermann and Chris Macadam that he halted the investigation and… pic.twitter.com/1a14M77YaV
— SABC News (@SABCNews) April 22, 2026
Ackermann says he believes that the South African Police Service (SAPS) leadership lied when it told an Interdepartmental Task Team in January 2007 that it had sourced investigators from the NPA’s Provincial Directors as these never materialised.
“All these cases, I don’t know. If you tell me they were appointed, I must say I didn’t know about that, that investigators were appointed. Mr. Ackerman, the thrust of your complaint, as I understood it, was that the reason that these prosecutions didn’t go ahead was because there were no investigators that were appointed. And now you say today that you didn’t know if investigators had been appointed. I said that because I was of the view that they were not appointed.”
RELATED VIDEO | Prosecutor Anton Ackermann defends his record
