Author’s Note

In July 1989 Nelson Mandela, a survivor of Cell 6 and Court C above it, was released from prison for the day to meet the State President P W Botha. Mandela asked Botha to release all political prisoners but Botha refused.

In August 1989 F W de Klerk became the new State President.

In October 1989 de Klerk released the first batch of political prisoners in the sweep of reforms that led to the end of apartheid. Negotiations for a handover of power to South Africa’s black majority began in earnest. Years before, the names of some of those who would take up the reins of power four years later had been scratched into the walls of Cell 6.

In November 1989 de Klerk announced a moratorium on executions.

The moratorium came a week too late for Kukaleni Solomon Ngobeni, destined to be the last man to be hanged in Pretoria:

SERIAL NO	NAME	V-NO	PLACE SENTENCED	DATE	JUDGE	OUTCOME	DATE
4965	Kukaleni Solomon Ngobeni	V4906	Tzaneen	28.2.88	J. J. Strydom	Executed	14.11.89

In February 1990 Nelson Mandela was released by de Klerk. On 10 May 1994 Mandela was sworn in as President, the first African to hold that office, exactly as Dr Verwoerd had reportedly told Dimitri Tsafendas nearly thirty years earlier.

During the moratorium judges around the country continued to impose the death sentence until June 1996 when the Constitutional Court held it to be incompatible with the right to life guarantee of the Constitution negotiated between de Klerk and Mandela. Special legislation was passed and those awaiting execution were given long terms of imprisonment instead.

By then more than four thousand men and women had been hanged in Pretoria, the first on 12 August 1902 and the last on 14 November 1989.