A retired brigadier who investigated the murder of slain political activist Steve Biko revealed how he was instructed to hand over his file to a new team of investigators, only to discover later that the docket had been destroyed.
Brigadier Alfred Metswera, 62, told the Biko inquest at the Gqeberha high court on Tuesday that he had already interviewed two witnesses — Mohamed Moosa and Lucas Mabaso — in 1996.
They both claimed to have seen Biko before his death outside the Pretoria prison.
It was Moosa’s alleged remarks that came under scrutiny during Tuesday’s proceedings as Biko family lawyer Ngqiqo Sakhela pointed out that he contradicted evidence before the inquest that Biko was assaulted in Gqeberha before being transferred to Pretoria.
Metswera said he worked on high-profile cases that were considered to be of national interest in the then-SA Police Service’s Special Investigations Unit between 1996 and 1997.
He joined the police on September 13 1983 and retired on February 28 2023.
At the time of his investigation, Metswera said, he was a captain.
He said Moosa had informed him that he was with Biko in prison when he was assaulted.
However, Metswera said Moosa refused to make a statement under oath in the absence of his attorney.
Moosa was in his 50s at the time.
He said Moosa was also reluctant to discuss his personal issues and how he witnessed Biko being assaulted.
It was at this stage of his investigation that Metswera said he was instructed to hand over his files to the new team.
Afterwards, Metswera said, no-one contacted him about his findings.
“It was three months [into the investigation] when the inquiry was taken from me. I noted it in my investigation diary.”
Metswera said he never heard from the new team again.
It was only when he made inquiries at the police head office during the Eastern Cape Hawks’ investigation into Biko’s death in 2023 that he learnt that documents relating to the inquiry had been destroyed.
Metswera said he did not keep any copies of his files.
Asked by Sakhela if he believed Moosa’s version, Metswera said he could not verify Moosa’s remarks.
“Moosa said he saw that [Biko] had been assaulted with knobkerries. But this was not recorded in writing,” he said.
Sakhela then put it to Metswera that Moosa’s remarks were not aligned with documented evidence that Biko was assaulted in the Eastern Cape and not Pretoria.
Metswera declined to comment on this and several other similar questions relating to documented evidence about Biko’s death.
However, Metswera agreed with Sakhela that the 1996 letter, written by a senior police officer and claiming that Moosa had told Mabaso that Biko was assaulted by wardens at Pretoria Central Prison, should be treated with caution.
Sakhela said this letter was written by the officer nine years after the documents of the first Biko inquest in 1977 were destroyed in 1987.
The founder and leader of the Black Consciousness Movement died after he was allegedly tortured by police.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced in September 2025 that the inquest into his death had been reopened.
During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, former senior apartheid state police branch officers from Gqeberha — Major Harold Snyman, Captain Daniel Siebert, Captain Jacobus Beneche, Warrant Officer Rubin Marx and Sergeant Gideon Nieuwoudt — applied for amnesty in relation to Biko’s death.
According to the NPA, their version was that Biko had attacked one of their colleagues with a chair.
In the ensuing scuffle to restrain him, they claimed Biko hit his head against the wall.
They later admitted that they colluded and fabricated their versions.
The TRC then refused all five of them amnesty.
Biko was arrested with his comrade, Peter Jones, at a roadblock near Makhanda on August 18 1977.
He had reportedly violated his “banning orders”.
He was then taken to the Walmer police station where he was allegedly stripped naked and tortured while shackled with leg irons and kept in a cell.
It was only after 24 days in custody that medical assistance was sought for him.
He was loaded, unconscious, still naked and shackled, into the back of a police vehicle on September 11 1977 and transported to a prison hospital in Pretoria located 1,200km away.
He died on September 12 1977 at the age of 30.
The cause of his death was recorded as extensive brain injury, acute kidney failure and uremia.
A formal inquest was held in November 1977.
The version of his captors and interrogators from the notorious police special branch at that inquest was that he had sustained his injuries when he banged his head against the wall.
The presiding officer accepted their version at the time.
The then-attorney general of the Eastern Cape also declined to prosecute anyone for Biko’s death on February 2 1978.
The NPA stated in September 2025 that the main goal of reopening the inquest was to lay before the court evidence that would enable the court to make a finding in terms of the Inquests Act as to whether the death was brought about by any act or omission which prima facie involves or amounts to an offence on the part of any person.
This, the NPA revealed, was to continue their efforts to address the atrocities of the past and assist in providing closure to the Biko family and society at large.
Also testifying on Tuesday, Dr Shakeera Holland, who reviewed Biko’s postmortem, said there was no evidence that Biko’s extensive brain injuries were sustained in just one day.
Holland is the academic head of the division of forensic medicine and pathology at Wits.
She said his injuries were consistent with those that could be sustained between three to five days and five to 15 days.
Some of his bruises, she said, were consistent with assaults sustained by the use of an object such as a hosepipe.
Retired judge Isaac Madondo asked what could have been used to inflict Biko’s injuries, to which Holland said he sustained them from blunt-force trauma with the use of a blunt object. He was also burned.
Holland was not convinced that Biko’s injuries were all due to a scuffle, saying some were not consistent with blows and punches.
She said evidence that Biko had only hit his head against the wall was not consistent with the extensive head trauma injuries.
The inquest was postponed to Friday.
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