The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans is on record stating that no aspect of the Khosa judgment handed down on 15 May 2020 will be appealed and that the SANDF will comply with the Court’s orders.

1. MINISTRY OF DEFENCE AND MILITARY VETERANS
Republic of South Africa
MEDIA RELEASE
DATE: 05 June 2020
EMBARGO: None
SUBJECT: INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ALLEGED CONDUCT OF SANDF
MEMBERS IN THE INCIDENT INVOLVING THE PASSING OF MR
COLLINS KHOSA
The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans is on record stating that no aspect of the
Khosa judgment handed down on 15 May 2020 will be appealed and that the SANDF will
comply with the Court’s orders.
The Department filed its first compliance affidavit setting out all the steps taken within the
required time lines to comply with the Court order. This affidavit was filed by a
representative of the SANDF and attached thereto was the finalized report of the internal
SANDF Board of Inquiry. The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans filed a
confirmatory affidavit in this regard. The Board of Inquiry was not convened by the Minister
and does not report to her and thus what was confirmed to the Court is that the SANDF
had completed its internal investigation within the stipulated time frames as per the Court’s
order.
Furthermore, The SANDF filed its final compliance affidavit to report to the North Gauteng
High Court on the steps taken to give effect to the orders set out in the judgment of Khosa
v Minister of Defence and Others.
On 2 June 2020, while addressing the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, the Minister
stated that in her opinion there is no finalized Board of Inquiry investigation report as she
was made to understand that the investigation had been referred back by the Chief of the
South African National Defence Force and might be reopened for further
investigation. This understanding has turned out not to be correct as the SANDF will not
be reopening the Board of Inquiry for further investigations. The
Minister regrets any confusion that might have been caused by her address to the Joint
Standing Committee on Defence and by the subsequent public reporting of her address
to the Joint Standing Committee.
However, and consistent with the SANDF’s affidavit and the Minister’s confirmatory
affidavit to the Court, a criminal investigation is still ongoing by the SAPS. Furthermore,
on acting in terms of section 6(11) of the Military Ombud Act (4 of 2012), the Minister
assigned to the Military Ombud the function to conduct further investigations on the
complaint regarding the Khosa incident. It is envisaged that the Military Ombud will

2. conduct and conclude investigations in this regard and report within a period of 8 weeks.
For these reasons, there is not yet a final word on the Khosa incident and any culpability
that might be established for his death.
Ends.
Issued by: Department of Defence
(Defence Headquarters, Pretoria)
Enquiries: Mr Siphiwe Dlamini
(Head of Communication)
083 645 4294