Dear President Jacob Zuma,

Our names are Fusi Simon Mofokeng and Tsokolo Joseph Mokoena and we are incarcerated in Kroonstad Prison. We have been in jail for 17 years for a crime we did not commit.

We know, sir, that you spent 10 years on Robben Island (1963-1973) and therefore understand what we have lived through and are living through. The difference between us, though, is that you never had the hope of release flare up in front of your eyes like a flaming torch only for it to be (apparently) extinguished just as you were starting to get used to its light and warmth.

We are distraught because the hope of release that was first lit for us a year ago, and then flamed brightly five months back, seems now to have been doused. It appears to have fallen into a black hole somewhere between the offices of the Minister of Correctional Services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, and your office.
This is our story. 

In 1992 an ANC self-defence unit (SDU), commanded by Donald Makhura, came through Bethlehem in the Free State, ferrying arms to cadres in KwaZulu-Natal. One member was the brother-in-law of one of us, Fusi Mofokeng, who was then 25 years old. Joseph was 31 years old. The SDU stayed at the house where Fusi lived

The next day the SDU left in a bakkie. 

But when it broke down just outside Bethlehem, the SDU members were approached by two police constables. The unit members opened fire, killing one of the policemen. The other sustained permanent brain damage. A farmer was also shot in the stomach when he tried to pursue the SDU.

Police launched a manhunt for the killers, shot dead two, while two escaped to Lesotho. The others hid at the house where Mofokeng lived in Bethlehem. The police caught them. Nine months later, in 1993, Makhura, three SDU members and we were charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit robbery. The state alleged that we had conspired with the SDU to rob a smallholding in the area. 

The state relied on the evidence of a childhood friend of Fusi's, a man called Thabo Motaung. Motaung, who died a few years later, later came to see us in jail. He told us that, under pressure from the security branch, which also offered him money, he gave false evidence against us.

Everyone charged was given a life sentence for murder. Though the court acknowledged that we had not even been present at the killings, we were found guilty in terms of being part of the "common purpose" of the others.

In 1995, we were told by an ANC delegation to apply for amnesty before the truth commission. We did. And we told the truth: we had not been involved in the shoot-out, had no political motivation of any kind, did not know how to handle weapons, and were not members of the SDU or the ANC. Makhura testified that we had had nothing whatsoever to do with his unit.

It seems we made a mistake by telling the truth. The truth commission judge said we had come to the wrong place. He could not give us amnesty. So, although Makhura and the others were given amnesty, we stayed in prison.

In August 2009, after years of being rebuffed by everyone we wrote to, we contacted the Wits Justice Project (WJP), which investigates miscarriages of justice. WJP journalists Jacques Pauw and Jeremy Gordin investigated and wrote about our story.

(We have asked Gordin, your biographer, to write this letter for us.) 

Jomo Nyambi, the chairperson of the select committee on petitions and members' legislative proposals in the National Council of Provinces, read these stories and took up our case. 

At the end of April this year, Nyambi's committee heard presentations from the chief state law adviser and a representative of the department of correctional services.

Members of the committee "agreed that [we] seemed to have been convicted on the basis of circumstantial and perhaps suspect evidence and that they may have been poorly served by their lawyers ... Members said that the tense political circumstances and the stance of the apartheid-era courts in 1992 were further factors that should be taken into account."

There were further discussions and, as we understand it, everyone agreed that we were victims of an injustice and that, although we would probably not be pardoned as such, we could and would be released by you, Mr President, in terms of a provision in the Correctional Services Act.

We were told to get ready to attend the first game of the 2010 World Soccer Cup. Nothing happened. 

That was four months ago. In the meantime, we have heard little if nothing about our fate. No one seems to be able to tell us anything substantial - and phone calls have been made to countless senior government officials. All we can find out is that the "documentation" dealing with our futures is "somewhere between" Mapisa-Nqakula's office and yours.

We know that you are busy, Mr President. We have read about your many journeys overseas and in the country and we know that you were busy recently with the ANC national general conference. But we have been waiting 17 years for our freedom. Please do not delay any longer.

Yours truly, Fusi Mofokeng and Joseph Mokoena

This letter first appeared in the Mail & Guardian.

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