| Time | Summary | |
| 01:13 | But we start in Athlone outside Cape Town with the incident that became known as the Trojan Horse killings. Some 1200 years before the birth of Christ the Greeks waged war against the people of Troy. After ten years of war the Greeks had a brilliant plan, they ordered master carpenter Epeius to build a huge hollow wooden horse and offered it to the Trojans as a gift. The Trojans accepted it and let the horse into the city walls. Once inside, Greek warriors climbed out of the belly of the horse and opened the city gates to their comrades, who then destroyed Troy. This is why the incident in October 1985 in Athlone was called the Trojan Horse killings. | Full Transcript and References |
| 02:01 | ‘Sudden Death: The Trojan Horse Killings, Report by Rene Schiebe’ // October 1985, the height of the school boycott and the UDF’s growing anti apartheid resistance here in Athlone on the Cape Flats. Clashes between police and protestors are now a daily occurrence. Finally on the 15th of October 1985, the police hit back with a vengeance. This time, they go into Athlone in an unmarked railway truck hidden in wooden crates on the back of the truck. At first it attracts little attention, but it drives up the road again expecting trouble. | Full Transcript and References |
| 03:08 | Shaun Magmoed, Michael Miranda and Jonathan Claasen all die at the scene. Several others are wounded or arrested. This week was an emotional one for the families of the victims and survivors of the Trojan Horse tragedy. 12 years after the incident, they finally told their stories to the nation and again came face to face with the killers. | Full Transcript |
| 03:35 | The nation acknowledges that awful experience and in a way the nation is saying sorry. We hope even more that those who perpetrated such a deed, as they hear you tell your story, tell of your pain, and your anguish, that ‘dit hulle harte sal aantas’ [it will touch their hearts and] ‘en miskien hulle sal aanmoedig om verskoning te vra [encourage them to ask for forgiveness]. | Full Transcript |
| 04:33 | Mohammed Shafiek Magmoed broke down as he described his state of mind after he discovered that his 16 year old son, Shaun, had been shot dead by the police. | Full Transcript |
| 04:48 | I went berserk and I had to sit still and get … | Full Transcript and References |
| 04:58 | Georgina Williams, the mother of 12 year old Michael Miranda also had great difficulty reliving the horror of her child’s death. | Full Transcript |
| 05:08 | He had two bullets in his forehead, holes, and about three down his face and … | Full Transcript and References |
| 05:19 | Zainab Ryklief has suffered from a nervous condition since the day the police sprayed her home with bullets. She too had been shot as she tried in vain to protect her son, her nephew and several of their friends, who’d come running into the house during the Trojan Horse attack. | Full Transcript |
| 05:36 | 15 October … a day I will never forget. It was like a war. | Full Transcript |
| 05:45 | Shafwaan Ryklief who abused drugs to try and escape the pain is still convinced that the police had planned to kill that day. | Full Transcript and References |
| 05:54 | It was a very sad story. It’s a day that I too, will never forget. I watched my friend, Shaun Magmoed, die. It was heart breaking. I must have cried alone for months. To watch your friend die with who you were at school from primary school to high school is not a good thing. What they did to us cannot be repaid. But I think the police who did it I think they must be punished. Then I will be happy. They must get the punishment they deserve. I cannot watch them walk free. | Full Transcript |
| 06:40 | Jonathan Claasen’s sister told the Commission that her brother had been a street child, adopted by a family. On the day of the Trojan Horse shooting he’d simply been a bystander. | Full Transcript and References |
| 06:51 | The morning we went to identify him at the mortuary. There was blood in his mouth and neck. | Full Transcript |
| 07:04 | Armina Abrahams described her anguish as she held the two wounded children in her arms that day. She said the attack had left her son, Toyer, mentally unstable. | Full Transcript |
| 07:15 | So it’s very difficult for you to understand how you were shot and how your friends died? // Ja and actually what I actually also want to know is who was the person that actually gave them the permission to take the law into their own hands. I mean at that stage and at that age I couldn’t understand that. | Full Transcript and References |
| 07:34 | 13 security force members were implicated in the Trojan Horse murders, but they were all acquitted. This week, four of them gave the TRC their side of the story. | Full Transcript |
| 07:47 | Retired Brigadier Christiaan Loedolf, the mastermind of the attack, admitted that he’d given the command for the unmarked railway truck to go into Thornton road on that fateful day. He claimed that using an unmarked vehicle was the most effective way of arresting stone throwers. He denied that he’d sent his men into the area with a license to kill. | Full Transcript |
| 08:10 | We wanted to apprehend the stone throwers. Yes, so if we’d sent a vehicle in there and no stones had been thrown then there would be no crime, but if the second vehicle came in, an unmarked vehicle, it would. | Full Transcript and References |
| 08:29 | You deliberately instigated the crowd by making sure that they attacked, by your own admission. By your own admission you’re saying a police vehicle would not be attacked and therefore your decision to use an unmarked vehicle so that it would be attacked. That’s your statement. | Full Transcript |
