In Namibia, the 1980s were a dark decade of human rights abuses by South African security forces.

Justice David Smuts, then a young Windhoek lawyer, felt compelled to take on the system.

His gripping memoir details several dramatic cases, including the freeing of detainees held secretly for six years, proving that torture was used to extract ‘confessions’ and that Koevoet knowingly killed citizens. 

He also takes a new look at the assassination of his close friend, SWAPO activist Anton Lubowski. 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Smuts has been a judge in Namibia for decades, including some of the country’s most turbulent times. He was recently appointed to the Supreme Court by the President. He will soon be departing on a Rockefeller writing residency to Bellagio. 

Death, Detention and Disappearance: A lawyer's battle to hold power to account in 1980s Namibia is published by Tafelberg, an imprint of NB Publishers