Murder of Cosas Four

Date: February 15, 1982 • Location: Rome, Italy

Murder of four anti-apartheid student activists by South African government forces, who decades later were the first to be indicted for the crime of apartheid.

The Cosas Four were four anti-apartheid activists from the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) assassinated by the Vlakplaas death squad from the Security Branch. Their killing in a 1982 bombing attack was the first crime to be indicted as a crime of apartheid, in 2021.