Apartheid-era policemen face charges over activist's 1971 murder

25 Octobre 2017

Cape Town, South Africa, October 25 (Infosplusgabon) - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has confirmed that three perjury dockets will be opened against former security policemen who gave evidence at the re-opened inquest into apartheid activist Ahmed Timol.

As previously reported by  Infosplusgabon, the High Court in Pretoria earlier this month ruled that Timol did not commit suicide but was brutally tortured and thrown from the 10th floor of the notorious John Vorster Square police building in Johannesburg on 27 October, 1971.

An inquest held in 1972 found that he had committed suicide by leaping from the building, but his family repeatedly requested that the inquest be reopened.

The NPA said former Sergeant Jan Rodrigues who was the last witness to see Timol alive will also face a charge of being an accessory to murder. Rodrigues, who happened to be in the office at the time, claimed he saw Timol dive through the window.

Forensic pathologists who studied Timol’s post-mortem said his corpse was riddled with external and internal injuries consistent with severe torture and that he had suffered a fractured skull which would have made it impossible for him to jump out of a window.

Judge Billy Mothle said the police went to great lengths to hide their crime. "The sub-standard and sloppy manner in which the investigation of Timol's death was conducted, supposed the view that there was clear intent to cover-up the incident through a fabricated version of suicide,” he said.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/OKL/GABON 2017

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