Timol would never have jumped – Pahad
‘Activist’s faith against suicide’
It is impossible that Ahmed Timol, an anti-apartheid activist, chose to end his life by jumping out of the 10th floor of John Vorster Square in 1971.
This was the submission by former minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, Timol’s close friend and comrade, to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria yesterday.
The apartheid regime ruled Timol’s death suicide in 1972, saying he jumped out of the then John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg.
Timol was one of several political activists who died during detention. His family launched a private investigation and uncovered new information that could dispel suicide.
The inquest before Judge Billy Mothle seeks to determine whether Timol committed suicide or was killed.
Pahad told Mothle: “Timol would never commit suicide.”
He was the last person to speak to Timol when he flew back to SA from the UK. Yusuf Dadoo, then leader of the SA Communist Party, had deployed Timol to run underground operations in the country.
The primary ground Timol would not take his own life was the fact that he was Muslim, said Pahad.
“Timol was brought [up] as a Muslim and his parents were very religious people. A Muslim, in terms of Islamic edicts, should not and cannot commit suicide, and if you do you’ll not be buried in a Muslim gravesite. So, just from that point of view it seemed to me that, as a Muslim, Timol would have not been in a position ... to commit suicide.”
Another reason was that Timol had fallen in love with Ruth Longoni, a British woman. “They fell madly in love. They really wanted to spend time together ... I remember Ruth could not join him here because of the Immorality Act.
“For me, Ahmed was always going to come back to Ruth and Ruth always thought Timol would come back to her. Therefore, the idea that Timol would commit suicide, for me, just doesn’t seem possible at all.”
Also, Timol and Dadoo would not have discussed suicide as a way out of torture by apartheid police.
“Having known Yusuf Dadoo as I did, and having worked under him for so many years, he would never have discussed ... suicide,” said Pahad.
Kenneth Boffard, a trauma surgery expert, told the court: “In those days there were no first aid kits on police vehicles, to my knowledge. And police, for the same reason, expressed a wish not to move patients from the site of their injury because they might be held liable over injuries that occurred.
“So, I’m very surprised they would have moved [him].