Three dockets opened into Timol killing

NPA’s progress will please the family

The Timol family received a letter from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) informing them it has instructed police to open three dockets into the death of activist Ahmed Timol in 1971.

The charges follow the Pretoria High Court’s finding earlier this month that security police murdered Timol. Judge Billy Mothle overturned the 1972 ruling of apartheid magistrate JL de Villiers that Timol committed suicide.

Mothle recommended that three former security policemen who gave evidence to the reopened inquest face charges for committing perjury – and that former Sergeant Jan Rodrigues be charged as an accessory to murder after the fact.

According to the letter from the NPA yesterday‚ the investigating officer has made considerable progress in the compilation of the dockets.

The family said it was commemorating the 46th anniversary of the week in October 1971 that Timol was snatched at a police roadblock‚ brutally tortured over four days‚ and finally murdered on October 27.

“For 46 years the family has commemorated the loss under a cloud of official lies about the circumstances of his death‚ and for 46 years the police involved in murdering and covering up their crime‚ have evaded responsibility‚” it said.

The family said it had not sought vengeance or retribution but the truth and for the lies to be expunged from the record books. They appealed to former security policemen with knowledge of the deaths of other anti-apartheid detainees to approach the victims’ families or the NPA with a view to telling the truth. –