Call for Timol tip-offs
JUDGE ASKS ANYONE WITH INFORMATION TO COME FORWARD Former activist’s nephew will only testify at the end of the proceedings.
The judge presiding in a reopened inquest into anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol’s death in police custody 46 years ago has appealed to anyone with relevant information to come forward.
A 1972 inquest found that Timol had committed suicide by jumping out of a tenth floor window at the security police headquarters, John Vorster Square, in Johannesburg. But the state reopened the inquest after Timol’s family uncovered new evidence suggesting he had been tortured and murdered.
Evidence in the inquest will resume in the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday when two forensic pathologists and former police clerk Jan Rodrigues will be recalled to the stand to testify about the time of Timol’s death.
Rodrigues insisted he had seen Timol diving out of the window without saying a word and that he had not seen a mark on Timol. But there is forensic evidence that Timol had numerous injuries which could not be attributed to his fall.
The driving force behind the inquest, Timol’s nephew Imtiaz Cajee, will only testify at the end of the proceedings.
Dr Salim Essop, who was arrested with his friend Timol and tortured almost to death, yesterday identified five of his interrogators and torturers from old police photographs. He said none of them had told him of his rights or identified themselves.
The court heard that two of the (now deceased) police captains who had tortured Essop, Captains Hans Gloy and Faan van Niekerk, and who also interrogated Timol, had numerous complaints of assault and torture on their files. Van Niekerk was convicted on two counts of assault in 1960, in connection with a detainee who died as a result of his injuries. Essop told reporters that looking at photos of those who had brutalised him had been difficult and brought back bad memories. He no longer had nightmares about it and had moved on, but still found it difficult to forgive and forget. He appealed to those guilty of such atrocities to come forward and clear their consciences.
But he added that he believed the reason they did not was because the mindset still prevailed that they had done nothing wrong and that they were protecting the Afrikaner people.
“Maybe this is still unfinished business that needs to be completed…
“Maybe they can still make amends and become human beings like all of us want to be,” he said. –
Maybe they can still make amends