Essop testifies as Timol inquest opens

THE man who was arrested with activist Ahmed Timol in 1971 testified yesterday how he was tortured while in police custody.

Salim Essop was testifying at the inquest into the death of Timol, which was reopened at the request of his family.

An inquest in 1972 found that Timol had committed suicide.

Testifying at the Johannesburg High Court yesterday, Essop said he had been engaged with Timol in underground work for banned political parties.

“We were disseminating illegal literature‚ I motivate people‚” he said.

Essop testified that he was driving from Coronationville to Fordsburg with Timol as a passenger when police stopped them at a roadblock on a Friday night in October 1971.

The police asked Essop to open the boot.

“Ahmed had obviously put something there. Police claimed it was correspondence Ahmed had with the Communist Party abroad and political pamphlets.”

They were then taken to the Newlands police station where he was separated from Timol.

Essop said the assault started on the first night of his arrest when a security policeman asked him where he and Timol were driving to when they were arrested.

Essop said he informed the policeman that they were driving to Fordsburg to get a light snack.

Essop said this answer did not satisfy the policeman.

“I got a hard punch on my stomach. I have never been hit so hard like that in my life. It was a massive punch.”

He said two policemen he identified as a Captain Fourie and Van Niekerk took turns assaulting him.

Essop said he was then taken to John Vorster police station‚ now known as Johannesburg Central police station, where the assault continued for the next four days.

He said he only heard that Timol had died on March 8 1972 when he was due to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.

“I was devastated to get that piece of information.”

Essop told the inquest, headed by Judge Billy Mothle, that he had made notes of his torture, written during April or May 1972, while he was awaiting trial at Pretoria prison.

He said he gave the notes detailing his torture to his lawyers.

Essop said as a result of his arrest and subsequent jail term‚ his studies for a medical degree from Wits University‚ when he was in his third year‚ were disrupted.

Essop will continue his testimony today. –TimesLIVE