Timol nephew suggests statue

IMTIAZ Cajee, nephew of antiapartheid activist Ahmed Timol, made a silent vow in 1996, during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), to preserve his uncle’s legacy.

“I was no longer going to just talk about Uncle Ahmed, I was going to do something constructive. I wanted the full truth exposed.”

But it was only last year when prosecutions boss Shaun Abrahams gave the green light for the inquest to be reopened that the Timol family’s wishes were honoured.

Cajee took the stand yesterday in the high court in Pretoria, during the reopened Timol inquest. He told the court it was an uphill battle to try to get justice for his beloved uncle.

He researched his uncle’s death over the years and in 2003, asked the National Prosecuting Authority head at the time, Bulelani Ngcuka, to investigate the Timol case afresh.

“I believed that there was sufficient evidence pointing to his murder.”

He was, however, informed that the matter was closed. “I was very disappointed,” he said.

The family subsequently appointed their own investigator, and last year presented Abrahams with the new evidence and he subsequently gave permission for the inquest to be reopened.

Cajee said Timol’s father, Hajee, died in 1981 a broken man following the death of his son in 1971.

But it was during the evidence of Timol’s heartbroken mother Hawa before the TRC that he vowed not to leave a stone unturned to get to the truth behind his uncle’s death.

In his quest to find answers, he managed to locate one of Timol’s leading interrogators, the then Captain Hans Gloy. Gloy refused to speak to him and even threatened to obtain an interdict against Cajee, to leave him alone. “I refrained from contacting him again, but the overriding urge to hear the truth overwhelmed me.”

Cajee said the family never believed that Timol had committed suicide.

Cajee asked Judge Billy Mothle to, during his final findings in the matter, recommend that a sculpture be erected outside the Johannesburg Central Police Headquarters in Joburg – formerly John Vorster Square – as a tribute to all political detainees who had died in custody during the apartheid era.

He also asked for the south wing of the 10th floor – where detainees were interrogated – to be turned into a museum which recorded the history of security detention and its abuses.

He further called for the “energetic and vigorous” investigation of outstanding apartheid-era cases before it was too late. This, Cajee said, could involve the creation of a team of investigators and prosecutors.

The inquest is, meanwhile, standing down to tomorrow, when a former security police agent is due to take the stand.