Rodrigues not telling
SOMETHING terrible happened in Room 1026 at John Vorster Square in Joburg 46 years ago, and former security policeman Jan Rodrigues is refusing to tell the truth.
This is according to the National Director of Public Prosecutions’ advocate Tori Pretorius. He said yesterday he would argue that Rodrigues, the last man said to have seen anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol alive, was not playing open cards with the court.
“You were said to have been as white as a sheet after Timol fell to his death. Is this not because something very traumatic happened when Timol fell? You were shocked about what had happened,” Pretorius asked during his cross-examination.
He grilled Rodriques at length during Timol’s inquest in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, about discrepancies in his evidence and his statement before the inquest court all those years ago.
According to the then security officer, Robbie Bouwer, his interrogators probably grabbed him by the hair and clothes and held him by the legs, with his face down, out of the window.
He speculated that Timol’s chin bumped against the window ledge, hence the fractured jaw he had suffered. He also probably bumped his leg in the process, which would explain the fracture to his lower leg.
One of his captors probably let go of his grip by this time.
Bouwer said Timol’s leg then probably went into spasm, which hit the other interrogator in the groin. According to him, the officer probably cried out in pain and let go of Timol to save himself.
But Rodrigues stuck to his version he gave 46 years ago – that Timol jumped.
“That is the terrible thing which happened in that room,” he said.
Although medical experts cited about 27 injuries on Timol which he must have suffered prior to the fall, Rodrigues was adamant that he had not seen a single injury on Timol that day.
Pretorius told him the injuries on Timol fitted the version that he was dangled out of the window and accidentally fell out. He said this also fitted in with a picture taken 46 years ago, hours after Timol’s fall.
A police photographer took pictures of Rodrigues inside Room 1026, in the positions he was said to have been during the fall. It depicted him standing next to the window.
But his version was that he was on all fours at the time, as he tripped over a chair in his attempt to stop him from jumping. Rodrigues explained the picture by saying that he stood where the photographer told him to stand.
Advocate Howard Varney, acting for the Timol family, told Rodrigues they and the country only wanted the truth as to what happened to Timol.