A SAD AND EMPTY ANNIVERSARY

THERE was a cloud of emptiness yesterday when friends, family and activists commemorated the death of Struggle icon Ahmed Timol.

When he died in September, apartheid-era police officer Joao Rodrigues, one of the last people to see Timol alive, took with him to the grave the “50 years of cover-ups, lies and secrets”. Rodrigues was due to go on trial in connection with what is now Timol’s murder, and not suicide as previously recorded.

However, he tried to wriggle his way out of the courtroom for several months, claiming he was too ill and old to stand trial. His application for a permanent stay of prosecution failed, and the writing was on the wall for the former policeman, then in his 80s.

Rodrigues is believed to have been in the interrogation room at the then John Vorster Square when Timol died 50 years ago.

At the time, his version that Timol committed suicide by jumping through a window from the 10th floor of the Johannesburg Central Police Station was accepted.

However, in 2017, a fresh inquest in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, found that Timol was tortured and brutalised by Security Branch police, and then pushed to his death.

Rodrigues admitted to participating in a cover-up to conceal the murder.

And now he is gone, and the family, friends, activists and public at large will never know what happened to the then teacher, SACP leader and Umkhonto we Sizwe operative.

May Timol’s soul continue to rest in peace. May the prosecuting authorities resolve the cases of other political figures whose deaths in detention remain a mystery.

If not for the sake of justice, then do it for Ahmed Timol.