RE-VICTIMISATION AND BETRAYAL: A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE

JOAO Roderiques is scheduled to appear before the Gauteng High Court today for his role in the murder of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol.

This will be his 18th appearance, following his indictment by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on July 30, 2018 as an accessory to murder and defeating the ends of justice, in accordance with Judge Billy Mothle’s ruling on October 12, 2017, in the reopened inquest into Timol’s death.

Judge Mothle overturned the 45-year-old apartheid inquest court finding that Timol had committed suicide by jumping from the notorious 10th floor of John Vorster Square. Timol was one of 77 people who died in the custody of the apartheid Security Branch between 1960 and 1994.

Judge Mothle found that Timol had been tortured, and that the Security Branch was responsible for his death on October 27, 1971. Mothle held that prima facie evidence existed to indict Roderiques who, on his own evidence, had been present in the room.

Indicted in 2018, Roderiques immediately filed an application to stay his prosecution on constitutional grounds, arguing before the high court, and later the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that the delay by the NPA in indicting him, as well as his age, precluded him from standing trial.

He also claimed that he should benefit from an amnesty deal, allegedly negotiated following the closure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The claims were rebutted by Timol’s legal team before a full Bench of the Gauteng High Court, who dismissed Roderiques’ submissions and confirmed that he should stand trial.

Roderiques’ petition to the SCA on November 6 last year, on the same grounds, has yet to be decided. Revoltingly, all Roderiques’ costs have been carried by the State, while the Timol family has been supported by a pro bono team led by advocate Howard Varney, Webber Wentzel’s Pro-Bono Department and the Foundation for Human Rights.

Imtiaz Cajee and the Timol family await the SCA’s decision. The delays in pursuing justice and the suppression of TRC investigations and prosecutions by the State, the NPA and Hawks constitute a secondary re-victimisation of the victims’ families, who expected the pursuit of truth and justice.

While the truth recovery process before the TRC led to many families learning about the fate of loved ones, many like the Timol family were left with unanswered questions.

Timol, like many others, fell victim to the draconian apartheid security law permitting detention without trial, namely the Terrorism Act of 1967, which was used extensively by the apartheid state, and enabled torture that led to countless deaths in detention. The Terrorism Act allowed the police to detain indefinitely in solitary confinement anyone suspected of “terrorism” and “endangering the maintenance of law and order” – or who had information about terrorism. No court could intervene, and no one had access to the detainees.

Estimates by the Human Rights Committee at the time indicate that between 1960 and 1990, approximately 80 000 detainees were held in custody. The killing of political opponents in detention by the security forces led to creative excuses that detainees had committed suicide by jumping from the top of the building, slipped on a bar of soap or had hanged themselves.

These lies were upheld by apartheid inquest courts and magistrates during this period, ably assisted by the Security Branch and medical practitioners.