PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This disturbing decision makes a compelling case for the setting up of a national tribunal to explore South Africa's dirty secret - the extra-judicial torture and murder of at least 73 apartheid activists by the Apartheid regime's police. The passage of decades must not be allowed to shield the criminal acts of all the participants in a brutal. perverted criminal justice system, - including police, prosecutors and judges - and, of particular interest to this Blog, the pathologists, coroner's and forensic technicians who helped turn murderous acts into accidental plunges from the tops of police stations (same station, same window!) and participated in the cover-up. The overall secret may be out (it is no longer mere suspicion) but the criminal acts perpetrated by the authorities in individual case, and accountability for those acts, is still lacking. These important elements must not be allowed to fade away in the trash bins of history.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
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GIST: A
South African judge has demolished a 46-year-old apartheid conspiracy,
ruling that an anti-apartheid activist was brutally murdered by police
who tried to conceal their crime by calling it a suicide. Apartheid
policemen tortured and killed Ahmed Timol at a notorious Johannesburg
police station in 1971, throwing him to his death from the top of the
building, Judge Billy Mothle ruled on Thursday after a lengthy inquest. It
is a stunning and historic ruling: the first time South African
authorities have overturned an apartheid cover-up of a death in
detention. After decades of official neglect, Thursday's ruling could
finally lead to criminal charges and a broader investigation of
apartheid atrocities. The
courtroom in Pretoria was packed for the judge's ruling, with the
benches full and many people standing in the aisles. The room burst into
applause at the end of the ruling. Human rights activists and family
members were ecstatic at the judgment, seeing it as long-awaited justice
after nearly half a century of fighting for the truth. Mr.
Timol was among at least 73 people who died in apartheid detention from
the 1960s to the 1980s. But until now, the African National Congress
government has shown little interest in reopening these cases, even
though the families of the dead have been seeking justice. One
of the policemen who witnessed Mr. Timol's death, Joao Rodrigues, is
still alive and could face criminal charges – including perjury and
accessory to murder -- as a result of Thursday's ruling. Now
78, he testified at the inquest in the July and stuck loyally to the
official version of the apartheid authorities, insisting that Mr. Timol
leaped to his death from a 10th-floor window at the police station. But
the judge ruled on Thursday that this claim was completely contradicted
by all the evidence. Mr. Rodrigues
had "participated in the cover-up to conceal the crime of murder as an
accessory after the fact, and went on to commit perjury by presenting
contradictory evidence before the 1972 and 2017 inquests," Judge Mothle
ruled. "He should accordingly be investigated with a view to his
prosecution." Two other former policemen had also misled the court, Judge Mothle said. South
Africa's prosecuting authority must now decide whether to investigate
the surviving policemen and lay criminal charges against Mr. Rodrigues.
But most of those who participated in Mr. Timol's murder had died
without facing justice. At the
inquest, expert witnesses testified that the official version of Mr.
Timol's death was impossible. Trajectory experts, examining the spot
where he fell, concluded that he was probably pushed to his death and
could not have jumped. Medical experts found that he was severely
injured before his death, presumably from torture. A fellow prisoner
said he glimpsed Mr. Timol in the police station before his death,
almost unable to walk, wearing a hood and being dragged by police. South
Africa held a much-praised Truth and Reconciliation Commission after
the end of apartheid, but the authorities ignored its call for further
criminal investigation into hundreds of unsolved cases after it finished
its work. Retired archbishop
Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the
late 1990s, welcomed the judge's finding of murder in the Timol case.
"It's sad that it took so long," Mr. Tutu said in a message to the Timol
family on Thursday. George Bizos, a
renowned human-rights lawyer who sought justice for the Timol case and
many other deaths in apartheid detention in the 1970s, said the judge's
finding should lead to a national inquiry into all deaths in detention. The
Timol family agreed. "We would like to view the reopened Timol inquest
as a beginning, not an end," said Ahmed Timol's nephew, Imtiaz Cajee,
who spent decades in a quest for the truth. Until
now, nobody has ever been held responsible for the 73 deaths in police
custody, he said. "In most instances, inquests did not take place.
Deaths of political detainees were recorded as accidents or suicides,
post-mortem examinations went unrecorded – if they were held – and the
bodies were buried as quickly as possible." Judge
Mothle, in his ruling, said there are "many more families" who need
truth and healing for the "unanswered questions" about the deaths of
their relatives in detention. They should get official assistance in
obtaining the necessary records to reopen the apartheid-era cases, he
said. One of those still seeking the
truth is a man named Lasch Mabelane, whose brother Matthew, an
anti-apartheid activist, died mysteriously in police custody in 1977.
The police claimed he fell to his death from the 10th floor of the same
police station in Johannesburg where Ahmed Timol died – a bizarre echo
of the same implausible scenario that was used in the Timol case. Mr.
Mabelane was in the courtroom on Thursday when the Timol ruling was
delivered, and he said the judgment "absolutely" gives him greater hope
that he might finally learn the truth about his brother's death. His family never believed the official version in 1977, and they are still fighting for justice. "My
dad is 95 years of age, and he will rest in peace only if we can get
closure, if the case can be brought before a court of law, so that he
knows what happened to his son," Lasch Mabelane told The Globe and Mail.
"Every parent loves their kids, and he can get peace when he gets the
truth of what happened." A United
Nations report in 1979 said the police version of Matthew Mabelane's
death was "absurd." It said the "irresistible" conclusion is that he was
tortured and forced out of the window."
The entire story can be found at:
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/in-historic-ruling-south-africa-judge-finds-anti-apartheid-activist-murdered-in-1971-case/article36559790/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
