Ahmed Timol inquest opened – 45 years after his death in police custody

The inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol will be reopened at the South Gauteng High Court next month.

Judge Billy Mothle will be overseeing the case.

This comes 45 years after his death – when Timol supposedly committed suicide by jumping from the tenth floor of the John Vorster Square Police Station on the evening of October 22 1971 while he was detained and interrogated by security police.

Members of his family, however, believe that his death was not a suicide but that he was tortured and thrown or pushed from the building.

“Our immediate priority is to have the apartheid era inquest finding of nobody to blame reversed,” said Timol’s nephew Imtiaz Cajee.

In January last year the Timol family called on a private investigation to present evidence to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). It argued that the magistrate who had overseen the case when Timol died, Magistrate JJL de Villiers, had erred in his findings and the family had provided enough compelling evidence to convince the NPA to reopen the case in the “interest of justice”.

National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams wrote to Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha last year requesting that the judge president of the Gauteng High Court appoint a judge to reopen the inquest.

De Villiers maintained that there was no foul play involved after Timol was arrested and held at John Vorster Square for interrogation by police.

29-year old Timol, who was a school teacher at the Roodepoort Indian School, was arrested after being stopped at a road block in Coronationville with medical student Saleem Essop.

Essop was tortured and eventually landed in hospital after suffering extensive injuries.

“My grandmother was humiliated by Magistrate de Villiers and branded a liar when she testified how a security branch officer told her that she had not given her son a hiding when growing up and that they were going to do this for her. My grandmother has since passed away, but she will be smiling at the news of the reopening of the inquest,” Cajee said.

Three dates have been set aside for the hearing, beginning on June 26 until June 30, and the case will resume on July 24 till August 4, with final dates set on the 10th and 11th of August.

Various high profile people are expected to be in attendance.