Court to hand down judgment on death in detention of Neil Aggett
Pretoria - The Johannesburg high court is expected to hand down its ruling today following an application to overturn the apartheid-era inquest that Dr Neil Aggett had committed suicide after he was arrested by the South African Security Police in 1982.
He was found dead in his cell at the then John Vorster Square (now Johannesburg Central police station) on February 5 1982.
The Aggett inquest was only enrolled after the death of one of his alleged primary torturers. When the Amed Timol inquest was enrolled, it was thought that all the perpetrators were already dead too.
Joao Rodrigues’ whereabouts were exposed by his daughter only after she read that the inquest was to be reopened, said Timol’s nephew, Imtiaz Ahmed Cajee.
“For three years after the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria changed the inquest finding into Timol’s death in detention from suicide to murder, and ordered that apartheid security policeman Rodrigues face prosecution, the State dawdled and Rodrigues wriggled – until, eventually, the former policeman died, freed forever of the burdens of accountability and justice,” Cajee said.
He questioned what would happen if the court found today that Aggett’s death was not suicide.
“Does overturning crooked apartheid inquests while deliberately not prosecuting murderers uphold the principles of justice?” Cajee said.
He said the passing of time made it less and less likely that any perpetrators of apartheid-era crimes would be brought to book, defying the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommendation that about 300 cases required further investigation with a view to prosecution.
“The next security policeman or soldier exposed as a murderer will pursue the same route through the courts that Rodrigues did, raising similar arguments for permanent non-prosecution.
“Even if one of these cases finally makes it to the apex court for a decision, and the decision is that prosecution was constitutional, the matter will still need the necessary preparatory work to be placed on the roll.
“By then, will any perpetrators or witnesses still be alive?”
Cajee said that reversing false inquest findings was important, but without trials to hold perpetrators to account for their crimes, the truth remained elusive.
“The perversion of the criminal justice system by politicians is a major contributor to the criminal impunity that reigns in our dear motherland,” Cajee said.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) last year said it was setting up a specialist unit to deal exclusively with cases regarding apartheid-era atrocities.
This came in the wake of the Supreme Court of Appeal judgment which turned down Rodrigues’s bid for a stay of prosecution.
While he was facing a charge of murder related to the death of Timol nearly 50 years ago, the elderly Rodrigues died.
The NPA earlier said it acknowledged that the delay of prosecutions of these cases amounted to the denial of justice to the victims of apartheid-era atrocities.
It said that it had thus established dedicated capacity to ensure that those responsible for apartheid-era atrocities could be held accountable.
To bolster the NPA’s capacity to prosecute these TRC cases, the national director of public prosecutions, advocate Shamila Batohi, transferred them to the relevant directors of prosecution in the regions where the crimes had allegedly been committed.
Meanwhile, the Hawks also embarked on the process of establishing a dedicated team by a recruitment drive to re-enlist a number of skilled former police officials.
The NPA earlier said the apartheid atrocities cases under consideration dated back to the early 1960s. The health conditions and circumstances of the witnesses and suspects, and the nature of available evidence, further complicated the investigation and prosecution of these cases.
Pretoria News