CLOSING ARGUMENTS: NPA ARGUES TIMOL TORTURED, ASSAULTED

The anti-apartheid activist died in 1971 after falling from the 10th floor of the John Vorster Square police station.

Picture: ahmedtimol.co.za

Barry Bateman
Eye Witness News

PRETORIA - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has argued that the High Court can reject the finding that Ahmed Timol was not tortured or assaulted and that he took his own life.

Closing arguments have started in Pretoria after almost a month of evidence in the inquest into the death of Timol.

The anti-apartheid activist died in 1971 after falling from the 10th floor of the John Vorster Square police station, the original inquest endorsed the security branch version that he committed suicide.

The NPA’s Toerie Pretorius says the court should reject the claim that Timol was not assaulted or tortured.

“The combined effect of all the detainee’s evidence, with the medical evidence, with the evidence of Professor Voster and Paul Erasmus, Els’s evidence as well as the file of Van Niekerk; on the totality of evidence you can find that there would have been assault and there was torture.”

Pretorius says there is sufficient evidence to prove that the claim Timol killed himself was a police fabrication.

“This court can make a finding that the well-prepared, typed version of the security police, including the opinion about the long-term imprisonment and the shock about Quinton Jacobson, you can react that version, my lord, and say that this was a cover-up and it was not suicide.”