The murder was committed 46 years ago, but for the relatives, campaigners and veterans of the brutal struggle for a free South Africa who crammed into a nondescript courtroom in Pretoria on Thursday, the need for justice was more urgent than ever.



When the judge, Billy Mothle, delivered his judgement in the North Gauteng high court, there was applause and cheers.

Ahmed Timol, an anti-apartheid activist who died in custody in October 1971, did not kill himself as authorities have long claimed but was murdered by police officers, the judge said.

The case has been closely followed in South Africa, where memories of apartheid-era atrocities remain raw.

The landmark ruling in Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital, paves the way for scores of similar cases, and a new examination of some of the darkest episodes of South Africa’s recent history.

Timol, a 29-year-old leader of the clandestine resistance to white-minority rule, died after falling from police headquarters in Johannesburg five days after his arrest.

Officers from the feared security police that held Timol said at the time he took his own life – a verdict endorsed by an inquest in 1972.

His family, however, fought the ruling for decades and have campaigned hard to secure the legal review, which finally began in June.

“Timol did not jump out of the window but was pushed out of the window or off the roof,” said Mothle. “Members of the security branch … murdered Timol.”

The judge called for the security branch officer Joao Rodrigues, who admitted helping to cover up the murder, to be prosecuted, but he acknowledged that the men actually responsible have since died.

“Most of the main perpetrators have since passed on [but] all security branch officers responsible for guarding and interrogating Timol are collectively responsible for his injuries,” Mothle said.

Members of the South African Communist party present shouted “Viva Ahmed Timol!” as the judge adjourned the hearing.

Salim Essop, who was arrested, detained and tortured alongside Timol in 1971, said Mothle had delivered “a fine, a superb judgement”.

In earlier hearings, Essop described beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and mock executions during his detention at the dreaded John Vorster police station.

At one point, Essop said, he was held by his ankles over a 10th floor stairwell and told he would be dropped.

The judge called for families who lost relatives in circumstances similar to Timol’s to be assisted in reopening their cases, particularly when suicide was recorded as the cause of death.

At least 73 political detainees died while in the hands of the police between 1963 and 1990, and no one has ever been held responsible for any of those deaths, campaigners say.

Imtiaz Cajee, Timol’s nephew, led the decades-long effort to overturn the original verdict of suicide.

He said he wanted to see the cases of scores of activists who died in detention reopened.

“We have set a precedent. The country needs to deal with this issue,” Cajee, who was five years old when his uncle was killed, told journalists.

During the review, the Pretoria court heard from pathologists, former security officers and victims of the apartheid era’s brutality.

A key witness was Paul Erasmus, a former security police officer who said torture was “standard procedure” .

After apartheid ended, South Africa set up a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) to investigate past atrocities and grant amnesty to some accused perpetrators of politically motivated crimes. Supporters said the process was essential to allow South Africans to move on after decades of violence.

Nelson Mandela declared “what is past, is past” on becoming the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

But many South Africans are question the attitude of older generations of political leaders to the recent past of their country.

Many say the TRC did not go far enough and claim that the troubled history of South Africa has been deliberately obscured or ignored in text books and university courses.

The last major prosecution for apartheid-era crimes was that of Adriaan Vlok, a former minister who was given a 10-year suspended prison sentence for attempted murder after striking a plea bargain in 2007.

Cajee said that he had decided to pursue the case after watching his grandmother testify at the TRC.

“My uncle’s death had a huge impact on me ... Many families just say they should move on and never get closure. But you don’t have to accept that fate, not in this country, not in Africa, nowhere in the world,” he said.

George Bizos, an anti-apartheid veteran who was close friends with Mandela and attended the court hearings, said the case had exposed how the racist, repressive regime that governed South Africa from 1948 to 1994 had been unaccountable.

But bringing those responsible for atrocities to justice requires significant political will.

Some claim prosecutors and the the African National Congress (ANC) are reluctant to pursue investigations that may uncover uncomfortable historical facts.



Cajee told the Guardian he believes his uncle may have been betrayed by a “mole” among fellow activists.

The new ruling comes at a tense time in South Africa, where a flagging economy and a series of major scandals centring on allegations of graft have undermined support for the ruling ANC.

Cajee said knowing the truth about the past was essential “to reconcile the country” and that he had never sought retribution, even when he had approached former members of the security police involved in his uncle’s interrogation.

“We want answers and closure, not vengeance ... We are a patriotic family living in a democratic society that Uncle Ahmed fought for, and for which he ultimately paid the highest sacrifice.”