Ahmed Timol was aware of the risk of a long-term imprisonment and was not at all afraid of that prospect, former minister in the Presidency and Struggle icon Essop Pahad told the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria yesterday.
Pahad said even with this prospect hanging over him, Timol would have never committed suicide.
Besides it not being his nature, committing suicide was against his religion, Islam, and he was also very much in love with a woman, Ruth Longoni, who he met while he was in London. Longoni could not return to South Africa with Timol shortly before his death because of the Immorality Act in effect at the time, but she believed that Timol would return to her, Judge Billy Mothle was told.
Pahad took the stand during the second leg of a reopened inquest into Timol’s death.
He was found in the road below the notorious 10th floor of the then John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg in 1971 where security police were interrogating him.
While his apartheid police captors claimed it was suicide, a finding made by a magistrate in an inquest shortly after his death based on police evidence, his family requested the inquest be re-opened to hear new evidence.
Pahad testified that the last time he saw Timol was shortly before his return to South Africa from London. This was shortly before his arrest.
“We spoke about the possibility of arrest, as the work he did was dangerous.
"We discussed how one would respond to arrest and torture, because we had information of how people were tortured by the Security Branch.”
Pahad said they knew the police tried to cover up the death of detainees by saying they slipped on a bar of soap or fell down stairs, and this was discussed.
“I told him it is not traitorous to break down under torture. Some can withstand the worst form of torture without breaking down, but it is not traitorous to break down.”
He told Timol that if one broke during torture, the person had to give his interrogators limited information. This information also had to be given gradually and over time, so that those who were being implicated could protect themselves by either leaving the country or going underground.
He said he and Timol were friends from a very young age, and they were very close. Pahad said he was convinced that his friend never committed suicide.
Medical and trauma expert Professor Ken Boffard meanwhile testified about the multiple injuries suffered by Timol when he landed on the ground in front of John Vorster Square. He obtained this information from the postmortem report into Timol’s death.
These included a fractured base skull and to break this, he said, took a lot of force. Timol also suffered spinal and neck injuries and a fractured arm and upper leg. According to Boffard, there were, however, several bruises across his body and an orbital injury, which appeared to have been there before his fall.
He said the police, however, should have never moved Timol when they found him on the ground. He said it was standard practice not to move a patient with such serious injuries until an ambulance had arrived, as this could worsen a patient’s condition.
The police’s version years ago was that two officers immediately went to his aid where he was lying. The assisted him into the building and he was still breathing at the time. They said shortly after that they discovered he had no pulse and he was taken to the ninth floor where a doctor declared him dead.
The inquest is proceeding today.