Advocate George Bizos began his testimony in the Ahmed Timol inquest on Wednesday morning by revealing that a document that played a key role in the initial findings was not even placed on record.
Held at the high court in Joburg, the inquest seeks to overturn a June 1972 ruling, which said that Timol committed suicide by jumping out of the old John Vorster Square police station in 1971.
The document in question, titled Inkululeko/Freedom 2 and purportedly written by the SACP, is said to implore all apartheid resistors to commit suicide when they were caught by police.
However, Bizos said the lawyer who appeared for the police at the time, Fanie Cilliers, refused to place the document on record during the 1972 inquest as the were anomalies to it.
One of which was that the document was dated February 1972; four moths after Timol's death in October 1971.
"We thought the document would at least be shelved when Fanie said he was not prepared to use it," Bizos told the court.
Magistrate JL De Villiers relied heavily on the document; even though it was not put on the court's records.
Timol - a teacher, member of the SA Communist Party and anti-apartheid activist - died, allegedly at the hands of security police at John Vorster Square in Joburg.
Days of alleged torture and threats culminated in an incident where Timol was seemingly thrown from a 10th floor window. The inquest that followed was described as a farce by Timol’s family after De Villiers ruled that Timol had committed suicide by jumping out of the 10th floor of the notorious John Vorster Square building - currently known as Johannesburg Police Station.
Despite medical evidence presented of gruesome torture, the magistrate found that the security police had treated Timol compassionately, and no one was responsible for his death. After a private investigation launched by the Timol family and human rights activists, the evidence uncovered was presented to the NPA which reopened the case.
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