Pretoria - It is unlikely that Ahmed Timol had jumped out of the window on the 10th floor of the then John Vorster Square, as claimed by the police 46 years ago. It is more likely that he was pushed from the roof of the building.
This is the opinion of aeronautical engineer Thivash Moodley, who is a trajectory expert.
Using the eyewitness account of retired advocate Ernie Matthis, who saw the body flying past the window, as well as the then security police’s accounts of what happened that day, Moodley sketched six different scenarios to the high court in Pretoria on Friday - using mathematical calculations and Newton’s laws of motion - of how it could have come about that Timol flew through the air and landed on the ground.
Moodley also took the weight and length of Timol into consideration, as well as the dimensions of the steel window in room 1026 from which the police claimed he had jumped.
Scenario one was that Timol jumped through the window, as claimed by the police, while scenario two was that he had stepped through the window.
Moodley said neither of these scenarios would fit the police version regarding the distance from which Timol had landed from the building and the position they had found him on the ground. “It simply does not fit in with their version of how he fell,” Moodley told Judge Billy Mothle.
Two other scenarios entailed that Timol was placed on the windowsill in a sitting position and pushed out of the window. This trajectory would result in him somersaulting in the air and landing in the position described by the policeman - JG Deysel - who found him on the ground.
The last two scenarios he sketched entailed Timol either being thrown or rolled off the edge of the roof of the building. This version, Moodley said, was in line with what Matthis had seen when he saw the body flying past the window and given the position it landed on the ground.
While he could not exactly say from where or how the fall came about, Moodley said his calculations concluded that Timol was somehow pushed - most probably from the rooftop of the building.
On Monday two key witnesses will take the stand - Sergeant Joao Rodrigues, who was in the room with Timol when he allegedly “jumped”, and Sergeant Neville Els, one of his interrogators at the time.
The pair - now elderly men in their 70s - were subpoenaed to appear before the court.
WATCH: Dr Saleem Essop speaks to reporter Zelda Venter about the former security cops who are due to testify at the #TimolInquest on Monday.
The Timol family told Independent Media that they simply want answers as to what happened that day.
“I sincerely hope they will play open cards for once and for all," Mohammed Timol, younger brother of the deceased, said.